When setting up a Google Ads campaign spending is one of the biggest factors to consider. This is especially true when those dollars are coming out of your own pocket. So when you set up a budget limit, you expect that Google Ads will take your investment as seriously as you do. There are times though when you’re running a campaign and the daily spend goes over your set limit for a day.
Why Does Overspend Happen?
This overspend is normally attributed to Google Ads’ algorithm that allows it to spend up to 2x of your set daily budget. A year or so ago, that number was only 20% and this was much better, it balances out by 30.4 still, but 2x is causing impressions to be lost on other days. Now, this is speculation but, 2x might be happening for campaigns that are rarely reaching budgets in a day. As this was something I’ve experienced with sluggish campaigns.
How Can I Prevent Overspend?
- If you consistently exceed your budget I recommend lowering bids and cutting back on some of your targeting. This will lower your average CPC and increase the clicks you can buy within your given budget.
- If you don’t want to completely exclude a time of day, day of the week, or geographical region, then bid adjustments may be best for you. You can apply bid adjustments on all the aforementioned targeting layers and on mobile clicks as well.
- Re-evaluating your account altogether can help you a chance to take a look at the bigger picture of your goals. You may find an opportunity to add or remove irrelevant keywords that are costing you a lot, but not helping you reach your goals
- Completing a search query review can help you to find bad keywords that are irrelevant to your business and cost you. Ensure you’re not accidentally bidding on keywords that are too broad or unrelated to your service or product.