Google Ads uses a bidding auction to decide whether you ad gets shown, and how much a click will cost. So how high can a Google Ad Grant bid in an auction? I’d like to share some recent Cost Per Click (CPC) stats from charities’ accounts:
- US children’s policy—avg $8.63, highest $19.73
- UK adoption agency—avg $7.16, highest $13.42
- UK pregnancy—avg $4.22
- Int’l disaster appeal—avg $10.61
- Int’l health condition—avg $3.22
Across my 20+ clients’ Ad Grant accounts, the average CPC is $4.58.
None of these accounts has an average CPC lower than $2.30.
This illustrates why it’s so important for your campaigns to use a conversion-based bidding strategy, in order to automatically bid high. Don’t be stuck with low bids!
And don’t believe all the agencies out there telling you that your Google Ad Grant bid cannot be higher than $2. They haven’t realized that the rules changed back in 2018.
This begs a question: why are Ad Grant accounts often unable to compete when they can actually bid so high? Why do many charities also use a paid account to run Search ads?
The reason isn’t the bid amount. It’s because:
- Google places all free ads below all paid ads
- Impressions are artificially suppressed in Ad Grant accounts
If your Ad Grant account is struggling to compete and get impressions, it might still be possible to get clicks and conversions, or you may need to run paid ads: book an Ad Grants consultancy session with me and we’ll discuss your best strategy.
