Does Your PPC Management Service Watch the Budget?
April 28, 2008
Controlling your budget is one of the top reasons you employ a PPC management service instead of doing PPC on your own. You just don’t have the time to look into all the different aspects that go into a successful PPC campaign, so you have employed the resources of a PPC management service.
But are they watching your budget?
Google Adwords and Yahoo! are notorious for spending over the daily allocated amounts given to them. In fact, they are so notorious for over-spending, they have a warning listed in their financial section.
At what percentage can Google Adwords and Yahoo! over- spend your money, you ask? These search engines can over- spend your budget each day by 20%. Any reputable and qualified PPC management service will already be aware of the possible overages and will have warned you and adjusted your budget accordingly.
How are your budgets managed in Google Adwords and in Yahoo! or MSN? Each PPC system has a different way to maintain your budget.
For Google Adwords, your budget is set daily at the campaign level. You set the budget and each keyword at a particular price. Your budget automatically includes bids to the content network and is affected by the Quality Score that you receive with each keyword. The Quality Score takes into account a number of different factors to give you placement on the page – in addition to the price that you have bid on the keyword.
Yahoo! budgets can be trickier with your PPC management service. Yahoo! budgets automatically default to not have a daily amount allocated. For this reason, you can easily exceed your budget amounts. Is your PPC management service keeping an eye on your Yahoo! budget carefully?
Controlling budgets is also important for your PPC management service because the daily allocated amount in Google determines when and for how long your ads are run. If you have 20 general keywords set at a high click cost in a campaign, for example, and a low budget, chances are that your ads will only be shown for a short period of time in the morning.
Your PPC management service needs to determine when your ads stop showing. Are you running for most of the day or are you turning off early, losing exposure to a number of qualified visitors? Without a tight control on your budget, your PPC management service could be unintentionally thwarting your paid search efforts.