Google Ads Daily vs. Monthly Budgeting: Best Practices

The best practice for Google Ads budgeting depends on your campaign goals and flexibility needs, but generally:

• Daily budgets provide more control and predictability by setting a fixed average spend per day. Google may spend up to twice your daily budget on high-opportunity days but balances it by spending less on other days, ensuring your monthly spend does not exceed your daily budget multiplied by the average days in a month (about 30.4). This is ideal for small businesses or campaigns with consistent performance and dedicated budgets.

• Monthly budgets offer flexibility by allowing Google to distribute your total monthly budget unevenly across days, which can be beneficial for campaigns needing to adjust spend based on seasonality, weekends, or special events. This approach can maximize opportunities on high-traffic days without manual adjustments.

Additional best practices include:

• Understanding that Google Ads uses an average daily budget concept, meaning daily spend can fluctuate but will average out over the month without exceeding your monthly spending limit (average daily budget × 30.4).

• Using shared budgets if managing multiple campaigns, which pools daily budgets across campaigns for easier management and flexibility.

• Monitoring your budget regularly to avoid overspending and adjusting budgets based on campaign performance and goals.

In summary, choose daily budgets for tighter daily control and predictability, especially for smaller or steady campaigns, and monthly budgets for flexibility and optimising spend across variable traffic periods. Shared budgets can simplify management when running multiple campaigns simultaneously.