Daily Budget

[videopro]

I am running several campaigns. My daily budget for the best performing campaign is $20 yet my actual average daily cost on this campaign is about $10. Am I correct to assume that this campaign is running at its highest possible frequency (maximum impressions)?

thanks

[eWhisper]

Assuming you own the destination site (i.e. aren't running affiliate to merchant ads) If your site is already being shown on AOL, Ask, etc, then odds are you're hitting the max exposure those keywords can bring.

[dustin999]

One question though, doesn't Google regulate the frequency your ads are shown based on your budget? If Google thinks your adword campaign will do $50/day, and you put your budget at $30, won't it purposefully hold back showing your ad as much so you maintain a steady stream of advertising throughout the day?

If so, this brings up another question. If you want maximum exposure of your ad, should you place your budget extremely high? I've had ad campaigns where I've placed my budget at $1k, even though I'm only doing $50-$60/day. Mainly because Google thought the campaign could do $300/day, and I didn't want it to hold back my ads any.

Any thoughts on this?

[eWhisper]

This thread has a lot of very good info about daily budget and keyword visibility:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[sailorjwd]

That was a good thread.. but I didn't want to reactivate it so here are my comments on daily budgets:

The recommended daily budget drives me nuts! I was told that unless I atleast match my daily budgets to the recommended that my campaigns will be slowed...

It makes no sense to have a daily budget of $1,100 when I've never spent more than $181 in the last 15 months... leaves my wide open to click fraud and forces me to keep an eye on it during the day - but I have a regular job to do...

AWA, why is the recommended daily budget so ridiculously high?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

...If Google thinks your adword campaign will do $50/day, and you put your budget at $30, won't it purposefully hold back showing your ad as much so you maintain a steady stream of advertising throughout the day?

If so, this brings up another question. If you want maximum exposure of your ad, should you place your budget extremely high? I've had ad campaigns where I've placed my budget at $1k, even though I'm only doing $50-$60/day. Mainly because Google thought the campaign could do $300/day, and I didn't want it to hold back my ads any.

Any thoughts on this?

This can certainly be the case, dustin999. However, I'd not recommend setting your budget any higher than you are actually comfortable paying in a day - just in case there is a spike in traffic caused by media attention, etc.

AWA, why is the recommended daily budget so ridiculously high?

Most often when I hear of "ridiculously high" recommended daily budgets, the problem turns out to be Ad Groups filled with really general keywords - with the worst 'offenders' being single-word broad-matched keywords. The fix, BTW, is usually to avoid general keywords, and instead use very specific, carefully targeted keywords - in concert with an excellent list of negative keywords.

Just as an experiment, create a campaign with the single keyword 'software', targeted to the entire world, and take a look at the recommended budget.

Then change the keyword to 'office management software' or something very particular, and I think you'll see that the recommend daily budget goes way down.

So if your recommended daily budget is in 'ridiculous' territory, getting rid of really general keywords will most likely bring it to a more reasonable level.

AWA

[MarkHutch]

From our experience, content ads can be a big factor in this equation. The problem with content is that it doesn't generate the same CTR as Google or AOL, but is figured the same when computing a daily budget.

Here's what has worked for us and maybe it might work for you, too.

1. Set up a new campaign with only Google and Search Partners selected.

2. Let the campaign run for 24 to 48 hours and see what type of budget is spent each day.

3. Add 25% to your daily budget and then turn content back on.

Any other suggestions?