By Zoya Syal
You logged in and the campaigns are not serving. No email arrived. The board meets Thursday, and someone is going to ask what happened to the grant.
Google's account management policy names five areas that get an Ad Grants account temporarily deactivated: account structure, performance, conversion tracking, bidding, and program engagement. The published route back is the same for each. Bring the account into compliance, then request reinstatement. Google's reactivation form says it cannot guarantee an account will be reactivated.
None of this is hidden. Google publishes the requirements, and it publishes the checklist it asks you to work through before you request the account back. Accounts still come down, because no one owns the monthly check and the warning appears inside the product, addressed to a login that belongs to someone who left. For how the program works end to end, read the complete guide to how the Google Ad Grant works.
What a deactivated Ad Grant account looks like from the inside
The first sign is silence. Impressions flatten and nothing in your inbox explains it. Google says it primarily uses in-product notifications for non-compliance, and the program survey goes to the login email addresses on the account, which nobody may have opened in two years. Somebody has to log in to see a warning.
An account can be degraded before it is switched off. Google can pause a keyword automatically, without telling you, and campaigns that break the bidding policy are subject to automatic bid strategy changes.
Deactivated, suspended, and cancelled are three different states
Temporary deactivation is the recoverable state. Google publishes the same route back for each of the five areas: bring the account into compliance, then request reinstatement. That route is not unlimited. Its reactivation form says an account may be suspended permanently for repeated violations or an egregious violation, and its help page on deactivated accounts says an organization that repeatedly breaks program policies may have its account cancelled and removed.
Suspension has its own wording. Google's terms say an account found in violation of program policies is subject to automatic suspension without notification. Check which word your notice uses before you plan anything.
Diagnose the cause before you change a single setting
The reinstatement request is the last step. Correct the policy problems first. A form filed on an account still out of policy puts you back where you started, a day older.
Start with the click-through rate number a reviewer checks
Ad Grants accounts have to hold a click-through rate of at least 5 percent each month, measured across the account rather than on each keyword. Google's Ad Grants account management policy says an account that misses for two consecutive months will be temporarily deactivated. Its compliance guide says missing it can result in temporary deactivation. Accounts running only Smart Campaigns sit outside the rule.
In the statistics table, read the Total: filtered keywords row. Google's click-through rate requirements for Ad Grants says that row is the metric reviewed on a CTR deactivation, and that it has to read 5 percent or better when you request reactivation. The same page suggests pausing keywords at 4 percent or below until the row recovers, which is a working threshold from a tips section, not a program rule.
Then check keywords, structure, conversion tracking, and bidding
- Quality Score 1 or 2. Pause or remove them. A keyword showing a dash instead of a score is exempt.
- Single-word keywords. Not allowed, with four exception sets: your branded words, recognized medical conditions, acronyms, and a published list including charity, donate, nonprofit and volunteer. Words carrying dashes, periods or special characters do not count as single.
- Overly generic keywords. Google's published failures include e-books, today's news and things to do. Its passes include museums in your city name.
- Structure. At least two ad groups per campaign, at least two unique sitelink assets, geo-targeting set to where people can use what you offer.
- Conversion tracking. Required for accounts created on or after 1 January 2018 and for any account of any age on a conversion-based Smart Bidding strategy, with at least one conversion a month. Accounts created on or after 22 April 2019 also have to track one of Google's named conversion types.
- Bidding. Those 2019-onward accounts run Maximize conversions, Maximize conversion values, Target CPA or Target ROAS on every campaign, unless they are Smart campaigns.
The trap sits under conversion tracking. An account can be recording conversions and still fall short, because it counts time on site or homepage visits, which Google requires you to keep out of the Conversions column under the category Other.
Read Change History for the changes you did not make
Keyword status changes happen automatically, and Google says they all show in Change History. If the account changed overnight and nobody touched it, that is where to start.
Fix the account first, then request reinstatement
Google publishes almost nothing about what happens after you submit. The help page for a deactivated account runs to three sentences and points at a form. Google does not publish how long reinstatement takes, and its reactivation form says it cannot guarantee that an account will be reactivated.
One thing not to do while you wait. Do not add billing information to a switched-off account. Google's refunds page says it will not refund money mistakenly entered as billing information.
What Google's reactivation form asks before you submit
Google's request to reactivate an Ad Grants account puts seven checks in front of the submit button.
- Conversion tracking installed and recording, if the account uses auto-bidding or was created since 1 January 2018
- No active keywords at Quality Score 1 or 2
- No non-approved single-word keywords, and no generic keywords with weak landing page experience
- Campaigns geo-targeted to your scope of service
- Account-level click-through rate above 5 percent for the last seven days of activity
- At least two text ads per enabled ad group, at least two ad groups per enabled campaign, and active sitelinks
- A website that complies with policy
The two text ads line sits on that checklist rather than in the policy articles, which is how an account fails a check it never read as a policy. The form also offers one-time approval for Google to make the changes itself within 5 business days. That is the turnaround on that service, not a reinstatement time.
