As small and medium-sized businesses continue to feel the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, service-based brands that support these businesses continue to look for ways to help them.
For many businesses, the main goal (for the time being) is to maintain viability as opposed to focusing on bullish revenue growth. This change in strategy, however, has left a marketing gap that many are unsure how to fill.
Businesses and brands (brick-and-mortar or online) that are still operational find themselves in a difficult situation. Paid media marketing takes investment, but keeping the business viable also takes hard dollars and cents. It’s often difficult to have one without the other—and if there is a shortage in revenue…which one comes first, or which gets cut?
Enter Google’s proposed $340 million SMB ad credit program
Just the other day, contacts at Google shared the most recent updates surrounding Google’s ad credit program (as of April 20, 2020). This includes details to the two questions that are on everyone’s mind:
- Who is eligible for these ad credits?
- When will these ad credits show up in ad accounts?
While Google is sending several initiatives down the pipeline, including $15 million in cash grants to non-profits and an additional $20 million in ad grants to community financial institutions, this SMB initiative is by far the largest. According to Google:
“We want to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) stay in touch with their customers during this challenging time. That’s why we’re giving our SMB customers worldwide $340 million in ad credits, which can be used towards future ad spend, until the end of 2020 across our Google Ads platforms.”
Way to go, Google!
Now, this worldwide SMB ad credit program will not provide a “flat credit” for every business. There are stipulations, rules, and the like that are to be expected when over a quarter of a billion dollars is on the line. That being said, let’s dive into some of these details so you know what to expect from Google in the coming months.
Are You Eligible?
The short version is maybe—but eligibility is pretty straight forward if you are a current Google Ads user. According to Google, those who are eligible include:
“Small and medium-sized businesses globally, who have spent with a Google Ads account in ten out of twelve months of 2019, and in January and/or February of this year.”
So, if you have been a current customer, running campaigns with Google Ads over the majority of 2019 and early 2020, you are eligible—which makes sense. Consider your own business—you are going to be more likely to provide additional resources or assistance to your current client base now to earn their loyalty. If you offered a promotion to all customers and a flood of new prospects took advantage of the promotion before your current clients had a chance—this (understandably) might fluster your current client base.
This also means that if you haven’t advertised with Google recently or you are thinking about running out and creating a new Google Ads account to get your credit, you’ll need to pump the breaks. Currently this credit is aimed at those businesses with a history of Google Ads activity—not brand-new customers.
Great, So How Much Will You Get?
This is where things start to get a bit foggy. As we noted earlier, there isn’t going to be a “blanket” set of ad credits given to every SMB. Google will be taking many factors into consideration in determining the level of ad credit you will be receiving.
The “details” (if you can call them that) from Google on this are very sparse at the moment. Google states, “The ad credit amount will vary by customer based on past Google Ads spend, and the country and currency where the business and Google Ads account is set up.”
This is Google’s shorthand for “it all depends” or “we will take this on a case-by-case basis.” We speculate that additional factors may include, among others, “essential vs. non-essential” businesses as well as operational status.
At the end of the day, it will likely come down to the data—and these credits may be dispersed to the businesses that have the highest likelihood of remaining in operation.
(Again, we’re just hypothesizing here.)
How and When Will You Receive Your Ad Credit?
“How” you get your ad credit is a bit simpler, because if you are eligible, Google already has a spot to deposit your ad credit—your Google Ads account. Sorry, no cash disbursements here. After Google has done its due diligence surrounding the “who” and “how much,” recipients will have their credit applied directly to their Google Ads account. No extra forms or applications to fill out.
“When” all these ad credits will be hitting accounts is another story. According to the current Google update, “Starting in late May, we will begin rolling out the ad credit in phases. Over the following months, eligible customers will be notified and will see the ad credit applied in their Google Ads account.”
As they say, the devil is in the details, and words/phrases like “late,” “will begin,” “phases,” and “following months” don’t give us anything concrete to hang onto. “Phases” may indicate the unknown disbursement factors and “months” could mean three months or six months. At this time, we simply don’t know what we don’t know. Even being a Google Premier Partner, we haven’t been provided any additional clarity or insight surrounding situations like this one. But if we do get more solid details, we will be updating this post.
Should You Count on an Ad Credit?
While we applaud the steps Google is taking to support SMBs around the world with this program, there are many questions. And as with most things in business and marketing, there is never a guarantee. If Any of these ad credits are applied to our clients’ accounts, we will be reaching out directly to spread the good news—but in the meantime, we advise never putting all your eggs in one basket.
Keep this exciting news in the back of your mind, but until you see those ad credits hit your account, keep grinding and pushing forward.
To keep up to date on the details surrounding this program you can visit this page from Google.
If you want some additional tips, strategies, and tactics that you can put into play during COVID-19, you can get all of our Marketing “Forward” During COVID-19 PDFs here.
Finally, if you don’t like to read (congrats on making it through this blog, btw) you can watch our “Marketing During COVID-19 Webinar” from last week.
In closing, if you need help, or simply want some ideas during this uncertain time, please reach out to us anytime directly at Marketing@NationalPositions.com. We are ready to help in any way we can.
As an SMB ourselves, we’re doing any and everything we can for our other SMBs during this time.
Stay safe, healthy, optimistic, and productive.