I've had my campaign capped at $500/day for the last 6 months, which it has hit every single day (not sure by when). I have decided to expand my operations, and now want as much traffic as I can get. The "recommended" budget figure is $1,490/day.
Now, after speaking with several Google reps and reading lots of threads here, I have a pretty good idea on how this number is generated, and what can skew it.
FOr instance, I have little or no keywords with lots of impressions and a low CTR (one thing that can skew this number). My average CTR is over 2%, so I don't think that's it either. Don't have a big problem with negative keywords, since I only use city names (for which I'll take every impression I can get).
Problem is, when I jacked up the budget to $1200/day, I'm getting more like $615/day in traffic.
The people at Google tell me that the budget number, at least in my circumstance, should be pretty sound, but that there's a certain algorithm at play in Adwords' machinery that won't allow an account to jump from $500/day to $1200/day IMMEDIATELY. The rep I spoke with told me that I would see my daily spend gradually rise over about a 30 day span to eventually meet my new budget number.
MY QUESTIONS IS:
Does anyone agree or disagree with the 30 day/gradual rise/etc. assessment, and why? Should I honestly expect to be spending that much soon, or is the budget algo blowing smoke up my butt?
Considering how dang much money I'm trying to spend, you'd think I'd get more solid answers, but hey, that's what I'm here for!
Much thanks!
it was on £250 per day and i upped it to £2500.
the budget calculator said £750 was about right, but i chose to ignore it and see what we could spend.
we spent £1600 the next day, so the estimator is not quite right. It will allow a certain jump. Saying that, i have a good feeling there weren't enough searches for us to achieve the whole £2500 per day.
For the accounts for which I want to deliver absolute non-stop traffic, I at least double or even triple the Google estimated budget in order to keep them going. They almost never hit those inflated budgets.
But then, of course, I have to be able to deal with it if something happens and I *do* hit those numbers - as long as the results (usually sales but not always) are there, the clients are okay with it. I also have to keep an eye on it pretty steadily to make sure that it *is* paying for itself.
Ads always show though...
Does anyone agree or disagree with the 30 day/gradual rise/etc. assessment, and why?
This would be news to me, chornbeck. I'll look into it in case things changed while I was on vacation and no one told me ;). I'd say with 98% certainty, though, that this is not the case.
Problem is, when I jacked up the budget to $1200/day, I'm getting more like $615/day in traffic.
This may or may not apply to your case - but as a principle, on any given set of keywords, there is a certain amount of traffic available (as briggidere pointed out) - and just increasing one's budget will not actually increase that amount of traffic if the previous budget already covered it.
Expanding one's keyword list, on the other hand, would have the effect of increasing the number of available impressions. So expanding your keyword list(s) to include additional targeted keywords may be worth considering.
AWA
In using a 3rd party to track % of the time i showed up for my keywords, ie number of impressions i actually got that i was eligible for, if i set the Daily Budget at Adwords suggested amount, i only got 80 to 95% of the impressions i was eligible for.
Why?
Adwords guesses how many times they should show my ads to hit my budget based on standard and/or actual CTR and my bid price and my Quality Score.
So when I don't show up, Google gets to show my competitors' ads, probably make more money because nobody has the CTR and Quality Score I've been able to attain ;), all in the name of "not exceeding my budget".
Do not do this.
My ideal: show up for 100% of the impressions i am eligible for by setting the Daily Budget at something ridiculous like 9,999 or 5,000 or whatever the monthly budget is (this is nice because then the number is right there in the interface), track results, allocate my budget accordingly, or better yet, skip the budget and spend all the money I can up to a predetermined Cost Per Conversion.
On the surface, the Daily Budget feels nice and comfy and might help me sleep better. In reality, it penalizes me with fewer impressions and an overall higher CPC.
