Case Study · Children's Surgery International

How a nonprofit went from zero to maximum Ad Grants spend in months.

No Google Ads history. No conversion data. No paid media budget. Just a mission — and the right platform to make $10,000/month go to work.

CSI
Children's Surgery International
Pediatric surgical care for underserved communities
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The results speak for themselves.

Four months in, a brand-new account is operating at near-maximum efficiency — and the trajectory keeps climbing.

$0
Grant Spend Deployed
Total since launch
0%
Click-Through Rate
~3–4× search industry avg
0%
Optimization Score
Fully dialed-in account
0
Total Clicks
3,432+ impressions
01 Background

A compelling mission.
Zero digital infrastructure.

Children's Surgery International delivers free, specialized medical and surgical care to children worldwide while building in-country self-sufficiency through professional training and education. Their work is transformative. Their digital presence was not.

When they came to Ad Grants Pilot, there was no Google Ads history, no conversion data, and no campaign foundation. Everything started from zero.

The Opportunity
Google gives nonprofits $10,000 every month in free search ads. Most never come close to using it. CSI was going to be different.
$10K
Monthly Grant Spend & Clicks
Growth trajectory from account launch through March 2026
Grant Spend
Clicks
Last point projected →
03 Approach

Built for speed. Optimized for performance.

Three coordinated moves, executed in sequence, took CSI from standing start to maximum spend.

01
Search Campaigns
Ad Grants Pilot's automated campaign builder rapidly stood up tightly structured search campaigns — generating keyword sets, headlines, and descriptions from CSI's own landing pages.
02
Conversion Tracking
CSI's donation platform was integrated with Google Analytics and Google Ads, enabling real-time attribution. Micro-conversion signals were layered in with calibrated values.
03
Performance Max & Donations
As the account matured, Performance Max campaigns were introduced, unlocking audience-based targeting and image assets.
04 Results

Hitting the cap in months, starting from nothing.

CSI's account delivered across every key metric and is now consistently approaching the full $10,000/month grant allocation.

$6,144 deployed in grant spend since launch — and growing toward the $10K cap
8.74% CTR roughly 3–4× the search industry average — highly relevant, well-targeted ads
412 clicks, 3,432+ impressions from a brand-new account with zero prior history
100% optimization score achieved — fully dialed-in account across all campaigns
Donations exceed the monthly Ad Grants Pilot subscription cost — positive ROI in year one
Performance Max live and scaling — daily spend limits hit on multiple days, trajectory pointing to the full cap
Your nonprofit, next

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Ad Grants Pilot's software and customer success team were critical for helping our small team get started with Ad Grants, maxing out our spend, and bringing in donations within just 4 months.

Veronika Skorich
Veronika Skorich
Communications & Development Manager
Children's Surgery International
CSI