What You Need to Know About Google AdWords Billing

Last Updated: January 11, 2018

If you’re confused by the way Google bills you for AdWords, you’re not alone. Not even a little.
We have countless clients who feel like the Google AdWords billing system is overly complicated. We don’t blame them. Why can’t it just be a bill for the same amount on the same date every month—you know, the way practically every other company in existence does its billing?
If we were conspiracy theorists, we’d be tempted to think Google confuses AdWords customers on purpose so they spend more money.
However, we’re realists, and we’ve done our research to crack the code of Google AdWords billing. If you’re as mystified as everyone else about how your account is charged, then this blog post is for you! Keep reading to find out how it actually works.

Your “Daily” Budget Is Not What It Seems

When you first set up AdWords, Google allows you to set a daily budget. When most people hear this, they assume this is the amount AdWords will spend on their ads each day. This is the logical assumption. However, this is not what actually happens.
Instead, Google takes the amount you set for your daily budget and multiplies that number by 30.4. The result is what Google allows itself to spend on your ads for the whole month. So, in effect, when you set a daily budget, you’re really setting a *monthly* budget.

Why does Google use your budget this way?

Because Google can’t 100% predict how much clicks will cost on a daily basis due to the way AdWords bidding works. Thus, it needs to allow for wiggle room in what it spends from day to day. That’s why Google allows itself to increase spending (up to 2 times your daily budget) on any given day, as long as it decreases spending accordingly on other days so that your monthly total evens out in the end.
Google needs this wiggle room because not every day of the week is equal in terms of user behavior. For instance, an ad for something like roof repair is likely to receive more clicks on a weekday than a weekend. This means bids for clicks on certain weekdays will be more expensive because they’re more in demand. Knowing this, Google will loosen the reins on your budget in order to spend more in bids and clicks during the week, and then tighten up on the weekend when your ad isn’t seeing as much action.
In fairness to Google, this strategy does make sense once you understand what it is. However, it also makes your AdWords charges super complicated.
There’s an upside to all this confusion, though. The longer you continue on the same daily budget for the same ad campaign, the more effectively Google will spend your budget. As time goes on, Google will collect enough data to learn the optimal days and times for your ad’s performance, so it won’t have to “guess” your budget on a daily basis. All you have to do is stick with it.

Thresholds and Billing Cycles

Above, we cover how Google AdWords charges your account—in other words, how it spends your budget. Now, we’re going to talk about billing. This is where people really start scratching their heads.
In this context, charging and billing are two separate things. Your charges are what your account has spent on clicks and bids. Your bill, on the other hand, is what Google debits from your credit card. Contrary to most other services you pay for in your normal life, Google doesn’t bill you for your total charges at the end of the calendar month. Instead, it goes by a 30-day billing cycle and bills you every time you hit a certain charge “threshold.” So, you may rack up $670 in charges in the month of January; however, that won’t be reflected in your bill.

Here’s how Google AdWords billing thresholds work:

Your starting threshold is $50. Google does this to make sure you can actually pay before you go any further in your campaign.
If you spend $50 within your first 30 days, Google bills you immediately and resets your billing cycle. Now, your threshold is bumped up to $200.
If you spend less than $50 within your first 30 days, you’ll be billed your exact spend amount at the end of the cycle. Your threshold will remain at $50 for the next 30 days, or until you surpass $50.
Next, if you reach your $200 threshold within 30 days, Google bills you, resets your cycle, and raises your threshold to $350. If you spend less than $200, Google bills you for the exact spend amount at the end of 30 days and keeps your threshold at $200 until you surpass it.
The process repeats itself for the $350 threshold.
The final threshold is $500. Once you reach $500, Google will bill you and reset the cycle, keeping your threshold at $500.

So, instead of just paying what you owe at the end of every calendar month, you’re billed every 30 days OR every time you reach your threshold. This leads us to two important points:

Because billing is triggered by thresholds, it’s possible for you to be billed more than once in the same calendar month. This is what messes up a lot of our clients and causes their credit cards to decline.
If your credit card declines at any point, your threshold will reset to $50. Then, you’ll have to go through the process all over again. This can wreak havoc on your campaign if it happens repeatedly.

What If You Don’t Want to Pay More Than “X” Amount Each Month?