The monthly routine that keeps the account running
Read the recovery path forward and you have the prevention routine. Same checks, same order, run monthly while the account is healthy, when the job is a setting to change rather than an account to recover.
Name one owner and give them the numbers that mean act
Put a name on it. One person, not a department, on a fixed date every month. Give that person the numbers that mean act, so the check never turns into a judgment call:
- Total: filtered keywords below 5 percent
- Any active keyword at Quality Score 1 or 2
- Zero conversions recorded for the month
- A campaign on a bid strategy outside the four permitted
- A program survey notification still unanswered
One more check costs two minutes. Log in and read the in-product notifications, because that is where Google says it primarily communicates non-compliance. For the fuller picture, see what monthly Ad Grant management involves.
Where Ad Grant accounts die quietly
Three of the causes live outside the ad account entirely.
The website drifts out of policy after approval
Google's Ad Grants website policy is explicit that a live account can be suspended over website problems, not only rejected at application. Its published failure reasons include broken internal and external links, broken or insecure donation links, missing HTTPS, slow load speed, thin content, poor mobile experience, and third-party ads such as AdSense.
Pointing ads at a new domain needs approval through Google's additional website domain request form first, and Google says those requests are reviewed within 3 to 5 business days. A rebrand that skips it is a live risk. The detail is in what Google checks when it reviews your website.
The exempt status lapses at the IRS
The program requires recognition of 501(c)(3) status from the IRS, and the IRS revokes that status automatically when an organization required to file an annual return or notice does not do so for three consecutive years. Google's published Ad Grants policies do not say whether it rechecks status after onboarding, so treat this as a reason to keep filings current. Check yours against the Google Ad Grant eligibility checklist.
The person holding the login leaves
Google says the program survey goes to the login email addresses on the account, not a general inbox. Its compliance guide calls the survey annual. Its account management policy says periodically. Either way, that address has to belong to someone who still works there.
Write the handover down while everyone still has access: who holds the login, which address receives program notices, what changes the day that person leaves. Add a second admin now.
What to tell your board when the grant goes down
Four things belong in the update.
- The state the account is in. Temporarily deactivated is a different situation from suspended.
- What caused it. One policy area, one sentence.
- What has been fixed, and when the request went in.
- Who decides. Google reserves the right to grant or deny an organization's participation at any time, for any reason. That sentence appears on four separate Ad Grants policy pages, and it is why nobody can promise the board a date.
Google Ad Grant deactivation questions nonprofits ask
Why did my Google Ad Grant get suspended?
Google's Ad Grants terms say an account found in violation of program policies is subject to automatic suspension without notification. That is a different state from temporary deactivation, which Google applies to five compliance areas: account structure, performance, conversion tracking, bidding, and program engagement. Check which word your notice uses. Google publishes a reinstatement route for temporary deactivation and reserves permanent suspension for repeated or egregious violations.
How do I get my Google Ad Grant reinstated?
Bring the account into compliance first, then submit Google's reactivation request form. Google's compliance guide sets that order, and the form's own seven-item checklist tells you what a reviewer expects to find, from conversion tracking to account-level click-through rate. Work that list, then file. Google's form says it cannot guarantee that an account will be reactivated.
How long does Google take to reinstate an Ad Grants account?
Google does not publish a review time for reinstatement. Two timelines are published and neither one is that. Google will make compliance changes within 5 business days when an organization gives it one-time approval to do so, and requests to add a website domain are reviewed within 3 to 5 business days. Google's reactivation form also says it cannot guarantee that an account will be reactivated.
Does missing the 5 percent click-through rate deactivate the account?
Not in a single month. Google's account management policy says an account that misses the 5 percent rate for two consecutive months will be temporarily deactivated. Google's compliance guide puts the same rule more loosely, saying failure can result in temporary deactivation. The rate is measured across the account rather than on each keyword, and accounts running only Smart Campaigns sit outside it.
Can a nonprofit lose the Google Ad Grant permanently?
Yes. Google publishes two outcomes beyond temporary deactivation. Its reactivation form says an account may be suspended permanently for repeated violations or an egregious violation, and its help page on deactivated accounts says an account may be cancelled and removed from the program if an organization repeatedly breaks program policies. Google also reserves the right to grant or deny participation at any time.
Find out what took the account down
We will check the account against Google's published checklist and tell you what is out of policy, whether it is switched off now or drifting toward it. If your own staff can fix it in an afternoon, we will say so and show you where. Google decides whether it comes back on. Have us review the account against Google's checklist.
Zoya Syal is Content and Production Manager at Nonprofits Engine, where she runs the content and testimonial program for a team that gets small nonprofits formed, funded, and found online.
