As a small to midsize business, you might feel like there isn’t much you can do in the way of digital marketing. Many agencies will tell you that your budget isn’t big enough and that you won’t see results. While it may be true that your budget is small, it isn’t true that there’s no way to see any results. If you’re smart in the way that you allocate your budget and with the strategy that you implement, you will, with time, begin to see some real return on your ad spend. Here is our guide to how to best allocate your digital marketing budget on Facebook and Google ads along with a few strategy tips to boost your results.
Google Advertising Budget Allocation For SMBs
When you run Google ads, specifically Google Search ads, the first thing you need to consider is how many keywords you are going to be targeting and what each one will cost. The best way to figure out which keywords to target is with Google ad’s keyword planner, which can give you an idea of how much search volume a keyword gets and how much it will cost to bid on it. Keep an eye on both factors, but especially the bids. If you bid on keywords that are too expensive, you won’t see results.
For example, if your monthly ad spend budget for Google Ads is $550, you will have a daily ad spend of $18.09 (this daily budget is determined by your total monthly ad spend divided by 30.4, the average number of days per month). When choosing keywords, if there are five phrases you want to target and they all cost at least $5.00 to bid on, that could add up to $25.00 a day, larger than your daily budget, so you’re not going to see very good results. Try to make the total of all your bids to be less than your daily budget and you should start to actually get some results.
When it comes to running Google ads, we do recommend that if you can spend at least $400 or $500 a month on the platform, you will start to see results within six months. The more you spend at first, the faster you will see results, but that shouldn’t stop you from spending what you can. The longer you let the ads run, the better, no matter how small you start.
Facebook Advertising Budget Allocation For SMBs
When running Facebook ads, you determine how much money you are going to spend each day the same way that you do when running Google ads. Take your total monthly budget, divide it by 30.4, and then set the campaign or ad sets to spend no more than that much daily. When it comes to Facebook ads, there are two ways to allocate your budget.
The first option, which is what we recommend, is to use campaign budget optimization. When you select this option, you set a daily budget for the campaign you are building, and then Facebook uses its algorithm to decide where to spend the money based on who is engaging with your ads and e how likely they are to buy your product or service in the end. We prefer to use this strategy for small to midsize businesses because while it may take longer to see results on a smaller budget, we can utilize Facebook data for our benefit and get a boost that we may not otherwise have.
The second option for budget allocation on Facebook is ad set budget optimization. With ad set budget allocation, you still decide what your daily ad spend will be, but this time, you divide it up between the ad sets you are running. In contrast to campaign budget optimization, Facebook doesn’t have control over which ad sets get the most money, and can only allocate the given budget between the ads that you have running through the money you’ve given to the ad sets.
Similar to Google ads, we recommend that if you are going to run ads on Facebook, a good budget is at least $400 to $500. It will take at least six months to start seeing results, but just like with Google, the more you spend at first, the faster you will see results.
Start Your Journey
At Set Fire Creative, one of our jobs is to help strategize digital marketing budget allocation for SMBs. If you’re feeling lost or if you’re wondering if working with a digital marketing agency would be a good fit for you, reach out to us today for a free consultation. More than anything, we want to help you put your best foot forward online.
Celia is a digital marketing specialist at Set Fire Creative. When she isn’t writing ads and driving sales for clients, she is working out, cooking some delicious comfort food, or camping in the mountains with her family.