One obstacle many businesses face is the fact that they have their own monthly budgets in the real world, outside of AdWords. Often, they don’t want to be billed beyond a certain amount in the same calendar month for fiscal reasons. When this is the case, you have to manually pause your campaign as soon as you reach your limit. Otherwise, your charges will continue to accumulate and you might be billed again at the next threshold.
If Prospect Genius is managing your account, we are happy to do this on your behalf. We closely monitor all of the accounts we run, so we will watch your spending and pause your campaign as soon as it gets too close to your personal limit. Then, we’ll resume your campaign once the billing cycle resets.
Google AdWords billing is extremely difficult to understand, and that’s probably not an accident. However, we hope this blog post brings you some clarity and helps you manage your payments in a more effective manner. Good luck!

Is Your Mobile Site Ready to Carry the Team for You?

Last Updated: October 26, 2017

At an industry event this week in New York City, Google’s Gary Illyes spoke about one of the search giant’s latest endeavors: mobile-first indexing. Illyes said this project has begun to roll out, with an undisclosed number of websites already affected. The timeline for a complete roll-out also remains undisclosed.
All of this “undisclosed” information makes the development sound more ominous than it is. We apologize for that. Information is scarce at this early stage, but don’t panic. Mobile-first indexing isn’t scary as long as you have a mobile-optimized website.
You see, the mobile-first index is just a different way for Google to create and rank its search listings. While Google has historically created this index based on desktop versions of websites, it will now be doing so based on mobile versions.
When Google first announced the mobile-first index project nearly a year ago, in November 2016, Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land explained it like this:

As more and more searches happen on mobile, Google wants its index and results to represent the majority of their users — who are mobile searchers.
Google has started to use the mobile version of the web as their primary search engine index. A search engine index is a collection of pages/documents that the search engine has discovered, primarily through crawling the web through links. Google has crawled the web from a desktop browser point of view, and now Google is changing that to crawl the web from a mobile browser view.

The key here is mobile-optimized websites, not just mobile websites. In other words, any old mobile version of your website won’t do. Your mobile site must be an identical match with your desktop site. All content and links should be the same on each version. If your mobile site has less content or fewer pages, it won’t rank the same. Therefore, websites with a responsive design (meaning they adapt to any screen size without losing readability or usability) will be the most successful with this new index.
Long story short: A mobile-optimized website just became your star player. You can’t win without it.
Again, Google (in typical fashion) isn’t giving us very much information about the development beyond what we’ve shared here. However, according to Illyes, Google does plan on making an official announcement, including a thorough explanation and roll-out timeline, on its blog some time in the near future. Stay tuned, we guess?
In the meantime, go ahead and check out what we know so far over on Search Engine Land!

Could You Be Targeted Next by Google's Aggressive New Filter?

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Raise your hand if you wish Google would stop making secret updates already! Just when you think you’ve mastered local search, Google launches a change that turns everything on its head. This time, it’s the Hawk update.
This latest update has serious, wide-reaching consequences for small, local businesses like yours. It’s crucial you understand the impact this update could have on your business. That way you can take steps to protect yourself. Keep reading to find out everything you need to know.

First, a Quick Summary of Google’s Hawk Update

At the end of August 2017, local SEO expert Joy Hawkins detected a change in Google’s local search filter. She noticed that Google’s search results had stopped showing certain businesses that used to rank locally. As it turns out, Google was bumping select businesses if they shared a similar category and street address with another business that had a higher ranking.
To be fair, Hawkins notes that this is an improvement on the update immediately preceding it. The previous update (known as “Possum”) applied to any businesses that were even *near* each other. So, if two plumbers were located on the same block, one of them would be filtered out of the results. Thankfully, the Hawk update seems to have rectified that.
Now, the local search algorithm narrows its focus on businesses that share the same street address and category. The intention, Hawkins explains, is “to help ensure that multiple listings for the same company don’t monopolize the search results.” However, it’s having a massively negative effect on many legitimate businesses.

