A Google Ad Grant account won't tell you when it's been left alone. Ads keep serving and clicks keep coming, so a quick look at the dashboard turns up nothing alarming. The slide shows up later in the monthly numbers, once a few months of it have piled up.
We watched this happen with a nonprofit museum. We built and managed its brand-new Grant account from launch in March through the end of July. In August, active management stopped, and the account ran on its last settings through September. Nothing broke and nothing was paused, yet the account got a little less useful every month.
Spring was the ramp-up. Monthly impressions grew from about 4,700 in April to about 16,000 in June. We spent July tuning the account for peak season and setting it up for the handoff, and it hit its high that month at about 18,900 impressions.
Then the work stopped, and the numbers turned.
| Month | Actively managed | Impressions | Clicks | CTR | Avg. CPC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July | Yes | ~18,900 | ~1,130 | 6.0% | $1.62 |
| August | No | ~17,600 | ~1,160 | 6.6% | $1.65 |
| September | No | ~12,600 | ~900 | 7.1% | $1.66 |
Impressions fell 33% from July to September. August held up on the strength of July's setup work, and clicks even ticked up. September is where it gave way, with clicks down 22% in a single month. Grant-driven website sessions fell from about 900 in August to about 740 in September.
A Grant account doesn't fall off a cliff the day management stops. Keywords and ads built for the season keep working for a few weeks. What stops is the adjustment. Once search behavior moves past what the account was built for, nobody is there to follow it.
Eligible nonprofits can receive up to $10,000 a month in Google search ads through the Ad Grant. New accounts rarely start anywhere near that cap. Growing into it is part of the job: adding keywords and building campaigns that reach more of the searches an organization should show up for.
This account was on that path. Monthly spend more than doubled between April and July, from about $850 to about $1,830. After the handoff it rose once more in August to about $1,910, then fell 22% in September to about $1,490. As a share of the grant, usage slid from 19% to 15%. Grant dollars don't roll over, so whatever an account doesn't use in a month is gone.
CTR went up every month the account sat unmanaged, from 6.0% in July to 7.1% in September. On a monthly report, that looks like good news.
The account's full history explains the rise. While we were scaling the account, CTR fell from about 11.5% in April to 6.0% in July. That drop is expected: as an account reaches into broader searches, a smaller share of searchers click. Once the account went unmanaged, the pattern ran in reverse. Ads showed for fewer searches, mostly ones closely tied to the museum, and those searchers clicked. A report that tracked only CTR would have called August and September good months.
Average CPC drifted from $1.62 to $1.66. In a Grant account, a few cents per click matters far less than thousands of dollars in unused budget.
For this museum, summer is peak season, so August should have been one of the account's strongest months. Impressions slipped 7% anyway. September is harder to read, since some of that drop comes from summer visits winding down. Sorting out how much of a dip comes from the calendar and how much comes from the account is a core part of managing a Grant. With nobody watching, nobody could make that call.
Unmanaged accounts tend to drift for a few predictable reasons.
What people search for shifts with seasons, school schedules, holidays, and local events. Keywords that worked in April can be a poor fit by September. Without regular search-term reviews, an account keeps chasing last season's interests and misses the new ones.
A museum might push spring exhibitions, summer camps, fall membership drives, and year-end giving at different points in the year. An unattended account keeps promoting whatever was set up last. It has no idea the priority list changed.
Over a few months, issues like these tend to build:
Left alone for a quarter, they add up to the kind of decline the museum saw.
Ad Grants come with an account management policy. Grantees must log in at least once a month and make at least one account change every 90 days. Accounts that fall out of compliance can be suspended. Reinstatement is possible, but every day an account sits dark is free advertising you don't get back.
The Ad Grant is one of the most generous programs available to nonprofits. When the media is free, it's tempting to treat the account as free to ignore.
The museum's account stayed live through September. By the end of that stretch, it was reaching a third fewer people than at its July peak, and monthly spend had fallen below June's level. A regular review would have caught the slide in August, while it was still small.
If your Grant account has been running on autopilot, talk to Cordelia Labs. We'll show you where it's drifting and how much of your grant is going unused.
A dormant Grant account is still live, but nobody is monitoring or optimizing it. Campaigns keep running on their last settings while search behavior and organizational priorities change around them.
Not right away. It can keep generating impressions and clicks for months. Over time it tends to reach fewer people, use less of the available grant, and drift away from what the organization needs to promote. Going without logins or account changes can also lead Google to suspend the account.
Search demand shifts constantly. Without someone adjusting keywords and ads, campaigns stop matching what people search for and what the organization wants to promote.
Check search terms and policy compliance at least weekly. Do a deeper monthly review of budget use and conversions, so the account keeps pace with what your organization is working on.