Think Google’s New Ad Budget is bad? Wait until you see what’s coming next..
You may have logged into your AdWords account recently to find that, moving forwards, Google will effectively take some liberties with your AdWords budget, making it possible to spend DOUBLE your daily budget, with this message visible in AdWords accounts:
Yep, Google can now increase your daily spend by up to twice it’s set level (the previous system allowed up to 10% overspend) to ‘help you reach your advertising goals’.
Jamie, our PPC specialist had the following to say:
“Whilst I understand Google’s reasoning for the change, I think they’ve failed to understand the difficult position this can put marketers in – particularly agencies – when it comes to having to explain to clients why accounts have wildly overspent on particular days. Budgets are set for good reason. If this change leads to advertisers overspending early in a month and missing out on leads later on, it’s a terrible decision, but if Google is really smart enough to know when demand will be highest and lowest and adjust budget accordingly, this could be useful – provided that it is easy enough to get clients to buy into it.”
I reached out to Google to clarify what happens if you change your campaign budgets in response to an overspend, and they said that once a budget is changed, “it will act in accordance with the new budget you enter. For example once you change budget in the middle of the month then it will then go off the new amount and can over spend.” So, if you have a daily overspend, the advice is to not panic and cut budgets, as this may actually lead to a monthly overspend if left unchecked. Thanks, Google.”
In a shock update to this story, another atom employee believes they have inside information* about other adwords features coming soon…
Starting on 31 October 2017: campaigns will be able to spend up to twice the average monthly budget to help you to help us make more revenue. This is our brand new AdWords ScarySpend™ method of budget management which will help keep your control low, and your account team’s pulse high.
Starting on 5 November 2017: you will pay for any clicks on any keywords that you currently bid on – or have ever bid on in the past. You will also pay for clicks on these keywords on PPC competitors’ ads. This is our brand new AdWords BonfireSpend™ method of improving the explosive reach of your campaigns.
Starting on 25 December 2017: you will be charged for any searches performed by users who we think meant to click on your ads – whether or not they actually see or click your ad. This AdWords ScroogeSpend™ feature is a way of giving ourselves a Christmas present to ourselves on your behalf. Thanks in advance!
Starting on 1 April 2018: you will be charged when a user simply thinks of a keyword that may or may not be in your AdWords account. We will be rolling out this feature to every AdWords account that is active or inactive. We will also charge everyone who has never had an AdWords account. Why should you pay more than anyone else when somebody thinks of a keyword? We don’t think you should. That’s why everyone will pay for everything. Look out for AdWords TelekinesisSpend™ on April 1st. You’d be a fool not to like it.
Late 2018: we’ll be throwing away all these features and simply debiting your bank account for its full amount every month. This is our new AdWords EverythingSpend™ feature and we won’t need a product after this.
Frankly, nothing would surprise us 🙂
*We don’t actually have inside information on this, but we do have a wealth of experience managing PPC for clients across a range of sectors. Get in touch to find out what we can do for you.