How the Hawk Update Affects You

You might think, “Well, good. That means fewer spammers and impostors.” To an extent, you’d be right. However, lots of local businesses share commercial building space. Moreover, many local service providers (like plumbers, handymen, appliance repairmen, etc.) operate out of their homes and use P.O. boxes and UPS stores for their listings to avoid advertising their home addresses. They’re perfectly legitimate businesses, but their listings are now vulnerable.
In fact, we are seeing Google auto-suspend numerous clients with virtual mailboxes (especially UPS Stores) as soon as we try to verify their listings. This tells us Google is maintaining a database of virtual addresses so it can prevent businesses from using them. Ever since the Hawk update rolled out (and even a little earlier), we haven’t been able to use a UPS Store address for a new client without the listing getting suspended.
If that all sounds too technical, let’s boil it down. Here’s what you need to know: Google’s new update poses a major threat to any business that uses a virtual mailbox. If you use a UPS Store or a similar type of virtual address, Google could bump you from local search results while a competitor remains. According to Hawkins, when there’s more than one business at the same location, “Google picks the most relevant listing of the bunch and filters the rest. It’s very similar to what they do organically with duplicate content.”
But how does Google pick “the most relevant listing”? That, in keeping with Google’s m.o., is a mystery. However, based on past and current trends, we can assume Google makes this distinction the same way it assigns ranking: by looking at a business’s website content, customer reviews, backlinks, and other supporting data.
In short, you may be affected by this latest update if you:

Rent space in a commercial building that also houses similar businesses
Use a mailbox at a nearby UPS store to avoid listing your private residence
Do either of these two things and don’t have an established web presence yet

Needless to say, this applies to a lot of businesses. So, this begs the question: How can you prevent damage to your listing?

How to Protect Your Local Business Listing

There are no guarantees when it comes to Google. However, you can minimize the likelihood of Google filtering you out by making some changes. For example:

Just use your home address. This is the best option because, ultimately, this is what Google wants. It wants every business using a physical street address. All signs point to Google only becoming more aggressive with virtual addresses in the future. Biting the bullet and switching to your home address will cause less trouble in the long run.
If you really don’t want to use your home address, choose another virtual mailbox that’s not a UPS Store. (We can help you choose one.)
Start building your web presence and get more reviews on your listing. Lead Google to view your business as the “most relevant.” This way, it will be less likely to bump you from the search results.

Unfortunately, there’s no quick or easy solution here because every case is so different. Your chances of being filtered out of local search results go up or down depending on your location, industry, and competitors. In other words, the solution can only be determined on a case-by-case basis.
For this reason, our specialists are available to help any business owner who is concerned about the Hawk update. We’ll check out your web presence, analyze your case, and provide you with a sound strategy to minimize damage. Please don’t hesitate to call or email us for help.

How Voice Search Is Changing the Way You Need to Write

Last Updated: September 21, 2017

Are you one of the millions of Americans who own a smartphone? Then you’re probably aware of voice search. You hold down a button on your phone, ask a question out loud, and voilà! In a matter of seconds, your phone gives you an answer.

The New Language of Voice Search

However, Siri doesn’t just magically have all the answers. Instead, your phone’s virtual assistant transmits your question directly to a search engine (most likely Google or Bing, but we’ll refer to Google from now on for simplicity). Then, the search engine bases its search on the exact words you spoke: “Where can I find someone to fix my fridge overnight?” Google can’t just plug in a keyword and a town name anymore and find matching webpages, because that’s not how people are searching. Now, due to the natural, human language of voice searches, it has to focus on context, synonyms, and the overall relevance of a page’s contents. (For our fellow nerds, this process is called Latent Semantic Indexing, or LSI.)
This is a major shift in the way search engines operate. We’ve written about the growth of voice searches before, and the issue is only becoming more urgent. Today, fewer and fewer people manually type in the old “[keyword] + [location]” formula to find local businesses. Instead, more people are using their phone’s voice search for complex requests. And it doesn’t even have to technically be a question anymore. Your search could be a casual statement like, “Hey Siri, I need a plumber in Ann Arbor who’s not that expensive.” You can just start talking to your phone’s virtual assistant, and it will find what you need. What a time to be alive, as they say!
But what does any of this have to do with your local business? Let’s just say, you may want to rewrite your website ASAP. Keep reading to see what we mean!

Get Used to Voice Search. It’s Here to Stay.

As flashy and trendy as voice search may seem to some of us, the majority of experts assert it’s not going anywhere. On the contrary, they believe it’s the “next big era of computing.” As marketing specialist Simon Penson recently wrote:

“My view is that voice is not just an add-on, but an entirely new way of interacting with the machines that add value to our lives. It is the next big era of computing.”

So, as exciting as these advances may be, you can’t ignore what voice search means for your business’s website and web presence. Google wants to satisfy its users who rely on voice searches, so it now favors websites that meet new requirements. If you want your website to rank highly in local searches, it must be:

Well written
Informative
Chock full of content

Truthfully, Prospect Genius has always viewed well written content as a non-negotiable trait for high-ranking websites. However, in reality, there used to be some wiggle room. Those days are over. Today, if your website’s content is sparse and only written for a few, basic search terms, you’ll get a fraction of your potential traffic. You simply won’t have the right language to match natural voice searches.

