On Wednesday 4th October, Google notified advertisers (via Twitter…) that campaigns will be able to spend up to twice the average daily budget that has been assigned. Even more disruptive was that they announced this change after it had already happened, giving advertisers no option other than to accept it. Although this change has caused somewhat of an uproar among the advertising community, what Google failed to mention in its tweet is that advertisers won’t be charged more than their monthly charging limit.
After taking a step back (and ignoring that Google has ultimately made a relatively large change without prior warning or consulting anyone), we realise that the concept behind the change actually makes sense. Now, campaigns will be better suited to account for lulls and spikes in daily activity. Plus, to be fair, Google has been doing this already, just on a lower scale: previously campaigns could spend 20% more than the daily budget.
All Response Media Viewpoint
Now that the initial shock of the change has subsided, I am questioning why daily budgeting is still the only option in AdWords. Why, in the wake of this change is there no monthly budgeting option where we can mirror our monthly media plans and allow Google to get as many qualified clicks and conversions as possible? If you think about it, a daily budget is just a limitation. For example, if Sunday was a particularly slow day and our campaign only spent half its budget, we would want the platform to automatically roll that underspend into the rest of the month.
In the aftermath of the update, we have had multiple conversations with our Google representatives to ensure the monthly charging limit remains unchanged. Even though some days will receive higher spend, this over-delivery is balanced by the days where the ad spend is below the average daily budget. With that in mind, we are expecting the performance of AdWords campaigns to improve, with Google delivering more volume against our monthly budget. However, we will be keeping an eye out for any news regarding the abolition of the daily budget altogether!
