
Top Google Ads & Ad Grants News For 2025
Key updates for nonprofits.
As 2025 unfolds, the landscape of Google Ads and Ad Grants continues to evolve rapidly, bringing exciting opportunities and challenges for nonprofits. Staying ahead of these changes can help your organization maximize its advertising potential. Here are the top trends and updates expected in 2025 and how nonprofits can adapt to each.
1. Performance Max Campaigns
Performance Max (PMax) campaigns are set to become even more integral to Google Ads in 2025. These campaigns allow commercial advertisers to reach audiences across all of Google’s inventory with a single campaign, leveraging AI to optimize performance. Although, for Ad Grants accounts, PMax campaigns are currently limited to Search and Google Maps, they still offer significant potential for nonprofits to engage their target audiences.
New updates might include advanced reporting with insights into placements and audience performance, helping advertisers make more informed decisions. Improved audience signals may offer better tools for reaching high-intent users, including stronger first-party data integration. Enhanced asset-level insights will guide nonprofits in creating more engaging creatives. Increased compatibility with tools like Google Analytics 4 will simplify measuring cross-platform impact.
- Tip: Start using PMax campaigns if you haven’t already. Upload a wide variety of high-quality assets, including images, videos, and text, to allow Google’s AI to optimize effectively. Experiment with audience signals to refine your targeting and maximize results. You can find more about PMax campaigns in this article.
2. AI Overviews & Their Impact On Impressions
Google’s introduction of AI overviews, like those integrated with Google Lens, is reshaping search behavior. These AI-driven summaries often answer user queries directly, reducing clicks on traditional search ads. While this feature enhances user experience, it may limit ad impressions for certain keywords, especially those related to informational searches.
- Tip: Expand your keyword strategy to include broader terms and transactional intent keywords. Use high bids and highly relevant ads to maximize your ad’s position and visibility on competitive searches.
3. Increasing Competition & The Shift To Commercial Advertising
More and more nonprofits are shifting towards commercial advertising to complement their Google Ad Grants campaigns, and with this shift, competition for ad space is heating up. As nonprofits seek to maintain consistent visibility and achieve results in a crowded digital landscape, standing out has become a growing challenge. To cut through the noise and capture the attention of their target audience, nonprofits must adopt smarter, more strategic advertising approaches. A well-crafted advertising strategy is key to ensuring that nonprofit messages not only reach but resonate with those they aim to serve.
- Tip: Test commercial Google Ads campaigns to supplement your Ad Grants efforts. Start with retargeting campaigns, which often deliver the highest ROI, and allocate a modest budget to generate enough data to evaluate its effectiveness. Our comparison of commercial and grant campaigns can be found here.
4. Performance Max Campaigns Coming to Bing Ads
Bing Ads is catching up with Google by introducing its version of Performance Max campaigns. This will provide nonprofits with a new opportunity to diversify their advertising strategies and reach additional audiences.
- Tip: Experiment with Bing’s PMax campaigns as they roll out. Our clients can take advantage of introductory promo bonuses to test the platform without significant upfront costs. Learn more about Bing Ads here.
5. Continued Automation Of Bidding Through AI
Google’s AI-powered bidding strategies, like Maximize Conversions and Target CPA, are getting smarter and more effective. These tools help optimize your campaigns by automating the bidding process, making it easier to reach your goals without constantly adjusting bids yourself. As manual bidding options become less important, AI-driven strategies are taking the lead. As more and more ad grantees use automated bidding strategies in their campaigns, average cost per click rises and campaigns using manual bidding (with a $2 bid cap) cannot keep up.
- Tip: If your goal is to drive as many conversions as possible, Maximize Conversions is a great choice. For campaigns where you’re aiming to stick to a specific budget, experiment with different Target CPA settings to find the balance that works best for your needs. In this article we compared various bidding strategies available to ad grantees.
6. Improved Recommendations In Google Ads
Google’s recommendations tab is becoming an even more powerful tool for optimizing your campaigns. In 2025, expect these suggestions to be even more personalized, thanks to advanced AI that will pinpoint specific opportunities for improvement. This means you’ll get more relevant, actionable insights to help boost your performance.
- Tip: Keep an eye on your recommendations tab and review the suggestions regularly. Approve those that align with your campaign goals, but always take the time to review them carefully to make sure they fit with your overall strategy. Don’t blindly accept everything, many of these recommendations are still designed primarily for commercial advertisers and they might not work well in grant accounts.
7. AI Assistance In Ad Creation
AI tools for creating ad copy, headlines, and visuals are getting more sophisticated than ever, making it easier to create ads that are both relevant and eye-catching. These tools can save time and help you streamline your ad creation process, but human oversight is still crucial to ensure that the content aligns with your nonprofit’s message and maintains quality.
- Tip: Let AI tools assist with drafting your ad copy, but always take the time to review and refine the results. Make sure the copy fits your keywords and landing pages, and stay true to your nonprofit’s voice. Authenticity and accuracy are key to maintaining trust and connection with your audience. Also, don’t overstuff your ads with all possible keywords. Write texts for humans, not robots. Here are our tips on how to write effective ads.
8. Focus on Privacy & Cookie Compliance
As privacy regulations and cookie policies become stricter, it’s crucial for advertisers to prioritize compliance. Google Analytics now flags accounts that don’t have the proper cookie settings in place, which could affect your campaign performance and data accuracy.
- Tip: Make sure your website’s cookie consent settings meet Google’s requirements. Look for the green checkmark in Google Analytics to confirm compliance, and if you don’t see it, adjust your settings accordingly. For detailed guidance, check out our article on cookie compliance. Staying on top of these requirements will help keep your campaigns running smoothly and protect your data.
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