How Quickly Can I Increase My Budget Without Throwing Off My Results?

Today’s question is from Lisa, and it was sent through email. She says:

“Hi Kyle. I’ve been told that increasing a budget more than 20% is never a great idea as it can jolt the campaign and throw it into a learning mode.

I have a client that wants to double their budget. If the aforementioned is accurate, what is the best approach for doubling the budget? Increase 20% every few days until the desired budget is reached?”

Thanks for the question, Lisa.

You’re right that increasing a budget too quickly can throw a campaign out of whack.

But let me first say that doesn’t happen with all types of campaigns. It really can only happen if you’re using some type of automated bidding. 

It really doesn’t matter if you were to increase your budget if:

1. You’re running manual campaigns where you’re bidding cost per click.
2. You are bidding on YouTube, if you’re bidding cost per view.

Doubling or tripling the budget is not going to throw anything off, because you’re already telling Google that “I’m going to pay a maximum of x per click, or x per view”. So if suddenly your budget increases, you’re still just going to be paying a maximum of “x” per click “x” preview. There wasn’t already any type of artificial intelligence at work from Google.

So if that’s the case, don’t worry about it, go ahead and increase the budget. 

But, if you are using some type of automated bidding, it’s best to take things slowly. 

Here’s a hypothetical situation:

You’re using CPA bidding with a budget of $1,000 per day, and things are humming along nicely. It’s some type of lead generation campaign and you’re getting leads for $10 each. Then you suddenly increased the budget to $2,000 a day. Yeah, that’s going to throw things out of whack. 

Google’s system, from what I’ve seen, cannot handle a change like that very well. 

I have actually faced this exact situation numerous times where the client is seeing great results and they want to increase the ad spend as much as possible while holding onto the upward trend of conversion rate. That could mean doubling the budget, tripling the budget, whatever the case may be.

Now, what’s the magic number? Here’s what I do:

If the budget is currently at $1,000, I actually would not increase it right away up to $1200. 

I wouldn’t do a 20% increase. I would do just a 10% increase. 

Now with that type of budget, there should be enough daily activity where, after I increase it to $1100, I can take a look the next day and see what happened. If we still got leads for about $10 each, that’s great, I’m going to go ahead and increase it again. 

I’m not going to worry about sticking to a set percentage.

So I wouldn’t increase it now by $110 just to keep it at 10%. I just go ahead and increase it another hundred dollars. I do this the very next day. And if things looked good again, I’ll go ahead and increase it with another hundred dollars. the next day. From about $1000 to $1500 dollars per day budget, the amount I increase it by is $100 per day. 

When I reach $1500 a day, then I go a little harder.

I’ll increase it by $150 a day. And that’s pretty much the max. I never really see a need to increase a budget by more than $150 a day. Even if we’re spending $3000-$4000 a day, in that case, it really should be spread out across multiple campaigns anyway. 

You could increase each campaign by $150 per day, if you have multiple campaigns that you are scaling at the same time. 

I’ve never increased an individual campaign budget by more than $150 per day, so I can’t tell you what would happen.

But I wouldn’t recommend it. I have seen accounts that I’ve audited where other people have made drastic changes like that, and it does throw things out of whack. 

Now, usually, things will get on track after a while. But in my opinion and experience, it’s better, to take things gradually. If you’re increasing by 10% a day (or by $100 a day), it’s only going to take about a week or so to double the budget like you’re wanting to do. So no need to rush something like that. 

Now, if you’re working with smaller budgets, $50-$100 a day, you could increase it conceivably by more, quickly. So if it’s at $50 a day, I’d go up to $75. If the results still look about the same, I’d go up to $100 the next day. So within a couple of days, you could increase or double a budget like that. If you’re at $100, the progression might be up to $125, then at $150, and then $200. So you could double the budget like that, within a few days. 

What’s the bottom line?

There’s no magic number as far as the percentage goes, the smaller the budget, the higher percentage increase there will be. But really, it’s still a small increase in terms of dollar amount. The higher the budget, the higher the dollar amount increase is going to be. But in that case, then it’s a smaller percentage. 

P.S. Did you know there’s a voicemail line that you can call and leave a message for me?

Yes, there is. You can call and ask your question by voicemail. The phone number for that is +1 (701) 409-4138.

Feel free to call and ask your question there or you can submit your question at https://googleadsstrategy.cf/ask-a-question/.