Case study: Six Years Behind UNICEF Ireland’s Emergency Appeals
Speed is everything in these campaigns, and our partnership with Vroom Digital will enable us to be quick off the mark and respond in real-time.
UNICEF Ireland
Award Winning
Vroom has managed Google Ads for Turn2me, Ireland’s free online mental health service, since 2015. Eleven years on, it is one of our longest partnerships, and a clear picture of what careful, sustained search advertising can do for an Irish charity.
Turn2me offers free online counselling, peer support groups and self-help tools to people across Ireland. For a service that depends on being found at the moment someone needs help, Google is not a marketing channel. It is the front door.
At a glance
- Client: Turn2me, Ireland’s free online mental health service
- Service: Google Ad Grants management
- Partnership: 2015 to now
- Results since 2015: 989,000+ visits, 27.9 million impressions, no suspensions in 11 years
989
K+
Visits to Turn2me from Google Ads since 2015
27.9
M
Ad impressions, funded by Google Ad Grants
11
years
Of Ad Grants management with no account suspensions
The problem every Irish charity has with Google
Most Irish charities know they should be on Google. Few get much from it. The same four problems come up again and again.
1. Free money left unspent. Google Ad Grants gives eligible charities up to $10,000 a month in free search ads. Most use a fraction of it. The grant comes with strict rules: a 5% minimum click-through rate, no single-word keywords and required conversion tracking. Break them and the account can be suspended without warning, so many charities would rather underspend than risk it.
2. Tracking that could break the law. To prove your ads work, you need to track what people do on your site. For a health or mental health charity, the pages someone visits can reveal their condition. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission has warned that health websites sharing that kind of data with ad platforms without a lawful basis may be breaching GDPR. Get measurement wrong and you have a data protection problem. Get it right and you can prove impact to your board.
3. The people you exist to help are not searching for you. They search for how they feel, often late at night and often for the first time. Your ads have to show up for those searches, and read as an offer of help, never a sales pitch.
4. No time, and no room for waste. Small comms teams cannot keep up with Google’s constant changes, and every euro wasted is a euro not spent on services.
Turn2me faced all four.
What we did for Turn2me
Built the account around how people actually search. We target what people type, such as anxiety, low mood, feeling alone or needing someone to talk to, not the charity’s name. Each search leads to the matching service, so someone looking for anxiety support lands on anxiety support, not the homepage.
Wrote every ad with care. Plain, warm and clear: what Turn2me offers, that it is free, and that help is available now. No urgency tricks. Copy is reviewed with Turn2me’s team.
Kept the grant compliant for 11 years. Through every rule change Google has made to Ad Grants, Turn2me’s account has never been suspended.
Set up measurement that respects privacy. For a mental health charity, the pages someone visits can reveal how they are feeling. We measure what people do, like starting counselling or joining a group, rather than what they read about, and keep health information out of what is shared with Google.
Rebuilt the account as Google changed. Responsive search ads, automated bidding, Performance Max and Ad Grants policy updates: the account has been restructured many times in 11 years.
Results
- 989,000+ visits to Turn2me’s free services since 2015
- 27.9 million impressions in front of people searching for help
- 7.75% click-through rate over the last 12 months, well above Google’s 5% grant minimum
- 11 years without a suspension, in a programme where many charities lose their grant within months
Beyond search: what else works for Irish charities
Google Ads is usually the best place to start, but it is rarely the whole answer. These are the channels we see working for Irish charities.
- Paid social: Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn reach people before they search, and build the audience that later donates or volunteers.
- YouTube: video tells your story in a way a text ad cannot, and small add-on budgets go a long way.
- SEO content: pages that answer the questions your audience asks, so you are found without paying for every click.
- Digital PR: coverage in Irish media builds trust, earns links that lift your SEO, and increasingly decides whether AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews mention your charity at all.
These are not services we ran for Turn2me. They are what we would look at for any charity that wants to grow beyond search.
Talk to us about your charity’s Google Ads or see our Google Ads services.
Vroom have managed our Google Ads for over eleven years and they understand the sensitivity of what we do…
Fiona O’Malley, CEO, Turn2me
FAQs: Google Ads for charities in Ireland
Can Irish charities advertise on Google for free?
Yes. Registered Irish charities can apply for Google Ad Grants, which gives up to $10,000 a month in free search ads. You verify through Google for Nonprofits, then apply for the grant.
Why do so many charities lose their Ad Grant?
Usually the click-through rate drops below 5% for two months in a row, or the account breaks keyword or tracking rules. Google can suspend accounts without warning, so the account needs checking every month.
How much of our Ad Grant should we be using?
As much as you can use well. Most charities use a fraction of it. Good account structure, the right keywords and relevant ads are what unlock more.
Can a mental health charity track its Google Ads safely under GDPR?
Yes, with care. Use proper consent, keep health information out of what is sent to ad platforms, and measure actions such as sign-ups rather than what conditions people read about.
Should our ads appear for crisis searches?
That is a decision to make with your clinical team. Done properly, with the right landing page and crisis contacts, ads can connect people with help at the moment it matters most.
Do we need an agency, or can we run it ourselves?
You can run it yourself, but most small teams find the rules and constant changes take more time than they have. An agency earns its fee if it gets you more of the grant, safely.
Does Vroom work with other Irish charities?
Yes. We have worked with charities and nonprofits including UNICEF Ireland, alongside cultural organisations such as EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum.
What else should charities do beyond Google Ads?
Paid social, YouTube, SEO content and digital PR, especially PR, which now shapes what AI tools say about your charity.
Looking for a long-term Google Ads partner for your charity? Get in touch to talk to our team.
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