Ad Grants

At a glance

Location: USA www.sciencebuddies.org

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Mission

Science Buddies helps students from all walks of life build their literacy in science and technology, so that they can become productive and engaged citizens in the 21st century. The organisation provides millions of students, parents and teachers in primary and secondary education with resources that reflect the latest research in how to effectively teach science. Science Buddies provides unique content created by their own staff scientists. Not available from any other source, these resources are personalised for students’ individual learning paths and are highly applicable to the real world. By providing open access and freely available online content, Science Buddies strives to ensure that all children have access to scientific learning, regardless of gender, ethnicity or socio-economics.

Marketing Goals

Unlike many bricks-and-mortar non-profits, Science Buddies operates completely online. Their main goal is to drive traffic to the website, in order to connect children with the thousands of pages of free science content. With over 25% of users visiting via mobile, Science Buddies recently updated to a mobile-friendly site to better reach students, teachers and parents on the go. To generate more funding, they are looking to expand the marketing of their popular Science Kit programme.

Impact of Google Ad Grants

Science Buddies was one of the earliest adopters of the Google Ad Grants programme, having joined in 2003, the year that the programme launched, and later became a Grantspro recipient. In 2004, 171,000 unique visits to Science Buddies came via Ad Grants; by 2005, this number had increased to 773,000 unique visits. By 2006, Google Ad Grants had doubled the traffic to the website. According to President and Founder Kenneth Hess, “Ad Grants really put us on the map!”. In the past 12 months alone, approximately 1,500 teachers have registered to download resources to help manage student science projects and approximately 100,000 students have registered to use the Topic Selection Wizard, which helps them find a science project suited to their interests. As Science Buddies launches into new exciting areas, such as a repository of STEM career information, fun Science Activities and real-time Science News Feeds, they plan to build Google Ads campaigns to promote the launches and bring more aspiring science minds to life.