Overview
AFS-USA is a nonprofit that empowers people to become globally engaged citizens by delivering meaningful study abroad and host family experiences.
Although the organization’s Google Ad Grant account was already set up and in operating condition when we first began our work with AFS-USA in July 2022, their goal was to maximize the benefits of the Ad Grant and, ultimately, build brand awareness and expand enrollment in their intercultural programs.
Julie Ball, Director of Marketing and External Communications, AFS-USA
AFS-USA partnered with Media Cause to maximize the benefits of their Google Ad Grant and in turn, raise awareness of their brand and program offerings.
We initially analyzed past performance by compiling an Ad Grant Health Report, which evaluated the “health” of their grant and identified methods of improving the account. They scored 61 out of 100, which helped us uncover several areas of opportunity.
When reviewing the prior six months of performance, AFS’s key performance indicators (KPIs)—specifically for average cost per click (CPC), click-through rate (CTR), and optimization score—were well below the averages we typically see with our clients.
After completing the Google Ad Grant Health Report, we were able to provide recommendations for improvement. For our key priorities, we focused on two main areas: fully optimizing the Ad Grant account (narrowing in on relevant keywords and reviewing and strengthening current ad copy language) and assessing the current conversion tracking setup.
To evaluate the performance of the AFS Ad Grant and measure the most important actions people are taking on their website, we created and set up the following conversions:
We added more calls-to-actions to ad copy (headlines and descriptions) and improved the quality of Responsive Search Ads to help increase click-through rates and conversions.
By increasing campaign budgets and changing bidding strategies to maximize conversions, AFS-USA is better positioned to compete with other ads in-market, leading to more conversions.
AFS-USA had a long-standing low conversion rate in the 6 months before our work. We worked on improving the tracking around this metric as the first step toward increasing conversions.