How to Track PPC Spend Using Steady Budget

There are several challenges that you are faced with when working for a marketing agency. One of the most prominent issues is how to stay on top of all the administrative (and, for lack of a better word, busy work) when you are managing accounts. You can spend a significant amount of your time just trying to keep track of all of your accounts’ log in information, client communication, and budgetary constraints.

All of this is before you even start thinking about managing the account or making optimizations that actually drive the improvements you and your clients expect. Because of these time constraints, we work hard to find tools or systems that can automate these processes and save time.

The tool I want to talk about today is a new piece of software that helps you track and pace monthly spend. This budget tracking tool is call Steady Budget and can be found at steadybudget.com. The truly great thing about Steady Budget is its simplicity. After signing up to use the free service (also a major bonus) you link it with your Google AdWords or BingAds account and allow the tool to access the different campaigns you manage. You are then able to select any of the accounts out of your client center and set their targeted monthly budget. After you have it set up you can adjust the settings to give you email updates on the day each specific account passes a designated threshold ranging from 90% of budget remaining all the way down to 1% of budget remaining.

This flexibility is great for several reasons. It is obvious that if you spend significantly over the monthly budget your client has approved they are going to be upset and your credibility will be called into question; however, it also causes issues if you spend significantly under the budget they have allocated to your agency. Being able to not only get warnings when you are almost out of budget but also to keep you informed on how you are pacing throughout the month allows you to better understand the available budget for new tests and ensure that you are not leaving valuable clicks and conversions on the table by under-utilizing your monthly budgets.

Steady Budget is just one tool that we use when running PPC accounts and allows us to spend more time managing and optimizing our accounts to maximize results.

Are there other tools that you have found useful when running PPC accounts? Share your knowledge in the comment section below, email us at info@perfectsearchmedia.com, or tweet us @Perfect_Search!