Earlier this month, Google announced a new Shared Budgets feature for AdWords campaigns. This new feature basically means that, instead of having a separate daily budget for each of your AdWords campaigns, you can specify a daily budget to be split over several campaigns.
The idea behind this is that, if you have one campaign that’s constantly using its daily budget, but you have other campaigns that are not reaching theirs, you can allow the spend to be spread across these campaigns, meaning that your daily spend is likely to be more consistent as Google allocates the spend where it is needed. This will ensure that you get the maximum number of clicks for your money.
Setting up Shared Budgets
To set up your Shared Budgets in AdWords:
- Login to your account, and click on “Shared Library” in the menu on the far left, then click “Budgets”.
- Click on the +New Budget button above the table.
- Give your new Shared Budget a name.
- Select the campaigns you wish to apply your Shared Budget to.
- Designate the amount you’d like to spend per day.
- Set ad delivery options (standard or accelerated).
- Click Save.
If you wish to then apply the Shared Budget, head over to the settings tab, and scroll down to “Bidding and budget”. Click Edit, then select the radio button next to “Apply a budget from the shared library”. Click Save.
N.B. If you decide to switch to the shared budget in the middle of the day, beware. Anything you have spent so far that day will NOT be taken into account. The shared budget will start as though you have not spent anything that day.
Shared Budgets – pros and cons
It’s easy to set up, and there are benefits to the new feature, but as with a lot of things Google these days, it’s easy to see this as a bit of a money-making exercise, ensuring you spend every penny you possibly can.
Whilst it’s aimed at adjusting your spend as needed, to benefit high-spending campaigns, it would be potentially very costly to group a very high-spend campaign with one that does not spend quite so much, Otherwise, you risk drowning out your smaller campaign. So if you do decide to use this feature, make sure it’s across campaigns with similar spends and objectives.
On the other hand, if it helps you get a better performance out of your campaigns, any additional spend is probably worth it.
What do you think? Useful feature for managing account spend, or potential moneypit?
Further reading:
7 Quick Tips: AdWords on a small budget
A Brief Guide to AdWords Conversion Optimiser
