Year of the Piggy Bank

An Intro to Deposit/Spend

From the Chinese astrological sign for the year 2007 to the 40-foot floating balloon constructed for the cover of the Pink Floyd album, Animals, the pig has been the subject of many cultural references throughout history. But few other pig depictions are as enduring as the piggy bank.

Unlike a piggy bank, money deposited into your Sponsored Search account doesn’t just sit there. It works for you to fund your online advertising campaigns. Your account balance is determined by the amount deposited into your account and is replenished when your account is “low.” And your account and campaign daily spending limits allow you to set a daily cap on the amount subtracted from your account balance to fund your online advertising campaign.

When you want to add money to your account balance, just follow these steps:

• Click on the Administration tab to view the Account Summary page, which details your account balance in the Billing and Payment Information section.
• Click on the “Add Funds” link to display your current account balance, your account daily spending limit, and any credit cards on file used for payment in the Add Funds screen

Credit Card Charges
An editable field labeled “Amount to Charge” allows you to enter a new amount to charge your credit card when your account balance is “low”. This amount is set by default to the amount of your initial deposit. When the balance in your account is “low,” the system replenishes the funds in your account by charging the amount of your initial deposit, or an amount you have specified, to your designated credit card.

Set Your Limits
You can also manage your account daily spending limit from the Account Summary page. Click the “edit” button in the Account Daily Spending Limit section. The displayed field is populated with your current account daily spending limit. From this screen, you may also view your estimated monthly spending limit and a history of your daily account spending limits.
 
To manage your daily spending limit for a specific campaign, follow these steps:

• Click on the Campaigns tab.
• Click on the campaigns link to view the Campaign Details screen.
• Click on the campaign daily spending limit link in the Campaign Performance section. The resulting screen allows you to update your campaign’s daily spending limit.
• Click on the Display Estimates button to view the estimated monthly clicks and impressions you may receive when setting your spending limit at the amount you enter.

Setting a daily spending limit helps you control the click charges you incur. Your account and/or campaign will go offline when your designated spending limit has been reached, then will resume displaying ads the next day.

Struggling with where to set your daily spending limit? It may help to monitor the amount of traffic received for each campaign in relation to its “return-on-ad-spend” (ROAS).

If only these simple depositing and funding tools existed for piggy bank owners of yore, who were often forced to put hammer to snout as a means of retrieving deposited funds. 

—Stephanie Bilberry, Yahoo! Search Marketing Writer