You may find that your AdWords account shows increases and decreases in spending. Both are worrying. This article is about the likely causes of unexpected increases in spending and what you can and should do about it.

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The main causes for sudden increases in spending are that you have told Google to optimise on your behalf, or a news item is unexpectedly sending people to search, or there’s a seasonality, or that adverts stuck in editorial review have been released, or that your account is subject to either click fraud or theft.

Have You Recently Told Google To Manage Your Spending?

There are a variety of ways to manage your account. Google offers you the choice of using their own bid management tools to optimise conversions, or to spend to a budgeted amount. If you recall seeing screens offering you help in optimising your budget or your cost per acquisition – you may have told Google to spend on your behalf. We will be offering an article about Bid Optimisation and the effects.

News Explodes Search

Every so often, some news item will provoke a lot of search on a previously quiet keyword. Look for patterns of suddenly high impression rate keywords, which may decline almost as abruptly. We’ve seen cases where a single TV show can provoke an entire months normal spend in a few hours – if the search query is spot on for an unusual term mentioned in the news.

Seasonality

“Stop Smoking” resolutions and campaigns focus on the last week or so of the year, and the first few weeks of the year. Outside that period, the search volume is much, much smaller. Consider whether you have something similar (“Thanksgiving meals”, “turkey dinners”?).

Adverts Released From Editorial Review

If you have recently started your account, or you have recently changed advertisements, you will have triggered “Editorial Reviews”. Your adverts will not run, or will only run slowly while they are under review. When the review is satisfactorily completed, your adverts will be released for full running. This can result in a factor of ten increase in daily spend, or even more under some conditions

Click Fraud

You might sometimes see otherwise unexplained increases in impressions and clicks. This does not mean that you have click fraud. It may be as simple as a local news item triggering searches, that you aren’t aware of.

Theft

If you think you’ve turned off advertising, but suddenly start seeing bills, or if you see marked increases but can’t identify the causes, you may be suffering from theft – or you simply don’t know where to look to see the spending. We have some articles covering “where’s my spending going?”. Before you assume theft, just make sure that are looking at all the data!

If you find new campaigns, adgroups, adverts and keywords sending visitors to sites you don’t recognise – your account has been compromised and you should take immediate action. See the article “What Do I When I Find An AdWords Thief?”

Professional Assistance

AdWords Help Experts have access to Google help, and experience in handling and diagnosing problems. If you are uncertain or want a second opinion, or if you’d like someone else to handle the problem on your behalf, please do contact one of the experts here. Fees to investigate and accelerate results are usually in the range of ten to thirty US Dollars; setting up replacement advertising may be more expensive depending on the complexity you need. Some of us also offer services for monitoring our client accounts for problems.