DCU and DFI help disability orgs to maximise Google Ad Grants

April 12 2018, 04:19pm

CommsGGoogleDCUFeb18

Dublin City University Business School has joined forces with the Disability Federation of Ireland, DFI, to help six Irish disability charities maximise their digital marketing capacity.

After one month the National Council for the Blind of Ireland, NCBI, saw:

·         Five times more donors visit their site.

·         80,000 views of ads DCU students placed

·         5,500 new visitors the site.  

Over 40 students from DCU’s Masters in Digital Marketing are working with the charities.  For an initial three-months period they will help them get the best from their Google Ad Grant.

This fund is worth up to $10,000 USD of in-kind advertising every month. Ultimately it can help to recruit more volunteers, attract donations and get the disability message across.

The scheme was launched on 8 February.

DFI have benefitted from DCU expertise since late 2017 and have seen Google ads/DCU deliver a 43% increase in web traffic.

​Arthritis Ireland, AI, ​have had an 18% increase in visitors to their website over just one month.

An odd feature of Google grant scheme is that internationally the average grantee only uses about $330 per month out of the $10,000 that Google offers. So the DCU students on the AI team can boast of spending almost 10 times the industry average and addressing the under-spend problem.

The challenges for not-for-profits increased at the start of this year when Google announced new measure to ensure the grants are expertly used or forfeited by NGOs.

DFI’s Communications Manager, Clare Cronin, explained.  “Irish charities especially are tiny by international standards and not well placed to hire and pay for the sort of highly skilled help that would allow them to maximise their Google Grants. We have free advertising but we frequently just don’t have the skilled staff to use it. And these new regulations put it up to charities to use it or lose it”.

Theo Lynn, Professor of Digital Business and Director of Industry Engagement at DCU’S Business School, said: “This is a win-win for all concerned. Students get real world experience by having the opportunity to deliver campaigns for clients.