Smart campaigns: Budgets and what you pay for

Learn about your smart campaign budget, and how to adjust it after you've created a campaign.
Note

Not everyone has this feature yet. If you don't, don't worry—it's coming soon!

Your budget tells us the limit you want to spend per day on your smart campaign. When you reach your budget, Microsoft Advertising will stop displaying your ads until the next day. This ensures you spend only as much as you're comfortable spending.

Setting your budget

You first set a budget when you create a smart campaign, but you can subsequently change your budget at any time.

  1. From the collapsible menu on the left, select All campaigns > Campaign details for the campaign you want to edit.

    If you're using the new Microsoft Advertising navigation, from the navigation menu on the left, hover over Campaigns and select Campaigns > Campaign details for the campaign you want to edit.

  2. In the Budget pane, select Edit.
  3. Update your budget.
  4. Select Save.

The shaded area along the budget slider shows you the range of budgets used by business like yours (based on your business category and products or services). This gives you an idea of what budget level will make your ads competitive.

Try entering different values and watch the Estimated performance window. Based on your budget, your targeted locations, and the products or services you set, we'll show you how many impressions and clicks we estimate your ads will get.

  • An impression is when your ad is shown to a potential customer. Impressions are a good measure of how visible your ads are, given your budget, location targeting, and selected products or services.
  • A click is when one of those people clicks on your ad. Clicks are a good measure of how appealing your ads are to the people who see them. Most importantly, clicks are what you pay for—you only pay Microsoft Advertising when someone clicks your ad.
Important

Your actual spend per day might be more or less than the actual target budget you've set. However, each month, you won't spend more than this number multiplied by the number of days in the month.

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