@mjohnsonpih, good idea!
So what results would we actually want to see in relation to those 5 groups of visitors? For instance, if our goal for OMRS19 Sponsorships is to raise $30k, how does that help us structure an ad campaign, identify target sites, define our landing pages, etc?
I suggest we start small with a single goal, see how it goes, and build from there.
We can create adverts which will be specified on this target. For example, each ad will be encouraging people to read about the project, get to know with the idea and donate. I don’t know how wealthy sponsors you are looking for and which countries are your main group. If I get more information from your site I could propose you a more precise idea.
The first goal should be to increase the number of visits to the site and the time spent on it. It’s easy to measure and rate.
Hey, we are talking about this topic for a few weeks and we still don’t have any decision. So I have an offer for you. We create Google for Nonprofits account (if OpenMRS has it Google will inform about it) and then Google Ads Grant account. When we will have them I can show you everything that you asked about and talk last week. It for sure makes it faster and you will see everything in practice. It will be better for you and us. What do you think @jennifer @janflowers @akanter @c.antwi @burke @mjohnsonpih @paul about it?
@zuzanna, from the sounds of it, we’re interested in moving ahead with this.
As I see it, the main questions/actions at this point have more to do with figuring out:
For the first point, I think it’s fine to say that we’ll increase website traffic - this is a part of our project plan metrics. And I’d like to explore whether or not there is a secondary goal that we can accomplish through increasing website traffic. Another way of looking at this: what do we want people to do once they get to our website? Is this simply about raising awareness? Do we want them to take action? If so, what action? The answers to those questions can help us figure out what website page to direct them to, who we’ll target, and from there, target sites.
FYI – I’ve confirmed my assumption that we already have a Google Nonprofits account. @jennifer is an admin, so can enable Google Ad Manager, Google Ads, or whatever services are needed and grant appropriate access.
@jennifer – I don’t know whether or not your admin status in our Google Nonprofits account would already have given you access, but just in case, I added you as a Google Analytics admin. You should have full access of our Google Analytics now (if you didn’t already).
I and @maciej can help organise all this stuff, create campaigns and ads, set up an account and prepare everything which we will need to Ads. If anybody wants to help us we invite them with open arms.
Our main goal is to increase website traffic. As I said before first adverts could work not perfect because OpenMRS is not a well-known project outside the specific audience and we have to find a proper way to promote it. The best option will be to create at once adverts in Google Ads and we will show you and the community how it looks like and what we can change/improve/add etc.
Budget is not a problem at the start, so we don’t have to set a time limit yet, especially if we want to just increase the traffic to the main page at the start.
The most important thing is to create the Google Ads Account.
I can walk you through each step:
-go to this site: https://accounts.google.com/AccountChooser/signinchooser?continue=https%3A%2F%2Fads.google.com%2Fsignup%3Fsf%3DBAREBONES_GRANTS%26fna%3Dtrue&flowName=GlifWebSignIn&flowEntry=AccountChooser choose the same user name (email) for your Google for Nonprofits account. Select billing country, time zone, currency and click submit. In the top-right corner of your Google Ads account, take note of your customer ID. Your Google Ads customer ID is in the format of xxx-xxx-xxxx.
-Fill in the survey under this link: Ad Grants Pre-qualification Survey. I think that you will have to watch 5 minutes video about Policy Guide and fill out a quiz about it. After all these steps you can log in into Google Nonprofits account and click activate under Google Ad Grants. Under “Part 1: Pre-qualification,” enter your customer ID and click submit.
That’s all for now. Later you can add me and Maciej as with a standard level of access (without any admin rights if course), so we can create first trial ads (without publishing them), show them here and ask for opinion.
@zuzanna, by preparing and launching an ad campaign, I meant beyond setting up the Google Ads Account. While I only had a brief glance at it, this guide to Google ads seems to contain a lot of the information and guidance about how to get started and best practices to making ad strategies successful that I am looking for.
Have we considered a targeted campaign to find volunteer developers that could help with OpenMRS frontend rebuild?
