Google ads: how to manage your budget well and successfully set appropriate bids in 2022?

Google Ads is today a tool that gives you the possibility of having no limits. Thanks to it you can reach anyone in the world to sell your products or services. In addition, Google Ads allows you to significantly improve the traffic on your website and therefore your conversion rates. 

To achieve this, all you need is one thing, make your ad as relevant as possible for your potential customers, that is to say, choose your keywords carefully, write your Google Ads ad perfectly in order to attract your potential customers to click on your advertisement, but also to meticulously manage your budget for your Google Ads campaigns and your “bids” or auctions for your online advertisements. 

This is why, as a web marketing agency , we are going to give you some advice and steps to follow, which we usually give to our clients in order to optimize their Google Ads marketing campaigns as much as possible. Let's start directly with the first tip. 

Contents

• Define your “bid” and budget for your Google Ads campaign
• How Google Ads campaign budgets work 
• Excessive impressions
• How “bids” or auctions work on Google Ads
• Maximized clicks or manual CPC bidding
• Bid adjustment
• Instructions for creating your bid strategy 

Define your “bid” and budget for your Google Ads campaign

In order to be able to display your ads on Google Ads, you need to choose a specific budget and “bid” options so that you don't spend all your budget on Google Ads that don't earn you enough. Your budget will allow you to determine a limit, and Google Ads will not be able to charge you above this limit during your campaigns. This is why you must set up a budget that is reasonable according to your means and your needs. It depends on how you manage your “bids” but it is possible that the amounts you have set are significantly higher than the actual costs of these.

Tip: In order to get your monthly budget, you just need to multiply your daily budget by 30.4 (average number of days in a month) because Google Ads will calculate your daily budget.

In addition, there is the “bid” at the maximum cost per click, this corresponds to the maximum amount you are willing to put when a potential customer clicks on your Google Ads ad. 

The goal of managing your bids properly is that you will have the opportunity to influence the amount of traffic your site will receive as well as your return on investment (ROI) which is generated by the appearance of your ads. Google Ads in search results. 

By offering higher bids, you are likely to gain more traffic to your Google Ads campaign, even though you will likely spend more money. On the contrary, when you choose to put lower “bids”, you will get fewer clicks on your online advertisements and therefore fewer conversions on your websites.

How Google Ads campaign budgets work

On Google Ads, it is possible for you to set up an average daily budget or to share a budget for an online advertising campaign. In addition, if you want to check your average daily budget for all of your online advertising campaigns, Google Ads gives you this information, just go to the “budget” column of the “Campaigns” tab. If you want to know your monthly budget instead, we bring you back to the little tip that we advised you just above. 

Tip: Start small

When you are new to Google Ads, we recommend an average budget between $10 and $50. Start by analyzing the results of your online advertising campaigns by reviewing them each week after setting a new budget. 

It is of course possible to share your budget with the amount you are willing to spend, all spread over several Google Ads campaigns. We are going to give you a concrete example so that it is easier for you to visualize this method: 

Example

You have a daily budget of $100 which is split equally between 2 Google Ads campaigns. Let's imagine that one day an online advertising campaign receives fewer impressions (less visible in search results) and fewer clicks than usual. On this Google Ads campaign you only spend $40, so it will be possible for you, with Google Ads, to use these remaining $10 and place them on the second online advertising campaign in order to optimize your overall performance. 

These shared budgets are particularly useful during seasonal campaigns because they will allow you to be divided for specific holidays such as New Year's Day, Valentine's Day or Christmas . A budget for these online advertising campaigns identifies them with a different objective than the other campaigns. This will allow you to cap your spend on all those specific Google Ads campaigns. You can access shared budgets in the shared library in your Google Ads account.

Excessive impressions

Knowing that on the Internet, the number of searches can be completely different every other day. Google may allow your daily spend to exceed your average daily budget for a given online advertising campaign. This is what is called excessive impressions. 

However, Google Ads never allows itself to exceed twice your average daily budget on any given day. Your costs will always remain below your monthly budget. Let's say your monthly budget limit is $304 and the sum of costs is $310 over a period of time, only $304 will be charged. To see all of these adjustments, simply go to the Transaction History tab.

Tip: Show recommended budget

Are your online advertising campaigns using up your entire budget?
Your budget settings include the Show recommended budget option, which is based on analysis of your Google ads campaign performance, usually over the past 15 days.

How “bids” or auctions work on Google Ads

Unlike everyday auctions, on Google Ads, the competition for ads is based on 2 criteria: the quality and the price of the “bid”. These two criteria determine the position of your Google Ads ad, so even if your competitors set a higher “bid” than yours, if the relevance of their keywords and their ad is not as important as yours, you will stay ahead of them. This is why you will often pay less than your maximum bid, because the maximum you pay is actually the minimum required to maintain your ad position. The amount you pay is called the actual CPC. 

As a marketing agency, we offer 2 techniques that we particularly recommend to our clients. The maximize clicks strategy or the manual CPC bidding system. We will detail these 2 techniques in the next part of this article, but if you want to learn more, there are a multitude of automatic bidding strategies that you can find here .

Maximized Clicks or Manual CPC Bidding

If you choose to use click logging instead to drive traffic to your website, we recommend using one of these two cost-per-click bidding strategies for your Google Ads campaign:

1 - Maximize clicks: this is the simplest strategy, once your average daily budget has been defined, the Google Ads system will automatically manage your "bids" to allow you to generate the greatest number of clicks possible, while respecting your budget of course. 

2- The manual CPC bidding system: This strategy allows you to manage the maximum CPC bids. That is, you can set different bids for each of your Google Ads campaign ad groups or specific keywords and placements. If you find that certain keywords or positions are more profitable, you can use manual bidding to place more of your advertising budget there. 

Tip: Estimate keyword traffic

We are now going to tell you about the keyword planner tool offered by Google, because it allows you to obtain an estimate of your traffic. These estimates can therefore also help you define your “bids” and your budgets on Google Ads. This tool will allow you to get an idea of a sample of relevant keywords related to your Google Ads ad and your domain. 

Bid adjustment

It is possible with Google Ads, to define bid adjustments in order to increase or decrease them. For example, if your Google Ads ad is competing with others to show on mobile devices, certain locations, or on certain days or times of day. These adjustments will therefore allow you to control certain specific elements. It is also possible to customize your bidding strategy very specifically so that, for example, your Google Ads ad appears only in a particular geographical area and at a specific time of day; all exclusively on mobile devices. 

Instructions for creating your bid strategy 

1. Log in to your Google Ads account .
2. Click Campaigns in the page menu.
3. Click the Plus (+ ) button, then select New Campaign. 
4. Select the type of campaign you want to create.
5. (Optional) Set a campaign objective and enter your company's website URL.
6. Scroll down the 'Select campaign settings' page to the 'Bidding' section, then select a bid strategy.
7. Scroll down to the "Daily Budget" section. Here, you can either specify an individual budget amount or use a shared budget.
8. Set the other parameters for your campaign, then click Save & Continue.

If you have reached this point, then you are ready to embark on a new auction strategy on Google Ads as well as you set a reasonable and optimal budget to have a more than positive return on your investments.

Moreover, if you would like to know more about the subject or wish to improve your marketing campaigns, do not hesitate to consult this service page or simply contact us for a free consultation and personalized support for your needs and your budget. 

We are an agency specialized in marketing and we have been helping entrepreneurs and companies for more than 10 years to succeed in their digital transformation and to increase their conversion rates. 

See you soon for a next article.