Is a Google Ads daily budget a daily limit, and what to ask your agency

When a PPC proposal in the UAE says "AED X a day", it is natural to read that as a cap on what will be spent each day. Google's own description is a little different, and it is worth knowing before you agree a monthly figure with an agency.

What Google says

Google's help page defines the average daily budget as the average amount you set for each campaign on a per-day basis, and describes it as roughly how much you are comfortable spending each day over the month. The page says that on some days you might not reach your average daily budget, and on others you might exceed it. It then gives two limits for most campaigns: a daily spending limit of two times your average daily budget, and a monthly spending limit of 30.4 times your average daily budget. You can read the page on average daily budgets yourself, and it is short.

So a daily figure is an average. The number that actually bounds your spend over a month is the monthly one.

Why this matters when you compare agencies

The fee you pay an agency and the money that goes to the advertising platform are two separate amounts, and a proposal should show them on separate lines. A daily budget alone does not tell you the second one. Two proposals that both say "AED X a day" may be describing different monthly outcomes if one agency plans around the average and another around the limit.

I would ask each agency the same things:

1. What is the monthly advertising figure being agreed, in dirhams?
2. Who sets the budget in the account, and who is allowed to change it?
3. How will I be told if spending runs ahead of the plan in the first half of the month?
4. Is the fee separate from this amount, and is that stated on its own line?

The answers are in the agency's own words, and that is the point. An agency that answers with a monthly figure and a named person has thought about it. An agency that repeats the daily number has not.

What this page does not tell you

It does not tell you what PPC should cost in Dubai. I do not give price ranges on this site, because what PPC costs belongs to a different question from choosing who runs it, and I have no source for a figure I could stand behind. It also does not tell you what an agency charges, which only the agency can state.

Next steps

Put the fee and the budget on separate rows when you read a PPC proposal and its reports, and score the budget question in the PPC proposal scorecard. The overall method is in how to choose a PPC agency in Dubai.

A word about me

This site is published by Web Marketing International FZCO, which manages Google Ads and Microsoft Ads for businesses and sells that service. If I am on your list, ask me these four questions as well. You can read how I describe the work on the PPC management page of my own site, and then score me on the same card as the others.