Google AdWords can be a great marketing tool. When used properly Google AdWords can drive traffic to your website, and if you've hooked it up to Google Analytics you'll be able to properly track all your conversions, which is key in achieving your goals (unless your goal is to spend money from your limitless budget without any structured outcome, in which case you probably don't need to keep reading).
So Daily Budget, why is it so important?
Your Daily Budget for Google AdWords is the amount that you're willing to spend on a specific AdWords campaign each day. AdWords displays your ads as often as possible (depending on your ad delivery settings) while staying within your daily budget. Typically when this Daily Budget is reached your ads will stop showing for the day, makes sense right? But it's NOT that simple.
For those of you that like to trace down every last dollar, cent, (and AdWords Impression!) you may have noticed Google AdWords going over budget. But how can this be? Surely Google couldn't make such a large error. That's right, I mean if Google was charging you more it's probably because they decided there was a good reason. Maybe they just decided they're so big and powerful they can do whatever they like?
Okay, well for those of you with more trust in Google, or just the ones that thought ahead for some logical reasons for budget discrepancies there's a very obvious answer, Google likes to IGNORE your Daily Budget (Insert gasps from shocked readers here). The fact is Google's AdWords system may devliver up to 20% more ads then you daily budget calls for. The reason is rather simple, it's to help your average daily spend OVER THE MONTH even out. So days where you spend a little more are balancing days where you spent a little less (days where your budget could not be reached, e.g not enough search volume or being outbid etc).
Google AdWords system isn't scary, isn't not mysterious (although many people like to think it is), it's just smart! Google makes sure that in any given billion period you're never charged more than the number of days in the billing period times your daily budget. For example, if you budget US$10 per day, and you're charged for a 30-day billing period, the maximum you would pay is US$300.
For the "offical" low down, checkout the Google Adwords - Daily Budget Support Page.
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