Why audience targeting is key to making Google Ad Grants work in 2026, not keywords

Google Ad Grants works differently in 2026. The traditional approach of guessing what supporters type into search bars no longer works. Instead, roughly two-thirds of Ad Grant spend now flows through audience-defined campaigns rather than keyword-driven ones. To succeed today, you must know exactly how to target your ideal audience.

Join certified Google Ad Grant consultant Jason King for a practical session on what works in 2026: the campaign types to use now, the current best practices, how to manage ads with or without an agency, and why your supporter data has become your single most valuable targeting asset.

We will close with a look at how predictive AI sharpens that asset further - donor lists ranked by propensity for specific outcomes, used as seed audiences for Google and Meta lookalikes, making even niche campaigns like legacy giving or monthly upgrades viable at a lower cost per acquisition.

What you will learn:

1. What's new in Google Ad Grants
   A new audience-first campaign type called Performance Max; ads on Google Maps, ads in AI overviews, and more.
2. How to build and upload customer lists that actually match
   What data to include, how large your list needs to be, and the upload mistakes that quietly kill match rates.
3. What's best practice in 2026
   How to optimize your ad campaigns for real-world results, and make sure you're using the features that help you spend the grant.
4. How predictive AI-ranked donor lists make lookalike audiences sharper
   and how any organization can use them, whether exported and imported by hand or pushed to Google and Meta directly.

This webinar is for nonprofits and charities of all sizes, as well as the fundraisers, marketing leads, and agency consultants driving their digital strategy. If you need better paid advertising results, save your seat.