When it comes to paid advertising, people tend to have a lot of questions. Trust me – I’m a paid ads agency owner, so I would know.
I think we can all agree that one thing at the forefront of any business owner’s mind is money, so it makes sense that a lot of the questions I get about paid advertising are about money. In today’s post, I want to break down one specific paid ads platform and how it charges you for ads. That platform, of course, is Google.
Running Google Ads is a great opportunity to grow your business and increase your revenue, but to do so, you will need to pay for your ads. This can be a daunting step to take if you’re not entirely sure how the payment process works, so I’m going to break it down for you.
How does Google Ads billing work?
The first thing you need to understand is that Google Ads, like most search engines, uses a pay-per-click or PPC model. This means that you will only be charged if someone clicks on your ads. This ensures that you are only paying for actual engagement, not just impressions.
Key components of Google Ads billing
It’s also important that you know what all the different components of Google Ads refer to.
- Bid amount: this refers to the maximum amount advertisers bid and are willing to pay for each click on your ad. This will determine where the ads get placed in Google’s search results. The higher your bid, the higher your ad will be.
- Ad rank: your bid amount isn’t the only thing that affects where your ad gets placed. Your ad rank is determined by your bid amount, but also by the quality of your ad and its expected clickthrough rate. If you have a good ad rank, there is a solid chance that your ad will be displayed more prominently and that you will have a lower cost per click.
- CPC: CPC, or cost-per-click, refers to how much you are charged when someone clicks on your ad. This is affected by things like which ads you’re competing with, how relevant your ad is to the user’s search, and who you are targeting.
- Budget: you probably already know that your budget refers to how much you’re willing to spend on Google Ads. However, you can set either a daily budget or a campaign-level budget to help you control your overall ad spend. Once your budget is exhausted, your Google search ads and other ads will stop showing until the next budget cycle.
Billing options
One of the great things about Google Ads as a paid ads platform is that it’s so versatile, so you can really set up your ads and your payment plan in a way that works for you. Some of the billing options include:
- Manual payments: with this payment method, you add funds to your Google Ads account ahead of time, and all charges related to your ads will be deducted from this amount. If the funds run out, you will need to do a top-up to continue running ads. You will also need to pay any unpaid balance that occurred during your billing period.
- Automatic payments: as the name suggests, automatic payments mean that your payments are charged automatically via the payment method of your choice. These payments will be made either at the end of your billing cycle or when you’ve reached your billing threshold. To learn more about when Google charges users for ads, click here.
- Monthly invoicing: if you have a good billing history and credit record, you may qualify for monthly invoicing as a payment method for your Google Ads. As the name suggests, this payment method means that you will be sent an invoice covering the costs of your advertising at the end of each month.
How do you monitor and manage your costs?
Ads aren’t cheap – in fact, even the minimum you need is quite a lot. Therefore, it makes sense that it’s important to keep an eye on your advertising costs and know what’s happening.
Luckily, there are a few useful tools and features given by Google that help with this, such as:
- Billing summary: you can access your billing summary dashboard within Google Ads to help you keep track of your spending, view your billing transactions, and download invoices.
- Billing thresholds: if you are using automatic payments and want to control how much you want to spend before being charged, you can set a payment threshold to avoid spikes in advertising costs.
- Billing alerts: you’re a busy person! So you can’t be expected to remember when certain things are going to happen. That’s where billing alerts come in. Google will send you notifications to inform you of unusual spending, low balances, or billing issues so that you are always aware of what’s happening and avoid any unpaid costs.
In conclusion
It’s natural to have some questions about how the Google payment process works when it comes to paid ads, and the good news is that it isn’t that complicated.
In fact, it’s pretty straightforward, and most of the information is available through a quick search. Of course, if you’d rather have someone else handle your ads, my Google Ads agency is happy to help.
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