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PPC and the Unlimited Budget

play-money.gifDoes your business operate with or without a monthly budget cap? If you’re reaching your max, do you ever wonder how much you’d make if you pushed the limits of your spend? This is just some food for thought on PPC and the unlimited budget.

For one campaign that I ran up until July I had an unlimited budget. For a year and a half, I could spend as much as I wanted, as long as there was a substantial return. I couldn’t buy enough traffic, I was finding myself constantly researching new sources for more traffic. Why? Because I could. If all the money I spent created a significant profit, why stop spending?

How do you guys feel about an unlimited budget? Does your business employ spending limits? Would you buy advertising without a budget cap if it meant continually increasing profits (assuming all campaigns are fully optimized and receiving low or below average CPCs)? I’d like to hear your thoughts on having a budget cap versus unlimited spend.

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18 Comments »

Comment by The Kid
2007-12-05 03:57:18

Why not have an unlimited budget, more spend more dollars sounds good to me. =)

As long as CPC and ROI stays within range then there is no need to have a budget.

Just my 2cents!

 
Comment by Neil Duckett
2007-12-05 05:02:49

If i can spend $1 to make an acceptable profit on that $1 then i`ll do it all day long .. by acceptable i mean it has to be better than bank interest otherwise what`s the point. For me, it then comes down to risk and reward … i`m more than happy to take a risk, invest some decent coin into something if the reward is attractive enough.

Comment by ms danielle
2007-12-05 14:27:41

yes my example is based on exceeding minimum gross margin percentages and not so much taking risks, but expanding proven successful campaigns into new avenues of buying traffic.

 
 
Comment by knupNET
2007-12-05 07:28:49

Danielle,

I have not problem with an unlimited budget if it returns. The problem is figuring out a system that returns :)

I still haven’t mastered PPC/Affiliate marketing techniques.

Comment by ms danielle
2007-12-05 14:28:43

i agree one of the hardest parts of affiliate marketing is finding that winning product.

 
 
Comment by Jez
2007-12-05 12:23:58

I havent done any ppc yet, and I dont have much of a budget to start off with, but if I were able to see ppc converting and knew it was making money id buy a load on the plastic… short of your afilliate going bust / errors in their stats followed by an apology I dont see how you could lose…

Comment by ms danielle
2007-12-05 14:33:24

once you get your campaign up and running you may need to spend a significant amount before you realize your true visitor $value$. then you just tweak and scale back spending where it’s excessive or underperforming and your cpa will drop. good luck!

 
 
Comment by Darin Carter
2007-12-06 00:12:09

We all wish we could have unlimited budget … however honestly if you can make the campaign perform … I really don’t think any wise business owner will put a budget … it takes money to make money … so more money = more money = more money … you get my drift!

Darin

 
Comment by VP
2007-12-06 03:29:54

I do not think that keeping an unlimited budget is a good idea. I do not mean to say that you should reduce your budget or keep it very low. I am against the fact of choosing an ‘Unlimited’ budget….based on the following reason - “We have so many search engines who have multiple crawlers. If your Ad got stuck with any of the crawler, your budget will shoot up (to any given value) especially if you are a small business, you will be in a mess”.

I think; that you should try to optimize your campaign and Ads and try on hitting a greater conversion ratio when your Ad gets shown. As you keep on climbing the ladder of getting conversions…..keep on increasing your budget value and then after sometime, you will be able to come to a threshold on any Ad Network.

Again, we should not be oblivious of the fact that the Budget threshold can be different for different Ad Networks depending on your Ad Slot available, your optimization Level, Ad Inventory of the Ad Network, Advertiser who you compete with and last but not the least the Crawlers traveling through the sites where your Ads are being shown.

Have a nice time advertising…………..watch your budget :-)

- VP

 
Comment by Forest Parks Subscribed to comments via email
2007-12-06 18:59:40

I just opened a new forum and am doing an adwords campaign. I have had visitors but no one signing up and no Adsense clicks!!

Do you have any tips for making it work for me?

 
Comment by Gyutae Park
2007-12-06 19:49:31

A budget cap is basically just a safety net to minimize risk as much as possible. You can always up the budget if you feel like you can afford to and I think this makes more sense. What if you didn’t set a maximum budget, left the computer for a day, and then came back to find that you spent your life savings with little conversions? It’s an extreme scenario but it’s what a budget prevents.

I like the compare it to eating out at a buffet. There’s a ton of great food on the table, but you still have to set limits for yourself. Of course you want to get your money’s worth and eat as much as possible but without limits you’ll probably just eat yourself to death.

Comment by msdanielle
2007-12-06 23:07:44

to clarify, I didn’t mean unlimited daily budget. all of my campaigns had daily budgets, and i would cap them at the “sweet spot.” they can always be revisited and adjusted. i was thinking more along the lines of expanding the traffic sources etc. i totally agree, i would not leave my daily budget at some exorbitant level that i hadn’t yet reached. thanks!

 
 
Comment by VP
2007-12-07 02:00:27

1. That is a great information stuff…thanks a lot for sending this out all the Parts…of Google Content Network Tips
2. I agree that the bloggers can get personal…and that is how we get to know personal stuff…why not share it……it may be useful to few people….and also add value at times :-)…but yes they should know where to draw the line…..and stay behind

 
Comment by great008
2007-12-08 17:52:57

i say push it to the limit baby!!

 
2007-12-09 11:49:48

One of my clients just indicated that they wanted to go unlimited from January. To be honest I was not keen at all (more to do with managing a much bigger budget for only a small increase in my fees). I guess I’m quite conservative as well, I prefer to know what I’m spending before I spend it.

 
Comment by Zac Johnson
2007-12-10 14:51:51

What’s really upsetting is to have an unlimited budget on your end, but the backend offer you are promoting doesn’t! You run the offer at max speed, then are told it’s coming down because they are getting leads too fast or have to re-evaluate their numbers!

 
2007-12-12 08:21:48

It´s good to have a monthly budget.The marketing strategies I use are very cheap.Writing articles and submitting them takes time but it is cheap and brings results.

 
2007-12-12 21:51:28

I guess, we should increase the budget as we go along, as long as we are tracking our numbers accurately, increasing budget should not be any problem at all.

 
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