Budget (PPC), explained properly.
What is a PPC budget?
In Google Ads, your budget is the maximum amount you set for a campaign to spend per day. Google averages spend over the month, so some days may spend more (up to twice your daily budget) and others less, but you will never be charged more than your monthly spending limit (daily budget multiplied by 30.4).
How budget interacts with bidding
Your budget caps how many auctions you can participate in each day. If your budget runs out mid-afternoon, your ads stop showing. This is called budget-limited status, like a shop that closes at lunchtime. You might be winning all your auctions, but you are missing everyone who comes looking in the afternoon.
How much budget do I need?
It depends on your industry, competition, and target cost per acquisition. A useful starting formula: Budget = Target monthly conversions multiplied by Target CPA. If you want 20 leads at £50 per lead, you need at least £1,000 a month.
Budget allocation across campaigns
Your highest-converting, highest-margin service should typically get the most budget. Our PPC management service reviews budget allocation monthly as part of ongoing optimisation.
How to set campaign budgets
1. **Start with what you can afford to learn from.** Below £20 to £50 a day, conversion volume is usually too low for Smart Bidding to optimise. 2. **Allocate proportional to expected return.** Brand and high-intent campaigns deserve more budget than awareness campaigns. 3. **Reserve test budgets for new campaigns.** Two to four weeks of patient spend during the learning phase, with cautious scaling once results stabilise. 4. **Use shared budgets cautiously.** They simplify management but obscure individual campaign performance.
Common budget mistakes
- Spreading budget across too many campaigns so each starves of data. - Not splitting brand and non-brand into separate campaigns (brand always wins, hiding non-brand underperformance). - Doubling budget overnight (resets Smart Bidding learning). - Cutting budget on profitable campaigns mid-learning (also resets learning).
Budget (PPC): common questions.
Can I spend more than my daily budget?
Yes, up to twice the daily limit on individual days. Google smooths spend over a 30-day window so the daily average stays at or below your set budget. Total monthly spend stays within budget multiplied by 30.4 days.
How do I know if my budget is too small?
Three signals. Search impression share lost to budget over 20 percent. Smart Bidding strategies underperforming because conversion volume is too low. Daily budget exhausting before peak conversion hours. Any of these mean budget is the constraint, not other factors.
Should I use a shared budget across campaigns?
Generally no. Shared budgets make individual campaign performance harder to read because money flows toward whichever campaign Google judges most opportunistic in any moment. Manageable budgets per campaign produce cleaner reporting.
How often should I adjust budgets?
Monthly review for stable accounts. Weekly during active scaling or recovery. Avoid overreacting to single-day fluctuations; budget changes should respond to multi-week trends.
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