It would be great if the campaign is connected to directly actionable and targeted outcomes that lead to product development
@jennifer on the Internet there is a lot of tips&tricks, leads, guides, coaches etc about Google Ads. This is a very popular topic. We can learn a lot from “books” but still this is only theory. I agree that we have to think about it and create a strategy, but I am more in favour of experimenting and trying different things.
@gschmidt yeah, we talked about it. OpenMRS isn’t as much popular as it could be. We should find solutions about how to encourage volunteers by showing them interesting things. I think the easiest way to do this is to show our current projects like GSOC, real stories about how OpenMRS changes lives etc.
@gschmidt I agree that actionable ads are a good idea. I also like @zuzanna’s idea to experiment and iterate as we go. Maybe we can run a couple of campaigns - one that is targeted and one that is general around our “impact story” and see how the numbers look for getting folks into the community?
I love your support and that’s cool that we agree 
I think that @janflowers’s idea is the best and we will have information to compare with. We have just to wait for Jennifer. She has to create and activate the account and we can start
I’ve started the process and will let you know when we’re good to go.
Let me know if you need any extra access to our Google Apps account/admin console.
With @maciej , we have created two examples of ads which we can launch when Ads account will be ready. Both of them are just a proposition, but we would like to test them as soon as possible. This way we could correct them quickly if we would need it. When the account will be ready to use, we can just copy them and start them (the pictures are from our account, but we can’t start ads for a different site than ours). And for every campaign, we have to create minimum 2 adverts so one more for each topic will have to be created.
The first ad is for donating
We want to emphasize that OpenMRS is the open-source tool, that helps 9 million patients. We use it as the headlines because it will be the first thing that people will see and the numbers and scale of the OpenMRS should show them right away, that their donation will be spent on something that is real and already is working at the large scale. Another thing is catchy and easy descriptions. As you can see we can only describe it in few words -it must be a little bit of “clickbaity”, so the users would go the website through the ad. We have to encourage people to click the ad so they can read more about the initiative and possibly donate to your goals. Next ad is for encouraging to become a member of the community. We use your motto (it’s good, simple, easy to remember and catchy). By using it we want to link it with the OpenMRS so when someone thinks about saving lives by writing code he/she thinks immediately about this project and not about another one. It’s a simple basis for creating a brand for OpenMRS, the motto is a good start. In our adverts, we usually use more “command” type of sentences - we suggest to the audience what they should do (“learn”, “see”, “donate” etc.). From our experience, this kind of ads work best.If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
This is great
Perhaps consider split testing the title order
Join the OpenMRS community | Write code. Save Lives.
Write code. Save Lives. | Join the OpenMRS community
Would be nice if each campaign had a dedicated landing page. Or an updated one. The one linked looks 3+ years out of date & the call to action is at the very bottom.
I assume we have google analytics suite installed on OpenMRS.org ?
Our landing page for the first ad is openmrs.org/join-the-community/donate. The second one will be tracking to /join-the-community/ and description of the advantages of being a volunteer. Of course, for each landing page, we should create at least 2 adverts.
And yes, they have and even sometimes use Analytics
@zuzanna I am greatly in love with this subject. I would love to join the team working on this. I also recommend that we should have a clear persona for the different target categories so that the content shared can create strong engagement with each segment. That way traffic to the website and blogs is automatic
@marslan8530 your contribution towards the current suggestion of building personas could be something we can integrate in this topic
Yes indeed. For that we may want to use research tools to figure out our audience first to a specific depth. Currently persona’s i’m working on are very basic and not based upon any research data rather on assumptions and discussions. Persona’s need to be improved and worked on more if we want to target for advertisement. It’s one thing to create persona for IA as we already know people have to use our product or know more about us but for attracting advertisements, we need to sub-categorize and dig deep. We for now may want to keep our focus on attracting adverts related to medical healthcare and related stuff. But yea i’m here to help after i’m done with work i’m already doing to improve chances of attracting specific advertisers. Great idea. We can attract a lot of advertisers which will create a lot of revenue to help make OMRS better
