Putting scholarships in front of the women searching for a way back to school
For the Jeannette Rankin Foundation, a refined Google Ad Grant strategy nearly doubled clicks, impressions, and conversions in a single quarter — timed to the application window when it matters most.
The story
The Challenge
The Foundation had strong brand recognition in specific circles, but its mission depends on being found by a much broader audience of nontraditional students: a woman searching “scholarships for adults” needs to land on the Rankin Foundation’s application, not scroll past it. With a small team, a national audience, and a scholarship cycle concentrated in a November-to-February application window, the Foundation needed to increase traffic from women actively searching for financial aid, boost engagement with scholarship content, and help more visitors take action. Earlier social-only experiments for the Tribal Program hadn’t reached enough students.
Our Approach
We structured the grant around the Foundation’s calendar rather than a static, always-on account, balancing year-round brand awareness with high-intent educational search traffic. Keyword-rich campaigns target queries like “grants for college,” “scholarships for adults,” and “non-traditional student scholarships”; a scholarship-application campaign ramps up for the November–February window, alongside dedicated promotion for the National Tribal Program and the Foundation’s events. Custom audiences reach women actively searching for scholarships, career-change resources, or educational support, while Performance Max and retargeting campaigns surface new high-performing segments and bring back visitors who hadn’t yet taken action. Monthly reporting keeps the Foundation’s team close to the data, and ads land on pages built to convert: in 2022 we launched the Foundation’s website ahead of its national capital campaign, with a custom donations experience and SEO guidance baked in.
Why It Worked
A scholarship fund doesn’t need traffic in general — it needs the right applicants at the right time. With the right keyword strategy, campaign structure, and regular optimization, the Foundation is now making the most of its $10,000/month grant, building the account around its own calendar and pointing every campaign at a site engineered for its growth. Free search advertising has become a recruitment channel for the women Jeannette Rankin’s legacy exists to serve.
The Results
Clicks from January to March 2025, up 92.7% from the previous quarter
Impressions, up 95.0%, drastically improving reach
Average click-through rate, well above the 5% Google requires to keep a grant active
Engagement conversions (page views, scrolls, clicks, and other on-site actions), up 96.2%
Average cost per conversion, a cost-effective way to fund scholarship awareness
“We went from zero dollars in online marketing to almost utilizing the full $10,000 monthly Google Grant. This is not something we’d be able to do on our own. The overall experience was so positive — we grew so much.”
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