Church Marketing: A Local-First Plan for Helping Your Town Find You

Church marketing works best when it starts local: help the people in your own town find your church, learn what Sunday is like and feel expected before they walk in. For most churches that means four steps in order: fix your Google listing, build a plan your visit page, spend a Google Ad Grant on local searches first, and reply the same day to every guest who reaches out.

What church marketing covers

Church marketing is everything that helps someone who doesn't know your church yet find it and decide to visit, and most of it costs time more than money.

• Your Google listing: your Business Profile shows on Google Search and Maps, so the service times, address and photos on it need to match what happens on Sunday.
• A plan your visit page: one page that answers when, where, what to wear, where to park and what the kids do, because a first-time guest wants all of that before they come.
• Search ads: a Google Ad Grant can put your church in front of people searching in your town, and it can answer the Bible and life questions people type into Google.
• Follow-up: a real reply to every visit form and phone call, the same day if you can, because a guest who reached out once may not reach out twice.
• The big Sundays: Christmas Eve and Easter need their times on your listing, your website and your ads weeks ahead of the day.

Start with your Google listing

Your Google Business Profile shows on Google Search and Maps when someone nearby looks for a church, and you control almost everything on it. Fix it before you spend a dollar or an hour on anything else.

Set your main hours so they match your services, and add a short description that says what kind of church you are in everyday words. Add photos of the building from the parking lot, the front door and the room where people sit, so a guest knows what to look for when they pull in.

Google's Special hours setting is made for days when your hours change, like holidays or special events. Put your Christmas Eve and Easter service times there a few weeks ahead, so the listing shows the right time on the day people check it.

Answer your reviews too, the kind ones and the hard ones, because guests read your replies and a warm answer shows them someone is paying attention.

How the Google Ad Grant fits

Google's Ad Grant gives a qualifying nonprofit up to $10,000 a month in search ads, and many churches can qualify. Google requires a church to be registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3), or to be part of a group exemption with proven ties to a central nonprofit that holds 501(c)(3) status.

If your church belongs to a denomination or network that holds a group exemption, Google's rules let your church qualify through that link. A verification partner checks the paperwork for Google before the Grant opens.

The Grant comes with rules that keep it running. Google asks every account to set locations where people will find your services useful, and to split local and national campaigns when you serve both. Each account needs at least 2 sitelinks, a click rate of at least 5% each month across the account, and conversion tracking that records at least one action a month. Accounts opened on or after April 22, 2019 must also bid toward conversions on every campaign.

Google pays for the ads, up to $329 of Grant credit a day. Our Google Ad Grants guide covers setup, bidding and the monthly checks in full.

What to measure, and what you can't

Measure the actions closest to a visit: calls from your ads, visit forms and the guest cards your greeters collect on Sunday. Read them once a month, and look for the trend rather than one week's number.

A family can read your visit page, write down the time and walk in on Sunday without ever filling out a form, and no website tag sees that. So ask first-time guests how they found you, and add their answers to the monthly numbers. Keep page views and time on site apart from calls and forms, so a busy month of reading doesn't look like a busy month of visits.

What it costs to have us run it

Google's Ad Grant gives a qualifying nonprofit up to $10,000 a month in search ads, and we manage the whole account. We start with local searches like church near me in your town, then fill the rest of the grant with Bible and life questions.

You pay half of the Grant money we put to work for you each bill, and never more than $750. If we put $1,000 of your Grant to work, you pay $500. The Grant setup is $1,500, paid once, and we bill every 4 weeks, so a year is 13 bills.

Google decides how much of the Grant your searches can use. We work to put as much of it to work as we can, and you only pay for what we use. If you want paid Search beside the Grant, Grant + Search runs up to $1,500 every 4 weeks plus its builds, and a church website is $2,997, paid once. Every price is on our pricing page.

Talk it through with Miguel

If you'd like help with your church's marketing, book a call with Miguel. He'll check whether your church can qualify for the Grant and walk through how people in your town find you today.

Questions people ask

What is church marketing?

It's the work that helps people who don't know your church yet find it and decide to visit. For most churches that means a complete Google listing, a plan your visit page, search ads paid for by the Google Ad Grant and a same-day reply to every guest.

Does our church qualify for the Google Ad Grant?

Many churches do. Google requires a church to be registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3), or to be part of a group exemption with proven ties to a central nonprofit that holds 501(c)(3) status. A church that only has a fiscal sponsor and no 501(c)(3) status of its own isn't eligible.

Do Google Ads work for churches?

Google Ads can put your church in front of people in your town who are searching for one, and the Ad Grant pays for those ads if your church qualifies. Whether a click turns into a visit depends on your visit page and your follow-up, so track calls and visit forms and read them each month.

How much does church marketing cost?

Your Google listing costs nothing but time, and Google pays for the Grant's ads. If you'd like us to run the Grant, you pay half of the Grant money we put to work each bill, never more than $750, plus a $1,500 setup paid once.

Should a church pay for Google Ads beyond the Grant?

Most churches should put the Grant to work first, since Google pays for those ads. Paid Search can make sense later for searches the Grant barely shows on, and it has no Grant daily cap or Grant rules, but the church pays for every click.

See how we run Google Ad Grants for churches

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