“Our PPC paid-search performance improved significantly under Nina’s management. Her knowledgeable guidance also helped us make inexpensive changes to our dynamic Web site which increased our natural search position and decreased our need to spend more on AdWords.”
— , Webmaster, Hazelden Foundation
Google Grant: Ploughshares Fund & Walker Art Center
Google Grant Case Study
Challenge – Capitalizing on News Events
Traditional marketing tactics can often be unwieldy, taking precious time to launch that could cause a company to miss news event opportunities. Search marketing is flexible and allows for quick response for real time action to events. The constant challenge for any marketer is to capitalize on opportunities as they happen, and search marketing is designed for this type of flexibility.
Opportunity – Improve Conversion Rates for Google Grant Clients
Nina Hale Inc. works with a variety of Google Grant clients, including Ploughshares Fund, the Walker Art Center, and MinnPost. Organizations that are awarded a Google Grant receive up to $10,000 per month of in-kind advertising to promote outreach, fundraising, and volunteerism for their nonprofit organization. Due to limitations of the Google Grant, including a max CPC of $1.00 and limited channel access, Google Grant clients often find taking advantage of the entire grant fund difficult because they lack click-through traffic.
Response – Creating Campaigns to Improve CTR
In instances with two Google Grant clients, Nina Hale Inc. created AdWords Campaigns and Ad Groups that capitalized on news events, improving click-through and conversion rates for Ploughshares Fund and the Walker Art Center.
Ploughshares Fund
Ploughshares Fund is a public grantmaking foundation that works to build a safe, secure, nuclear weapon-free world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world’s nuclear stockpiles. By staying aware of world events, specifically the Japanese earthquake and subsequent Fukushima Nuclear Crisis on March 14th, 2011, we were able to significantly grow the Ploughshares Fund account.
- Nina Hale Inc. was able to create a campaign the same day the earthquake hit Japan, March 14th 2011, that answered questions about the ramifications of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
- This quick thinking catapulted the grant from 200 clicks per day to 500+ clicks per day.
- The grant went from spending about $4,000 per month to consistently hitting the $10,000 grant spending limit.
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota which features contemporary visual and performing arts exhibits and programs. An online magazine feature from GQ Magazine increased clicks from an average 90 clicks per day to an average of 600 clicks per day.
- An editor of GQ Magazine wanted to feature the Delphonics pens and pencils but could not find the full collection of colors in New York.
- Through a Google search, this editor found the Walker Shop and within two days got the full Delphonics collection and shot the spread for an online feature on the GQ website that went live two months later.
- Through regular correspondence, the Walker created a Modern Man category on their Shop site and we created a Modern Man campaign in tandem to prepare for the GQ referral traffic.
