The digital landscape has been heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and online advertising is no exception. In the nonprofit sector, we’ve seen responses from organizations range from addressing the coronavirus head on, to shutting down online advertising altogether. The ways in which organizations choose to respond during this extraordinary time is critical to how they will come through it and to how quickly they will recover if they've been negatively impacted. Let’s take a closer look at the current online advertising landscape and what it means for nonprofits.
Coronavirus-related phrases in Google Trends demonstrate just how quickly the pandemic has escalated:
Despite being virtually nonexistent in the eyes of Google at the beginning of 2020, search volume surrounding these terms peaked in mid-to-late March, solidifying a major change in national search patterns. But how does this affect nonprofits?
Common nonprofit-related terms such as “charity,” “donate” and “giving” saw a noticeable spike at the same time that the pandemic started to unfold in mid-March. As to be expected during times of crisis, major online channels such as Google, Bing, Facebook and Twitter have adjusted their policies to assist the general public. Google and Bing have both moved COVID-19- and coronavirus-related terms into a content ban list for advertisers, meaning that any copy/keywords/targeting related to these terms are now virtually unusable for advertising. This ban was enacted to combat predatory advertising.
Facebook and Twitter have also adjusted their content policies. Facebook is providing resources for small businesses while Twitter is pushing a ban against sponsored content related to the virus. Social platforms such as Pinterest and TikTok have partnered with the World Health Organization to provide myth-busting content to help stop the spread of misinformation.
With these changes to major online platforms, where does that leave nonprofit marketing?
It’s a reality that traffic and donations will likely be affected for most nonprofits. Often, an organization's first reaction to uncertain economic times is to cut costs, and often, advertising dollars are the first to be cut. However, while reducing some advertising costs may be advisable depending on the circumstances of your organization, it is almost never in a nonprofit’s best interest to stop online advertising entirely. Here’s why:
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time, you’ll be paying higher CPCs, which could result in less ROAS (return-on-ad-spend) and a higher CPA (cost-per-acquisition).Keeping search ads live during the COVID-19 crisis will absolutely help improve your organic traffic. Beyond keeping ads live, there’s more you can do to succeed during these tumultuous times. In our next blog post of this series, we will explore various ways you can set yourself up for success with paid search.
Interested in learning more about how to improve your nonprofit’s SEO performance? Contact THD today!