Case Study
How Gettysburg History doubled its website traffic while improving visitor quality
Every museum carries an essential mission to keep history, art, or science alive. But even the most incredible exhibits need a powerful launchpad to reach their audience. That’s where Google comes in, offering eligible nonprofit organizations up to $10,000 USD per month in free search advertising.
This is the story of how we helped Gettysburg History turn that grant into real, paying visitors.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION
Preserving history and allowing more people to experience it
Gettysburg History is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and sharing the history of the Battle of Gettysburg and the American Civil War.
Through three different museums, educational programs, and historical exhibits, the organization welcomes visitors from across the United States and around the world.
THE CHALLENGE
Turning visibility into visitors
Gettysburg History had ambitious goals: increase ticket sales, attract more group bookings, and promote special events across its growing network of museums and historical attractions.
In fall 2025, as the organization expanded its digital presence, several new websites were launched to support different museums, exhibits, and educational initiatives. Alongside these launches, the focus of the Google Ad Grant account was to build awareness and establish maximum visibility for these new websites and museums.
On paper, the results looked impressive. By October 2025, the account was generating more than 56,000 monthly ad impressions. Thousands of people were discovering Gettysburg History through Google Search every month.
However, a closer look revealed an important challenge.
While visibility was high, engagement remained relatively low. Fewer than 2% of users seeing the ads were actually clicking through to the website. The organization was successfully reaching large audiences, but many of those users were still in the early stages of their journey and were not actively planning a museum visit, booking a group tour, or purchasing tickets.
The challenge was no longer awareness. The challenge was turning visibility into action.
OUR STRATEGY
Quality Over Quantity
With a strong foundation of visibility already established, the next step was to improve engagement and attract visitors who were more likely to take meaningful action.
Our team refined the account to better align with Gettysburg History’s business objectives through ongoing keyword optimization, audience refinement, ad copy testing, and landing page improvements.
A more targeted advertising strategy that generated fewer impressions, but much more relevant impressions, leading to better engagement, more website visitors, and stronger business outcomes.
THE DATA
Less Noise, More Engaged Visitors
Engagement
THE RESULTS
What This Means for a Museum
By refining Gettysburg History’s Google Ad Grant strategy, the organization successfully shifted from generating passive awareness to attracting highly engaged visitors.
Result: a stronger digital marketing program, generating more engaged Web visitors and creating a scalable foundation to support future growth.
“Working with Charity Rocket has transformed our ability to reach a wider audience through Google Ads. Their team took the time to understand our mission, our audiences, and the unique challenges of promoting a history nonprofit in a highly competitive online space. Rather than focusing solely on increasing website traffic, they helped us attract the right visitors, people who are genuinely interested in our museums, programs, and educational resources.
We have been so pleased with the results including stronger engagement from visitors and improvements in conversions. Additionally, Charity Rocket has become a trusted partner. Their team is knowledgeable, responsive, transparent, and always willing to explain the “why” behind their recommendations.
We recommend Charity Rocket to any organization looking to strengthen its online presence and reach the audiences that matter most.”
Gettysburg History