Grow your business by advertising on bing, MSN, Xbox, and more!
Often times, the Microsoft Advertising service teams receive feedback from advertisers that Bing converts well, however, they wish they could increase click volume to further increase success. While keyword expansions are a great way to achieve this, Microsoft adCenter offers three campaign budget options that affect how often your ad is displayed. Campaign budget amounts and settings are just as important as ad copy performance and keyword bidding. If your campaign budgets are low or prorated, your ads may not serve. The same methodology applies to ad copy and keyword performance. if performance is low compared to other advertisers, your ads may not show on the search engine results pages.
The three campaign budget setting options adCenter offers are divide budget across month, spend until depleted and daily budgets per day. The following explanation of budget settings is directly from adCenter's help files, which can be found at help.live.com. Budget per month: Divide budget across the month
This option automatically adjusts your budget as the month goes on. When you select the "Divide budget across the month" option, adCenter estimates how many impressions (an ad that is served to and displayed on a user's browser) can occur when dividing your budget throughout the month. This option might reduce the chance that your budget will be depleted before the end of the day or the month, and that your campaigns will be automatically paused.
How adCenter adjusts the budget
The adjusted budget for your campaign is calculated by dividing the remaining monthly balance by the number of days remaining in the month. If the adjusted budget limit for your campaign is met, all ad groups in the campaign are paused at about 105 percent of the day's budget, and ads in the campaign do not appear until the next day. This doesn't occur on a scheduled basis, and is subject to a processing delay of up to a few hours at the end of each day. To divide your campaign budget more evenly across the month, adCenter might not be able to run your ads on every search results page. For example, if your campaign has a low monthly budget and you have high keyword bids, adCenter might display your ads only a few times throughout the day. As the end of the month approaches, delivery of your ads on Bing results pages might slow even more. Reach the monthly limit? When you select the Divide budget across the month option, it's still possible to deplete your campaign monthly budget before the end of the month and cause the campaign to be paused. For example, your campaign might be paused if the monthly budget is set too low for traffic generated by your keywords. It is possible for your monthly spend to exceed your monthly budget. If such an overspend occurs, adCenter will typically credit the amount overspent to you. However, if adCenter automatically pauses your campaign (Budget Paused status) and you respond by increasing your monthly budget, you will not receive a credit. How incremental bids can affect budget estimates If you have set incremental bids for specific days, times, or geographical locations, your actual campaign spend could be less than the estimates shown on the Pricing page.
The adjusted budget for your campaign is calculated by dividing the remaining monthly balance by the number of days remaining in the month. If the adjusted budget limit for your campaign is met, all ad groups in the campaign are paused at about 105 percent of the day's budget, and ads in the campaign do not appear until the next day. This doesn't occur on a scheduled basis, and is subject to a processing delay of up to a few hours at the end of each day.
To divide your campaign budget more evenly across the month, adCenter might not be able to run your ads on every search results page. For example, if your campaign has a low monthly budget and you have high keyword bids, adCenter might display your ads only a few times throughout the day. As the end of the month approaches, delivery of your ads on Bing results pages might slow even more.
Reach the monthly limit?
When you select the Divide budget across the month option, it's still possible to deplete your campaign monthly budget before the end of the month and cause the campaign to be paused. For example, your campaign might be paused if the monthly budget is set too low for traffic generated by your keywords.
It is possible for your monthly spend to exceed your monthly budget. If such an overspend occurs, adCenter will typically credit the amount overspent to you. However, if adCenter automatically pauses your campaign (Budget Paused status) and you respond by increasing your monthly budget, you will not receive a credit.
How incremental bids can affect budget estimates
If you have set incremental bids for specific days, times, or geographical locations, your actual campaign spend could be less than the estimates shown on the Pricing page.
Budget per month: Spend budget until depleted
When you select this option, adCenter does not adjust the budget or set a daily cap.
Does adCenter prorate your budget? No. Microsoft adCenter does not prorate your budget. For example, if you set up a budget for $1,000.00 halfway through the month, your campaign will run until spending for the month reaches $1,000.00. Reach the monthly limit? If you reach your monthly budget limit for a campaign before the end of the calendar month, all ad groups in the campaign are paused (Budget Paused status), and ads associated with the ad groups in the campaign are no longer displayed. You can increase your monthly budget and resume the campaign. If you don't resume the campaign in Budget Paused status, the campaign automatically restarts at the beginning of the next calendar month. If you want your ads to continue running despite budget constraints, you can increase your campaign monthly budget amount.
