Remember that you can set your own budget, so you are in control of how much you spend each month—and you can adjust it at any time. Here are three things to consider when you set your budget:

1 Your Daily Spending Limit

• You can set daily spending limits—the amount you want to spend each day—for your entire account and for each campaign (if you wish). You can estimate your monthly budget to be approximately 30 times your account’s daily spending limit. If you reach your daily spending limit, your ads may stop displaying for the rest of the day and you will be notified with an alert.

2 Account Limit vs. Campaign Limit

• Although you can set your daily spending limit at both the campaign and account levels, the system generally won’t spend more than your account limit*. So make sure your account limit is high enough to cover what you want to spend on all of your campaigns put together.
• Keep in mind that if you add keywords and campaigns, you may want to consider increasing your account daily spending limit, so that you can get the amount of clicks you want for each campaign. If you go over your daily spending limit, your ads may stop showing for the day.

3 How Much Should I Spend?

• There’s really no definitive answer. Like most advertisers, you may start by picking an amount you can afford and see how well it performs over time.
• Don’t spread yourself too thin—pick your most profitable products or services to start with, and focus your budget on them. Start small and expand as appropriate.
• It’s important to look at how often your clicks are turning into sales, and keep it in mind when adjusting your budget. This concept of calculating your return on investment (ROI) or cost per acquisition (CPA) takes a little bit of effort, but the work pays off when you’re spending wisely.

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Figuring out how to set the right bid for your business can be tough. If your bids are too high, you may reach your daily spending limit much faster than you planned. If you set your bid too low, your ad may not get enough clicks.

But don’t panic: We have some best practices to share. Specifically, when setting your bids, we recommend that you…

1.) Consider your daily spending limit.

• Make sure that your bids will not deplete your daily spending limit in just a few clicks.
• Example: If you have a $3 daily spending limit, don’t set your bids at $1 or more.
• Think about the number of keywords that you are bidding on—remember, they share the same account daily spending limits.

2.) Test the waters.

• Start with low bids, watch your account to see what’s working for you, and adjust.
• Remember that it takes time (and patience) to figure out the bid amounts that will generate your desired click volume.
• Consider the value of each keyword. Different keywords have different values—for you and the marketplace.
• Example: A plasma TV is worth more than a TV remote control, so those keywords might warrant very different bids.
• Is a keyword generic or very specific? Specific “niche” keywords can often attract very engaged search users at a low cost.

Tips

• Your bid is the maximum amount that you are willing to pay for a click.
• Your cost-per-click (CPC) is the actual amount you pay for a click, and may be lower than your bid.