Adwords budget for the unitiated

[James2]

Hopefully this isn't a silly question...

What kind of rough cost brackets should I expect to spend on adwords?

I intend to start slowly with testing etc but is there an amount I should expect to spend to realistically notice a change?

I'm not expecting overnight results but don't want to be spending time and (limited) money on something that I won't be able to either learn from or build on.

[engine]

It depends upon what you're selling/marketing.

If your item is pennies each, you would want to set a relatively low budget. If it's lots of $$, you might be spending $10 per click. In addition, if it's $10 per click, you might even set a budget as low as $10. I know, that's not what you should do if it's $10 per click.

Try to get an idea from your own sales. You might want to start off at 50% of your net sales to give it an initial boost, then drop it to anything from 5 to 15% on a regular basis. It really is up to you.

[briggidere]

It's nearly impossible to answer this questions but I have some clients spending as little as $5 a day and getting a decent return. They are never going to be millionaires at this rate, but they have positive ROI and will eventually increase their budgets as the cash flow builds up.

Adding to engines comments;

You want to be really careful which terms you are going to bid on and stay clear of the 1-2 word more generic phrases, maybe even 3.

Think about the sorts of "action words" (as I like to call them) people might use for your product/service like "buy", "need", "get" etc as these terms usually have a higher conversion rate. This can help get the most out of limited budgets, but doesn't work in all cases.