Does adCenter prorate your budget?
No. Microsoft adCenter does not prorate your budget. For example, if you set up a budget for $1,000.00 halfway through the month, your campaign will run until spending for the month reaches $1,000.00.
If you reach your monthly budget limit for a campaign before the end of the calendar month, all ad groups in the campaign are paused (Budget Paused status), and ads associated with the ad groups in the campaign are no longer displayed. You can increase your monthly budget and resume the campaign.
If you don't resume the campaign in Budget Paused status, the campaign automatically restarts at the beginning of the next calendar month.
If you want your ads to continue running despite budget constraints, you can increase your campaign monthly budget amount.
Budget per day
With the budget per day option, you set the maximum you want to spend on a daily basis, in addition to a monthly budget limit. Please note that the daily budget is a target. The actual daily spend could be higher or lower than the daily budget, but you will not be charged in excess of the monthly budget you set.
You may want to use this option when you plan on adjusting your budget frequently to take advantage of changing market conditions, such as a holiday season or special promotion.
Reach the daily limit? If you reach about 105 percent of your budget per day amount before the end of the day, all ad groups in the campaign are paused (Budget Paused status), and ads associated with the ad groups in the campaign are no longer displayed. As long as you haven't yet reached your monthly budget limit, your campaign will resume at the start of the next day. Reach the monthly limit? If you reach your campaign monthly budget limit before the end of the calendar month, all ad groups in the campaign are paused (Budget Paused status), and ads associated with those ad groups are no longer displayed. You can increase your monthly budget, which will resume the campaign. If you don't increase your budget, the campaign automatically resumes at the start of the next calendar month. It is possible for your monthly spend to exceed your monthly budget. If such an overspend occurs, adCenter will typically credit the amount overspent to you. However, if adCenter automatically pauses your campaign (Budget Paused status) and you respond by increasing your monthly budget, you will not receive a credit.
Reach the daily limit?
If you reach about 105 percent of your budget per day amount before the end of the day, all ad groups in the campaign are paused (Budget Paused status), and ads associated with the ad groups in the campaign are no longer displayed. As long as you haven't yet reached your monthly budget limit, your campaign will resume at the start of the next day.
If you reach your campaign monthly budget limit before the end of the calendar month, all ad groups in the campaign are paused (Budget Paused status), and ads associated with those ad groups are no longer displayed. You can increase your monthly budget, which will resume the campaign. If you don't increase your budget, the campaign automatically resumes at the start of the next calendar month.
When setting up new campaigns, especially through a third party tool provider, campaigns typically will default to the "divide budget across month" option. This can possibly prorate your ad delivery, resulting in lost opportunity to increase impression and click volume. The "spend until depleted" option ensures your ads are delivering as frequently as possible given that performance is strong. From personally working with advertisers who have tested campaign settings, the "spend until depleted" setting option typically can increase impression volume anywhere from 15%-45% depending upon your keywords, bids, performance and campaign budgets. Your campaign budget settings can be found in the adCenter UI, by clicking Change Settings next to the campaign name (screenshot below).
You can also use the adCenter Desktop to check and edit the campaign budget settings. There are a number of methods to check budget settings in the Desktop UI including pulling an account export or enabling the view campaign budget setting option in the Desktop UI Manager by clicking columns, followed by enabling budget type:
Method One (Export):
Method Two (Edit View in Manager):
When testing settings, I recommend testing 1-2 strong performing campaigns at a time to closely monitor budgets and performance. If your ads are not delivering while on spend until depleted, I recommend reading the following article, "About Finding your Ad in Text Results" which includes a checklist for troubleshooting. Happy testing!
Sign in to adCenter | Need an account? Sign up now
Share your thoughts in the forums | Follow us on Twitter | Become a fan on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @adCenter & @MSAdvertising | Find us on Facebook and YouTube | Share your thoughts and ask questions in the Forums | Subscribe to the adCenter Blog