Sean Kerner looks into the secrets behind those non-profit default ads seen on AdSense ads and how helpful “Google Grants” can be to the non-profit world. Kerner does not, however, go into the amount of tax money Google saves by donating this high profile space to non-profits… or how to get your organization into the program. The InternetNews.com article does however, shed some useful light on the Google Grants program and may even influence other web publishers to follow in their footsteps:
Generating awareness and driving Web site traffic can be financially draining for any organization. The challenge is even greater for non-profits, which often limit marketing expenditures to ensure more money and resources are directed to the causes they represent.
An adjunct to Google’s AdSense contextual advertising program, currently in beta release, has been making it easier for some non-profit charities. Google Grants, as the program is called, has been lurking silently in the background of the Google infrastructure for the past several months. It’s triggered when Google’s technology can’t determine the best keyword match for the content on a page, or doesn’t have appropriate AdWords ads to serve with the content. Publishers that display AdSense ads can turn off the feature as a user preference (and instead of serving the PSA can serve their own ads).
“As a company we are interested in giving back to the community,” Sheryl Sandberg Google VP global online sales and operations told this publication. “When we thought about what we could give back, what we obviously do is search and advertising and it would be a great opportunity for us to refer people interested in the topics that these non-profits work on.”
