How to use my budget?

I want to spend but Google won't let me

[tlehne]

Google Adwords recommends for my campaign a daily budget of about $300. That is a bit much for me, so I set the budget at $100. But only about 40% of my budget is actually used.

I did some tests that showed that in many cases when the ad should show, it does not appear, which is probably the reason why only a small part of the budget is used. CTR is about 2-3%, so that should not be a problem.

Is there anyone reading from Google? Do you want to make big $$$? If so, please allow me spending all my budget.

[killroy]

Looks like they rather spend somebody elses budget instead. Probably for more cash for the same space.

Try increasing your daily limit slight above what youre actually prepared to spend. but slowly, add $40/day over a few days, until your actualy spend goes up. Then lower it until your actual spend reaches $100. Don't move too quickly though or you might get a nasty surprise.

SN

[tosspot17]

we've found in the past that Google's estimates WRT daily spend are usually quite alot out, especially for new campaigns, so Google show's your ad too few times.

You'd be better off setting it higher than you wish to spend, and keeping a close eye on the Click Throughs.

[tlehne]

Thanks killroy, but there are no competitors on my main keywords. When I search for certain search terms that should show the ad, there are no ads at all.

So I will try raising the daily budget. Let's see if that works.

[killroy]

Often, when there is no competition, I set the price ridiculously high. Google, being the greedy software it is, get'S all happy and shows my ads. But I only pay a minimal price due to lack of competition. But you have to be careful and monitor closely.

SN

[tlehne]

OK, I raised my budget to the recommended amount, but nothing changed. Ads do not show, CTR is still at 2-3%, and I am pissed.

As a result I will take my money and rather spend it on SEO to rank higher in SERPS for the relevant keywords.

[tosspot17]

I've seen a few people posting with similar problems;

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

If you're worried, call/email their customer support.

If you're still getting impressions and click throughs, then surely there's no need to worry too much? A CTR of 2-3% is about normal for me.

[Robsp]

tlehne

Be patient, these thing usually take a day or so to kick in. The adwords system is a huge piece of software that's not real-time.

Experienced Adwords users are used to waiting for stuff to happen but it works most of the time...

[tlehne]

OK, I have been patient long enough I think. Budget usage is still dropping and my support request did not get answered. I know they have telephone support, but I refuse to make a long distance call to get support (we are based in Europe).

There is no loyalty to Google left in me, and I am really looking forward to see Microsoft coming up with an alternative.

[Marval]

I've noticed a similar problem on new campaigns I've started in the last few days - seems to be hitting me on extremely competitive terms where I know I'm outbidding everyone, heck with the money I spend with them I should be knocking out the sponsored links, but don't show up even after 3 days...thats with a budget set at 3 times their recommended and cpc set at 5 times their top bidder.

Of course in non-competitive (read relatively non-productive) campaigns I can take the first position in 5 minutes - maybe I need to read back here a little more

[richmondsteve]

Could this be due to the way Google ranks campaigns? If you place the highest bid, Google makes your actual CPC once cent higher than next highest bidder's max bid. But your score is a CPC x CTR which determines positioning.

I wonder if the following could be happening on some of your campaigns. Keep in mind the scenario is hypothetical.
Let's say there are 4 advertisers, with the following max bids and CTRs with score in parenthesis.

A - $1.00, 1.0% (1.00)
B - $0.90, 3.0% (2.70)
C - $0.80, 2.0% (1.60)
D - $0.70, 1.5% (1.05)

If you're advertiser A wouldn't you be ranked #4? And in ad blocks which show 3 or less advertisements wouldn't your ad generally not be displayed?

Though I've been working with Adwords for a long time I've been doing it on a small scale and am still learning all of the ins and outs so if I'm off-target please set me straight.

[goneriding]

You most definatily need to watch your budget! I set ours at the maximum amount recommended for Mesothelioma ($50+ a hit) and I got stuck with a $29k bill for the click throughs. Then I found out that this was from Content Targeting not a Google SE Adwords Campaign. Oh, and Google automatically opts you in for this feature - shouldn't it be the other way around? I am struggling with Google presently to get a credit or something and I keep running into brick walls. Before this happened we were at $10k a month steady.

[cagey1]

Are you using broad match keywords in this campaign? This "high estimate, low clicks" phenom is usually associated with very general, broad match keywords.

If you are using broad match keywords, I think Google computes your estimated daily spend on all the broad match variations of your keywords. But Google will disable (ie not show your ads) for keyword variations that do not meet their minimum CTR (.5%), without adjusting the estimate. This is true for both the keyword variations you actually list in your account and the keyword variations that Google "creates" with its broad match criteria.

So if you have the broadmatch keyword "shopping" in your campaign, your estimated daily budget will include clicks for "shopping" and the Google-created variations "car shopping", "clothes shopping", etc. If you don't maintain the required clickthrough for "car shopping", your ads will stop showing for that keyword variation; but the estimated daily budget will still reflect the estimated clicks from the "car shopping" keyword as if Google was still showing the ads.