How to Evolve Your Site for Voice Searches

This begs the question: What does the “right language” look like?
Here’s where things get interesting. Ten or twelve years ago, SEO was easy. All you had to do was stuff as many industry keywords, town names, and zip codes into your website’s footers as possible. Then, you could just write a sentence or two on each page with some bare-bones information about your company. If you did those two things, you had a decent chance of ranking. While the keyword-stuffing looked sloppy and spammy to the human eye, it didn’t matter because it appealed to search engines. It was a lazy way to work, but it was often enough to let you squeak by.
However, thanks to the rise of voice search, today’s SEO writing is far more complicated. The language search engines speak is becoming remarkably similar to the language we humans speak. You also get penalized for spam tactics like keyword-stuffing. So, you know that well-written content our team has always prioritized? Well, it’s no longer a bonus—it’s a requirement.
Today, your website must have lots of content that clearly spells out:

What your company does
Where you’re located
How you differ from competitors
What your products and/or services entail
And much more

Furthermore, each page has to be fully fleshed out (we recommend a 350-word minimum) so it contains as many related words and details as possible. Think of it this way: The more you write, the more opportunities for Google’s natural language processor to find your site.
For example, let’s say you want to show up in the search results for someone’s “overnight fridge repair.” Your content should contain related phrases like “available for emergencies,” “same-day service,” “after-hours appointments,” and so on. You can’t always predict the exact phrasing people will use in their voice searches, but you can vary your language enough that Google picks up on all those helpful synonyms.

To DIY or Hire Professional Writers?

We’ll be totally honest here. These new writing requirements are a lot of work. If you are comfortable with writing, know how to do keyword research, and are fairly confident in your language skills, then you’re probably in good shape to write your own website content.
However, if you’re like most local service providers, you spend your time either honing your trade or hanging out with your family. You likely don’t have the 8+ hours it will take to write your entire website from scratch—never mind the extra time it takes to research local keywords and learn best practices for SEO. That’s why many local businesses hire professionals to build their website or to do ghost writing for their existing site.

Get Writing Services From Prospect Genius

At Prospect Genius, well-written, human-optimized content has been our trademark since day one. When we started 10 years ago, we could’ve taken the easy way out and relied on keyword-stuffing, which is what a lot of our competitors did. But we took the extra time and did the extra work to optimize our content for real people, not just search engines.
The result is that all of our current clients are already in terrific shape for the takeover of voice search. If you don’t have lots of good-quality content on your site yet, give us a call and see how we can help!

5 Examples of Google Not Caring About Your Best Interests

Last Updated: June 15, 2017

How many times have you heard Google claim its most recent update is designed to improve user experience? We hear this claim so frequently, it’s fair to call it Google’s M.O. However, when Google refers to users, is it really referring to advertisers?
The truth is, for many users—particularly small business owners who seek local visibility on Google—their best interests often do not align with Google’s. At the end of the day, it’s a corporation, and its bottom line is all about revenue. You have to expect Google to be self-serving on occasion. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
In this blog post, we’ve outlined some of the most recent examples of how Google doesn’t always have your best interests at heart. While you may think we’re just venting here (and you wouldn’t be totally wrong), we want this to function as a kind of PSA. It’s a reminder to always take Google’s actions with a grain of salt and a strong dose of skepticism.
Now, let’s rant.

1. Google Only Allows Businesses to List One Phone Number for Every Physical Location.

On Google Maps, there’s often a major discrepancy between a company’s real-life operation and Google’s strict guidelines.
For example, Google only allows businesses to list one phone number for every physical location. But as many business owners know, that may not mesh with the way a company actually operates. There are countless reasons to have more than one phone number for the same primary address, particularly if you have different branches or you serve multiple area codes.
However, it’s much simpler for Google to create an algorithm that only allows a 1-to-1 scenario. Google wants to prevent spam wherever possible, and allowing for too many human variables would overwhelm its algorithms. So, essentially, instead of creating a system that’s influenced by how businesses operate in real life, it’s trying to create a system that influences how businesses operate. As you may know firsthand, this means a lot of headaches for business owners.

