Non-Profit Tech Blog

The disaster in Burma has caused Google AdWords confusion as larger charities with deeper roots to Google seem to have taken over the keyword “Burma”. A quick look at April’s Keyword Spy report on Burma shows that many of the charities that had purchased “Burma” as a keyword in April are no longer represented in current contextual ads based on that keyword. Here are the top buyers of the keyword Burma in April 2008:

A Google search for “Burma” now turns up the following URLs that users are being directed to within Google Ads on the right-hand side of the page.

www.unicefusa.org
www.WorldVision.org
www.DirectRelief.org
www.FoundationBurma.org
www.charitynavigator.org
www.gfa.org/Burma-Cyclone
imcworldwide.org/cyclone_nargis
doctorswithoutborders.org

The potential for abuse of disaster relief-oriented keywords remains high. Clearly, opportunistic nonprofits could hijack the concern that donors rightly have for Burma and do a quick Google AdWords buy to redirect possible donations to their organization. One could make the case that nonprofits that had made buys on SEO keywords before the Cyclone Nargis hit should be given higher priorities than Johnny-come-latelies. Two of these new organizations, Direct Relief and UNICEF, also have Google Checkout accounts which I believe will lead to discussion as to the “purity” of Google’s presentation of contextual ads for this search. Is Google acting in a self-serving manner if two out of eight charities receiving top positioning for the “Burma” keyword also happen to be users of its Google Checkout service? Lucy Bernholz rightly raises that question in her post on this issue as well.

Although I don’t necessarily agree with the rest of her positions, like the creation of an online stockticker mechanism to track online fundraising (too many structural barriers to that currently), it’s important to note that one does not need to be a megacharity like UNICEF or World Vision to get good AdWords placement on Burma. It could also very well be the case that Google is just allowing the AdWords buys to ride for now without any cherrypicking on its end. You may notice the anomalous nonprofit in the list, foundationburma.org, which is run by the Foundation for the People of Burma. It’s a tiny 501c3 that had slightly under $900,000 in annual revenue in 2006. Clearly, they understood what this could mean in driving their fundraising. Kudos to them.

In this case, the keyword “Burma” doesn’t attract a lot of traffic so max suggested CPC for Burma is $1.25 with a monthly budget of $30. Be aware that these AdWords figures will rise along as more donors seeking to donate to this issue click on these ads. However, for now, for the cost of three tickets to the movies, your organization can be up there next to UNICEF and World Vision. As competition in the AdWords marketplace continues, it’s clear that future disasters are going to require bold action by relevant nonprofits to place their AdWords quickly and decisively. If your organization doesn’t know how to use Google AdWords and serves in a first- or second-responder capacity to crises either international or domestic, you should definitely ensure that Google AdWords knowledge is ingrained within your fundraising staff. This responsibility, I believe, is a good fit for the more business-oriented and math-savvy IT director.

UPDATE: Check out http://www.google.com/myanmarcyclone/. While I’ve touted Google Checkout for Nonprofits in the past (heck I even use it over at socialmarkets), I believe this is a pretty blatant signal that one should adopt Google Checkout if you want premium placement. That said, Google is matching up to $1 million in donations.

UPDATE (5/14/2008 11:42 PM): Google AdWords pricing for “Burma” has risen by 500% as competition continues for the keyword. Google AdWords is now reporting the following pricing for the keyword “Burma”:

Average CPC: $0.68 (at a maximum CPC of $1.25)
Estimated clicks per day: 143 – 182 (at a daily budget of $150.00)

And “Myanmar” isn’t any better:

Average CPC: $0.62 (at a maximum CPC of $1.69)
Estimated clicks per day: 284 – 356 (at a daily budget of $250.00)

Meanwhile, Google Trends is reporting very large increases in searches on both “Burma” and “Myanmar”.

Also, Lucy Bernholz on Philanthropy 2173 mentioned this article as well.