Budgets & Bidding
Your budget is how much you spend per day; bidding is how you spend it — and CPC tells you the price of a click.
What you will learn
- Explain daily budget and CPC
- Estimate clicks from a budget
- Choose a sensible bidding strategy
Two different dials
People mix these up, so let us be clear. Your budget is how much you are willing to spend (for example, ₹300 per day). Your bidding is the strategy for how that money is spent in the auction. They are separate dials.
- Daily budget — the average amount a campaign spends per day, e.g. ₹300/day.
- CPC (cost per click) — what you actually pay for one click, e.g. ₹15.
- Bid — the most you are willing to pay for a click (you set it or let Google set it).
A simple budget calculation
If you know your daily budget and your average CPC, you can estimate how many clicks you will get. The maths is friendly.
Clicks per day = Daily budget / Cost per click (CPC)
Example - a Lucknow bakery:
Daily budget = ₹300
Average CPC = ₹15
Clicks per day = 300 / 15 = 20 clicks
Clicks per month = 20 x 30 = 600 clicksNote: At ₹15 a click, a ₹300 daily budget buys about 20 clicks a day, or roughly 600 a month. If you can lower your CPC (better ads, better targeting), the same money buys more clicks. This is why quality saves money.
Bidding strategies in plain words
| Strategy | What it tries to do | Good when |
|---|---|---|
| Maximise Clicks | Get as many clicks as possible for the budget | You are new and want traffic to learn |
| Manual CPC | You set the max bid per keyword yourself | You want tight control |
| Target CPA | Get conversions near a target cost each | You know what a lead is worth |
| Target ROAS | Aim for a return on ad spend | You track sales value and have data |
Two acronyms appear there. CPA = cost per acquisition — the average money you pay to get one conversion (one booking, one sign-up, one sale). ROAS = return on ad spend — how many rupees of sales you earn for every rupee spent (the full lesson on it is coming next).
When you are starting out with little data, Maximise Clicks or Manual CPC is sensible. Smart strategies like Target CPA and Target ROAS work best after Google has learned from some conversions.
Tip: Start small to learn cheaply. A ₹200 to ₹300 daily budget for a couple of weeks teaches you your real CPC and which ads work — then scale up the winners.
Watch out: Do not switch to smart bidding (Target CPA or ROAS) on day one. These need conversion data to work. With no data, they can spend oddly. Gather results first, then let the machine optimise.
Q. Your daily budget is ₹400 and your average CPC is ₹20. About how many clicks will you get per day?
✍️ Practice
- A gym has a ₹500 daily budget and an average CPC of ₹25. How many clicks per day and per month?
- Pick a bidding strategy for a brand-new campaign and explain why in one sentence.
🏠 Homework
- Plan a daily budget and estimate clicks for a business of your choice. Show the budget, the CPC you expect, and the clicks per day and per month.