2. Google Maps Service Areas Are Often Too Rigid for Businesses Without a Storefront.

Google also makes it difficult for local service providers to operate out of their own homes (which many repairmen and handymen do). It’s not impossible, as Google does allow these types of businesses to list a service area instead of their home address, for privacy’s sake; however, the implementation of these service areas is not always helpful for businesses.
For example, a handyman who lives 20 miles outside of a big city may not have the option of listing themselves as serving that city, even though that’s where they primarily do business. This restricts their visibility precisely where they want to be visible.
Again, this comes back to Google seeking to crack down on spam and simplify its algorithms. It’s too much work for Google to accommodate all the legitimate ways companies do business. Instead, it sometimes draws a hard line and creates another obstacle for you.

3. Google Now Allows Ads to Crowd Out Real Content on Webpages.

In spring 2017, Google announced it is lifting its restriction on 300×250 ads appearing above the fold on mobile webpages. In other words, big advertisements may now crowd users’ screens before they even see any of the content (headline, images, or text) on the page.
According to Google’s official announcement, this update will be done in a “user-friendly way” that won’t “annoy, distract, or result in ad performance issues.” However, that seems unlikely, as Google itself previously restricted this exact ad placement due to concerns about user experience.
Indeed, in a TechCrunch article outlining the new guideline, Sarah Perez points out:

After all, this restriction was originally put in place because it was not user-friendly. A medium-sized rectangle, by its very nature, will push much of the page’s content below the fold, as the ad itself takes up a good chunk of the screen.

Clearly, Google’s concern isn’t user experience. If it were, it would prevent paid ads from overtaking content. Instead, Google is favoring the desires of paying advertisers over its users.

4. Google May Edit Your Business Listing Without Your Knowledge or Consent.

When Google decides a piece of information on your listing needs correcting (based on data it collected elsewhere or input from other users), it just automatically makes the change. It’s up to you to check your listing regularly and catch any edits that aren’t actually true.
Compare this to how Facebook operates: When another user suggests a correction to your page’s information (e.g. phone number or store hours), it notifies you first. It asks whether you want to make this change instead of making the change unilaterally.
Our guess is that Google makes these changes on its own because it wants to provide users with the most up-to-date information possible. However, if it also wants that information to be accurate, then it should probably wait until it receives verification from business owners. And let’s not forget the impact this has on businesses. Competitors can sabotage other businesses by suggesting different phone numbers or addresses, and Google will be an accomplice.

5. Google’s “Featured Snippets” Directly Take Away Traffic From Top Search Results.

First, let’s clarify what a featured snippet is. You’ve most likely seen one in your own searches. When a user asks a question in Google Search, Google pulls the answer from a webpage and presents it to you. In other words, it gives users what it thinks they want, without users having to click anything.
From one perspective, featured snippets are super convenient. However, a couple problems exist. First of all, the snippets often take an “answer” out of context and deliver flat-out misinformation.
Second of all—and this is more troubling for website owners—a recent study by Ahrefs shows featured snippets take a substantial amount of traffic away from the rest of the search results. According to Barry Schwartz’s article on Search Engine Land:

Without a featured snippet, the first result gets a 26 percent click-through rate. With it, it only gets a 19.6 percent click-through rate, and the featured snippet gets an 8.6 percent click-through rate.

This is a clear attempt by Google to keep users on its own website. Not many people click on the snippets because they believe they’ve received the information they were looking for. And, of course, they don’t bother scrolling below the snippets to look at the list of search results. As a result, businesses lose significant traffic and potential leads.

And There Are Still More Examples…

Google completely reversed its policy on customer review kiosks. It actually used to recommend having a kiosk or some type of computer setup in your storefront for customers to leave you a review right then and there. This helped lots of businesses get the customer reviews they needed for success. But then, suddenly and inexplicably, Google reversed its position and started penalizing businesses for this practice instead.
For years, Google used to say they would never allow advertising in the Google Maps realm. Now, of course, they do.
Google Shopping is 100% powered by AdWords. Only paying advertisers appear in the results. There’s a huge lack of transparency here. Users don’t know they aren’t seeing an exhaustive list of results.

The list goes on and on.
Please bear in mind, we aren’t trying to paint Google as some sort of evil corporation from an ’80s sci-fi flick. Rather, we just want to encourage you to think more critically about some of Google’s practices and realize that you can’t always trust it to do what’s best for your business. That’s why you need to be proactive and take an educated approach to all of your online marketing efforts.
Can you think of any other ways Google might favor advertisers over users? Reach out to us and let us know what you think!

Prospect Genius