In a recent update this past month, Google quietly announced the ability to not only exceed your average daily budget but exceed it by possibly 2 times your average daily budget. This compared to the old standard, which allowed AdWords to exceed your average daily budget by up to 20%. This new system is ultimately meant to maximize ad revenues and get you as much traction on peak days, while also reducing spend on the less busy days. Of course, this update comes with both its ups and downs.
What This Could Mean for Advertisers:
Overdelivery and Monthly Charges
- (Pro) Although you could be charged up to 2 times your average daily budget, AdWords won’t charge you more than your monthly charging limit (30.4 days).
- (Con) The monthly charging limit only applies if your daily budget does not change over the course of the month. Any budget change will thus make you ineligible for a credit back to your account for any overages, but would still hold to the 2 times daily limit.
Monitoring and Control
- (Pro) Reassurance that although internet traffic may rise and fall, at the end of the month you will still hit your expected spending target.
- (Con) This change will certainly warrant an increase in monitoring, especially for campaigns that are more short-term or if you make changes to your daily budget.
Tips for Advertisers Moving Forward:
- Keep a close eye on your campaigns in the next few weeks, as the way in which your campaigns are paced and budgeted may change and require some adjustments.
- Be prepared to explain the high or low peaks that your clients may be seeing and how this will ultimately level out come the end of the month.
- And finally, in addition to your own testing and analysis, keep an eye out what others have seen so far with this change and what to look out for.