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How budget suggestions are calculated

When you reach the budget step in the campaign wizard, Hero Marketer shows a suggested monthly amount calculated from the keywords in the cluster you picked. The suggestion is a sensible default to start a test campaign, not a number tailored to your CPA target, your runway, or your conversion value. It estimates how much it costs to capture a share of the available search volume for those keywords over a month.

The math behind the number​

Hero Marketer runs the same calculation for each keyword you selected, then sums the results. For a single keyword:

  1. Project monthly impressions. Take the keyword's average monthly searches and assume you capture 80% of them as impressions (an 80% impression share assumption).
  2. Project monthly clicks. Multiply those impressions by a 10% assumed click through rate to get expected clicks.
  3. Estimate the cost per click. Average the keyword's low and high top of page bids from Google's data, then apply a 1.5× markup to stay conservative. If Google reports no bid data for the keyword, Hero Marketer falls back to a $2 cost per click.
  4. Multiply clicks by CPC to get that keyword's expected monthly cost.

Hero Marketer adds up the cost for each keyword in the cluster and rounds to a whole number. The same pass also produces the estimated monthly click count shown next to the budget. Both figures are estimates from Google's keyword data, not guarantees.

What the suggestion optimizes for​

The suggestion aims to fund enough click volume for Google's auction to start learning, sized to the keywords you chose:

  • Enough volume to learn. Google's auction needs a minimum click count before it can optimize. Below that, performance is essentially random. Hero Marketer builds the estimate to clear that bar for the cluster you picked.
  • Conservative cost. Hero Marketer weights the cost per click toward a marked up average of Google's bid range. This keeps the suggestion from underestimating real spend.
  • Scaled to your keywords. A cluster of high CPC or high volume keywords produces a higher suggestion than a cluster of cheap, low volume ones, because the math runs on each keyword's own data.

What the suggestion does not account for​

Hero Marketer derives the suggestion only from the cluster's keyword data. It does not know:

  • Your CPA target. If you have a maximum acceptable cost per acquisition, the suggestion does not aim for it.
  • Your runway. If your total paid search budget is fixed, the suggestion may exceed what you can actually spend.
  • Whether this is a test or a scale campaign. Test budgets and scale budgets differ. The suggestion sits closer to a test.
  • Your conversion value. A $50/year product and a $50,000/year product get the same logic, even though they can justify very different click costs.

When to take the suggestion​

The suggestion is a good fit when:

  • This is your first campaign in the cluster.
  • You want to see what the cluster can produce before committing real money.
  • You do not yet have a specific CPA or volume target.

It serves most first campaigns well.

When to override the suggestion​

Override the suggestion when you have a specific target it cannot reflect:

A CPA target​

If your maximum acceptable cost per acquisition is $X and the cluster's average CPC is $Y, you need at least X/Y clicks to expect one conversion (if you assume a roughly 1% conversion rate, or a sharper rate if you have your own conversion data). Set the budget to produce enough clicks per month for the conversion volume you need.

A capacity constraint​

If sales can only handle 10 new leads a week, a budget likely to produce 30 is not useful. Set the budget to match your downstream capacity.

A learning phase budget​

For a brand new cluster, run a small budget for two weeks. Use about half the suggestion. See what converts. Then scale based on real data.

A scale phase budget​

For a proven cluster, scale gradually. Do not jump from $500/month to $5,000/month in one move. Google's algorithm needs days to recalibrate, and a sudden large change resets its learning.

When the suggestion is materially off​

A few cases where the default misses, and you should override:

  • Very competitive clusters. A cluster, for example "CRM," carries CPCs well above the typical SaaS range, so the suggestion can be too low to compete.
  • Very low volume clusters. A cluster with only a hundred monthly searches across all its keywords will not reach Google's minimum click volume at any budget. The suggestion can look reasonable while the campaign never gains traction.
  • High value, low volume products. A product with $100,000 deals can justify much higher CPCs than a $10,000/year product, but the suggestion treats them the same.

What the budget you set actually controls​

The number you set is the monthly cap. Hero Marketer converts it to a daily cap. It divides the monthly figure by 30.4 and rounds to whole currency units, then sends that to Google as a daily budget. Google then paces delivery against the daily cap. It may spend more than the daily amount on a high opportunity day and less on a slow one. But over the month, it targets the daily cap times the number of days.

Google charges you for clicks only. Impressions do not cost anything. Cost accrues when someone clicks. To adjust your budget after the campaign is live, see Set your budget.

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