so, how much does adwords cost? …and how you can optimize it

There are several different marketing and advertising platforms that you can choose from, but Google Adwords is the most popular and easiest of them (some might disagree, but it is quite easy) all. There are several advantages that Google Adwords have over other advertising networks. If you are just starting out, it is quite natural that you want to know how much it is going to cost to advertise on Adwords.

There is no minimum that you need to spend on Adwords, instead you set a maximum daily budget that you want to spend. If you are worried about the cost then you might want to set this budget to minimum or quite low and then optimize over time.

So, you do have control over how much you want to spend but how much you will get in return for what you spend will depend very much on what you are advertising, what the competition is, the quality (score) of your ads and your bidding strategy just to name a few.

Using Adwords Budget Estimator (Keyword Planner)

The Google Keyword Planner is a good tool to get an estimate on how much it is going to cost. Again, it is only an estimator. You can access the tool once you have signed up for Google Adwords.

It gives you the ability to choose your targeting options, such as location, languages, keywords and bids. It will then simulate based on previous data to give an estimate of expected impression, clicks and cost. It will also break it down based on device and location. Below, is an sample screenshot of the keyword “white chocolate bar” from the planner tool.

Adwords cost estimation using keyword planner

You should learn how the whole Adwords process works in order to understand how and why it costs as much as or as little as it does. As you probably are just looking for an exact or approximate dollar amount, I will refrain in explaining the whole process, which can be found in other posts on this site or else where on the web.

Having said that, the bare minimum you need to understand is that the process is very similar to an auction. You are bidding for the available slots on the search engine page or other participating webpages. What this means is that what you pay will depend very much what others (your competitors) are willing to pay for that keyword at that particular time for that particular spot/slot.

The price varies….over time and with every search (or auction). You might pay more in the morning compared to evening. You might pay more depending on the geographical location. It depends on who your competitors are for that auction at that time and what there settings are. There are several different factors that affect how much you will pay when a click happens. You will be able plug several of these values into the Keyword Planner tool to get an approximate cost for your specific campaign.

It could vary little bit from the approximation once you start running the campaign. So, the best thing to do is to average out the budget over several days or weeks to get an approximate amount per click. The good thing is that you can change your bids as often as you want. This gives you the flexibility to tweak it on a daily basis to optimize it further to reduce both budget and cost.

There are no set cost strategies on how to tackle adwords marketing, it varies depending on the person working or configuring the system. When starting out, I set a daily budget that is affordable even if there is no return on that investment. I have started out with as little as 5 or 10 dollars a day and a bid of 50 cents.