Managing Your adCenter PPC Budget Effectively

As a Search Media Strategist, I often get asked questions relating to why an account has gone offline. The reason can often be attributed to campaign budget running out.

Hopefully, this post will highlight some of the budget management options available to advertisers and how to spot the difference between a manual pause and a budget pause.

There are several different methods of controlling your spend in adCenter (aside from keyword bids). They all have their individual benefits and provide the user with flexibility.

1. Accounts & Billing Tab

On the Accounts & Billing tab you can view a summary or all your accounts and their status. 

Typically adCenter will not spend any more than the agreed credit limit/IO each month, but should overspending occur, you will not be responsible for the overage amount. Once this limit has been reached, the status column in the Accounts & Billing/Account List tab will change from ‘Active’ to ‘Paused’, this is a system pause and not an actively chosen status:

Be aware that your Campaign status in the Campaigns tab will not change from ‘Active’ to ‘Paused’, however, your account is now offline!

2. Campaign Tab

On the campaign tab you can set your budgets at campaign level and ad group level;

A. Monthly Budget – This budget is set at Campaign Level and affects all subsequent ad groups.

- Divide across the month - As the title suggests, this option tries to ensure that your budget will last throughout the month.  For example, if you have $3,100 to spend during the month of January, on average, our system will spend $100 each day. 

- Spend until Depleted. This option will help you maximise the number of impressions available on the network by displaying ads 100% of the time until your budget runs out.

Which should you use?

This will depend upon your account goals. If the goal of a specific account is to maximise brand awareness with as many impressions and clicks as possible, the ‘Spend until Depleted’ option will guarantee your ad will always show against the search query even with seasonal spikes.

If your budget is not sufficient to serve for an entire month, ‘Divide across the Month’ ensures your budget is not spent within the first few days and tries to prolong the budget for the whole month.

B - Daily Budget – Daily budget can be used in conjunction with a monthly budget setting and allows you to cap the amount of spend your ad Group will receive on a daily basis. This should be treated as a guide and as such may go slightly over or under budget; your monthly budget setting however will not be overspent.

Note: If your daily and/or monthly account budget limit is reached, this will be displayed as ‘Budget Pause’ at a Campaign level (on the Campaigns Tab);

If your daily budget is reached in a given day, the campaign will remain paused until the next day where the daily budget will reset and start again.

3. Reports Tab

- Different types of budget reports allow you to understand and analyse how budget is being spent in adCenter. The ‘Budget Summary’ report below summarises monthly budget amount, daily spend by campaign, as well as stating the average participation rate.

The right-hand column displays the average participation rate for the campaign;

Using the above tools and tips above not only allows you to control the way your budget is being spent, but also helps you analyse and understand how your current settings affect the amount of traffic being delivered to your account.

Regards,

Paulo