To run your ads on Google, you'll need to decide on the right budget and bidding options. Your daily budget establishes a charging limit for an individual campaign, so it should be the average amount you'd be comfortable spending per day (or seeing on your monthly credit card bill if you multiplied your budget by 30.4, the average number of days in a month). Your actual costs may be lower, depending on how you manage your bids.
Your maximum cost-per-click bid (max. CPC bid) is the most you're willing to pay for a click on your ad. By managing your bids, you may influence the amount of traffic your ads receive, as well as the return on investment (ROI) they generate. With higher bids, your campaign is likely to receive more traffic, although you'll likely spend more money. With lower bids, your campaign is likely to receive fewer clicks and conversions.
This article explains how your Google Ads campaign budget works, discusses different bidding options, and explains the steps you’ll need to take to set your bid and budget in a new campaign.
How Google Ads campaign budgets work
Your budget amount is for a single campaign (as opposed to a total amount across all your campaigns), and it represents the average amount you're willing to spend per day in that campaign. If you want to check your average daily budget across all campaigns, you can use the "Budget" column on the Campaigns page. If you prefer thinking of your budget in monthly terms rather than in daily terms, you can calculate your monthly budget by multiplying your average daily budget by 30.4 (the average number of days per month).
Tips
- If you're a beginner, try a daily budget of US$10 to US$50. Check your account daily after applying a new budget to see how your campaigns have performed.
Overdelivery
Because traffic fluctuates from day to day, Google may allow your campaign to spend up to 2 times more in one day than your average daily budget specifies. Learn more about overdelivery on Google Ads.
However, Google’s system makes sure that in a given billing period, you're never charged more than 30.4 multiplied by your daily budget amount. For example, if you budget US$10 per day, the maximum you would pay is US$304.
If Google shows your ads too often and your costs for the month end up exceeding what you should have paid in a month given the daily budget you've set, an overdelivery credit will automatically be applied to your account. For instance, if your monthly charging limit is US$304, and you've accrued US$310 in costs in a given billing period, you'll receive a credit for US$6 and only be charged US$304.
Tip: View your recommended budget
Are your campaigns using up all of your budget? Your budget settings include the option to View recommended budget, which is based on analysis of your campaign performance, typically from the past 15 days.
How Google Ads bidding works
When many people think of an auction, they often think of a prize being sold for the highest bid. But Google’s ad auction uses both quality and bid to determine your ad's position. So even if your competition bids higher than you, you can still win a higher position—at a lower price—with highly relevant keywords and ads. You'll often pay less than your maximum bid because you'll only pay what's minimally required to hold your ad position and any ad formats shown with your ad, such as sitelinks. The amount you pay is called your actual CPC.
There are many ways to set your bids, including automated bid strategies.
Search Ads 360 bid strategies and some bid-strategy related components such as data-sharing, will be available only after your account has been migrated to the new Search Ads 360. Learn more about how to upgrade your bid strategies to the new Search Ads 360.
Check the Experience hub to stay up to date on your available features, including bidding.
Bid adjustments
You can set bid adjustments that increase or decrease your bids when your ad is competing to appear on mobile devices, in specific locations, and at particular days and times. Bid adjustments can give you more control over when and where your ad appears, and are applied on top of your existing bids. You can also customize your bid strategy by setting multiple adjustments that work together, such as location and time of day, or time of day and mobile devices. Learn more About bid adjustments in Google Ads.
Instructions
- Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
- Navigate to a Google Ads account.
- Click Campaigns in the page menu.
- Click the plus button
, then select New campaign.
- Select one or more goals for your campaign, or if none of the goals fit what you’re looking for, select Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance.
- If this step doesn’t reflect what you’re seeing in your account, select a campaign type first then select a goal.
- Select a campaign type and choose any relevant settings. Learn About Google Ads campaign types.
- Click Continue.
- Select your campaign settings. Learn about each setting.
- Scroll to the “Budget and bidding” section and enter an individual daily budget. To apply a shared budget, click Apply from Shared library and then select the shared budget you wish to use.
- Finish choosing your other campaign settings and click Save and continue.
, then select New campaign.