How to Know if My Google Ad Grant is Being Used

Wondering if your Google Ad Grant is actually running and making an impact? You're not alone. This article will show you exactly how to check if your grant is being used, how to monitor its performance, and what to do if you find it isn't spending a penny.

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First, Confirm Your Ad Grant Account is Active

Before diving into performance metrics, let's make sure you're looking at the right account and that it's officially recognized as an Ad Grant account by Google. An account can be "active" without actually "spending" the grant money, and this first step helps you diagnose where the problem might be.

How to Log In and Verify Your Account

First things first, you need to access your Google Ads account. Sounds obvious, but for many nonprofits, access might be managed by a volunteer or a previous employee, making this step tricky.

1. Go to ads.google.com
2. Sign in with the email address associated with your Ad Grant account. This is typically the email address you used when applying for Google for Nonprofits.
3. If you manage multiple accounts, you'll see a list. Select the correct Google Ads account for your organization. The account name and ID (it looks like XXX-XXX-XXXX) should be visible.

Once you’re in, look for a notification that confirms it’s an Ad Grant account. Google occasionally changes the user interface, but you’ll typically see a banner at the top of the page that says something like, “This account is a Google Ad Grant” or is otherwise designated with a special notification.

If you don't see this notification, it doesn't always mean there's a problem, but it's a good first check. The real proof is in the billing settings.

Check the Billing Section

The defining characteristic of an Ad Grant account is that you don't actually get billed. Checking the billing section is the most definitive way to confirm you’re in an Ad Grant account.

• Navigate to Tools & Settings (the wrench icon in the top navigation bar).
• Under the "Billing" column, click on Summary or Documents.

In a standard paid Google Ads account, this section would be full of past invoices, payment method details, and billing history. In an Ad Grant account, this area will be essentially empty. You won't find any credit card information or requests for payment. If you see billing activity or a prompt to add a payment method, you might be in the wrong account or it may have been set up incorrectly.

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How to Check for Ad Grant Spending and Activity

Now that you've confirmed you're in the right account, it's time to see if your grant money is being put to work. The easiest way to check is by looking for impressions, clicks, and cost.

Use the Overview Page for a Quick Snapshot

The first screen you land on after logging in is the Overview page. This dashboard gives you a high-level look at your account’s performance. The first thing you should do is adjust the date range.

In the top right corner of the dashboard, you’ll see a date range selector. Click it and set the date range to something recent, like "Last 30 days" or "This month."

Instantly, the charts and cards will update. Here’s what to look for:

• Clicks: This is the number of times people have clicked on your ads. If this number is greater than zero, your ads are being shown and people are engaging with them. Congratulations, your grant is being used!
• Impressions: This shows how many times your ads were displayed to potential searchers. Even if your clicks are low, a high number of impressions means Google is actively showing your ads in search results.
• Cost: This is the total grant amount spent during your selected date range. For a 30-day period, this could be anywhere from a few dollars to the full $10,000 monthly allotment. If the cost is above $0, your grant is active.

If you see plenty of clicks, impressions, and cost reported on the Overview page, your grant is running. Your next step should be to analyze how well it's performing, a topic we cover in the next section.

Dive into the Campaigns View for More Detail

If the Overview page shows zero activity, your next step is to investigate the Campaigns view. The Campaigns page provides a line-by-line breakdown of what is (or isn't) running. On the left-hand navigation menu, click on Campaigns.

Here, you'll see a table with all your campaigns listed. The columns provide critical clues about performance. Make sure your date range is still set correctly, then look at these columns for each campaign:

• Status: The small dot next to your campaign name should be a green circle, indicating the campaign is "Enabled" and eligible to run. If it's grey ("Paused") or red ("Removed"), it won't run.
• Impressions: If this column is zero for an enabled campaign, it means your ads aren't being shown for some reason.
• Clicks: Zero clicks mean no one is engaging with your ads, even if they're getting impressions.
• Cost: This shows the spend per campaign. If it's $0, no grant money from that campaign is being used.

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What if My Campaigns are "Enabled" but Show Zero Spend?

