Over 160,000 new visitors per year at only 75 cents per click

GreatSchools is the most widely used school search platform in the country. It collects and analyzes data to cover more than 150,000 public, charter and private schools. Nearly half of all K-12 households in the United States visit the site each year to compare schools, read reviews and find tools that support their child's learning.

Fix My Ad Grant

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Brick elementary school building with American flag and white entrance canopy.

160,000

New Visitors Per Year

“Blue Tusk Digital has been a great partner in helping us get the most out of our Google Ad Grant. Since working together, our CPC dropped by ~39%, clicks nearly doubled, CTR improved by ~325%, and impressions grew by ~185%. They understand the unique challenges nonprofits face. They’re a thoughtful, strategic partner, and we’d recommend them to any nonprofit looking to get more value and impact from their Google Ad Grant.”

Megan Dias

Director of Marketing

the challenge

A grant aimed at one of the toughest audiences possible: enterprise

GreatSchools had been running the Ad Grant since March 2022 and had come close to spending the full $10,000 only twice. The biggest issue was that the account was aimed at the one audience the grant was least equipped to reach, and the monthly spend showed it.

issue 01

Under $7,000 most months

Most months the account spent $7,000 or less out of the $10,000. Two months came close to the full amount, and neither turned into a pattern. Nearly a third of the grant went unused on a regular basis for the majority of the time.

issue 02

Enterprise keywords with almost no search volume

The account was built around enterprise data licensing, one of the most valuable things GreatSchools offers. Those terms sit at the very bottom of the funnel, few people search them, and the companies bidding on them are paying commercial rates. An Ad Grant has almost no room to compete there.

issue 03

The real demand wasn't the focal point

Parents search for best elementary schools, best middle schools and best high schools in enormous numbers every month. GreatSchools was already ranking for those terms organically, so the intent and the content were both there. The grant wasn't going after any of it.

The Approach

A shift from enterprise to school search

We kept enterprise in the mix but stopped treating it as the main event. The bulk of the strategy moved toward what parents were already searching for and what GreatSchools already ranked for organically, school search.

solution 01

School search, launched in Q4

We built campaigns around the searches parents actually run, best elementary schools, best middle schools, best high schools, and pointed them to the school search page. Enterprise stayed active but no longer carried the account.

solution 02

One campaign instead of many

Campaigns started out split by state, which seemed like a clean way to organize the account. We consolidated everything into a single campaign instead, so all the data fed one place and the account could learn faster. CPC started dropping as a result, without spend dropping along with it.

solution 03

Chasing the audience the grant could actually win

Enterprise keywords stayed too competitive and too low volume to carry real spend. School search terms had the volume and the low cost per click the grant needed, and pushed CPC below $1, a level most accounts never reach today.

the results

The grant, spent almost in full, on the audience that actually converts

Since the pivot, GreatSchools has spent the Ad Grant almost entirely on school search, averaging $9,934 of the $10,000 every month. That traffic brought in 278,000 visitors at 75 cents per click, well under what most Ad Grant accounts pay today, now that AI is pushing ad and organic listings lower in search results. Going forward, school search is the primary strategy, and the grant is finally working at close to full capacity.

$
0.75
kpi highlight
A CPC most accounts can't touch today, due to AI, and the reason the grant stretches as far as it does.

Achieved

17.92%

Click-through rate account-wide.

Achieved

63,593

Searches and demo requests generated from the Ad Grant traffic.

Achieved

99.3%

The monthly Ad Grant spent, on average, since the pivot to school search.