This is one of the most common and frustrating scenarios for nonprofit marketers. A green "Enabled" status but zero impressions or cost usually points to a handful of specific problems:

• Disapproved Ads or Keywords: Your ads or keywords may violate Google's policies and have been disapproved. Click into a specific campaign, then go to the "Ads" or "Keywords" tab and look at the "Status" column for each one. If you see "Disapproved," Google will provide a reason why.
• Low Bids or Search Volume: Google Ad Grants uses an automated bidding strategy ("Maximize Conversions"), so manual bid settings are less of a concern. However, your chosen keywords might have very low search volume, meaning people aren't searching for them. Try using Google's Keyword Planner (under "Tools & Settings") to find keywords with more traffic.
• Account Compliance Issues: Google has strict compliance rules for Ad Grant accounts. One of the most important is maintaining a 5% account-wide click-through rate (CTR). If your account drops below this threshold for two consecutive months, it may be temporarily suspended. You can find your account-level CTR on the Overview page. Other common issues include having single-word keywords (a policy violation) or ads that point to low-quality landing pages.
• No Conversions Set Up: The "Maximize Conversions" bidding strategy needs data to work properly. If you haven't set up conversion tracking, Google’s algorithm has no useful information and may struggle to spend your grant effectively. A conversion is a meaningful action you want users to take, like filling out a volunteer form or making a donation.

Essential Metrics for Monitoring Ad Grant Performance

Getting your grant to spend is just the first step. The real goal is to use that $10,000/month effectively to advance your mission. Here are the key performance indicators (KPIs) you need to watch to see if your grant is actually working for you.

1. Spend (Cost)

Log in regularly and check your monthly spend. Your goal isn't necessarily to spend the full $10,000, but to use as much of it as you can effectively. If you're only spending $500 a month, there's a huge opportunity to expand your reach. Look at which campaigns are spending the most and driving results, then consider creating similar campaigns or adding more keywords to them.

2. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR is the percentage of people who see your ad (impressions) and then click on it. It’s calculated as Clicks ÷ Impressions = CTR. As mentioned, your Ad Grant account must maintain a 5% average CTR or risk suspension. A high CTR indicates that your ads are highly relevant to the people who are seeing them - a sign of a healthy campaign.

To improve your CTR:

• Write more compelling and specific ad copy.
• Create tightly themed ad groups with highly relevant keywords and ads.
• Use negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing on irrelevant searches.

3. Conversions

This is arguably the most important metric. Clicks and impressions are nice, but what did those users do after clicking? A "conversion" is a specific, high-value action you track. For a nonprofit, this could be:

• Newsletter sign-ups
• Volunteer form submissions
• Donations
• PDF downloads (like an annual report)
• Event registrations

You can find this data in the "Conversions" column on your Campaigns page. If this number is zero, either your tracking is broken or the traffic from your ads is not resulting in action. Spend from the grant is wasted if it doesn't lead to meaningful results for your organization.

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4. Cost Per Conversion (Cost / conv.)

This metric tells you how much grant money you "spent" to get one conversion. Let's say you spent $1,000 last month and got 50 volunteer sign-ups. Your cost per conversion would be $20 ($1,000 / 50). This helps you understand the efficiency of your campaigns and compare the performance of different keywords or ad groups to see which ones are the most cost-effective at driving results.

5. Connecting Google Ads to Google Analytics

To get a fuller picture of user behavior, be sure to link your Google Ads account to your Google Analytics account. This free tool allows you to see what visitors do once they arrive on your site. You can analyze metrics like:

• Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate could mean your landing page isn't relevant to your ad.
• Pages per Session: How many pages, on average, a visitor looked at.
• Average Session Duration: How long visitors are staying on your site.

These insights give you context beyond the simple click, helping you understand the quality of the traffic your Ad Grant is sending and identifying opportunities to improve your website experience.

Final Thoughts

Confirming your Google Ad Grant is being used is about checking for spend, clicks, and impressions within your Google Ads account dashboard. But a truly successful grant moves beyond just spending money and focuses on driving meaningful actions - tracking conversions like sign-ups and donations is what transforms this free advertising into a powerful tool for your mission.

Nonprofits are often busy serving their communities, and spending hours each week manually checking Google Ads and piecing together reports isn't a great use of precious time. We designed Graphed to solve this. Instead of wrestling with campaign reports, you just connect your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts once. Then you can ask for the data you need in plain English - like "Show me a dashboard of my top performing campaigns by conversions this month" - and get a live, automated dashboard in seconds, freeing you up to focus on the work that matters.