I had a disappointing experience with how Google Adwords credit works and wanted to mention it so that you don’t run into it the first time around.
I want to say up front that this mistake is 100% my fault. Sure, I feel Google could have communicated this a bit better, but ultimately I need to take ownership for not understanding the way these credits work.
So this isn’t a complaint, negative rant, or angry post – it’s simply an article that shares my mildly unfortunate experience so you don’t have to. 🙂
Google AdWords Free Credit Offer
The deal is: Get $150 in free AdWords credit when you spend $150. Seems clear.
When I redeemed the coupon, I set the daily ad budget to $10/day. My thinking was, $10/day times 30 days in a month = $300. I pay $150 and Google pays $150. Perfect.
I thought I’d spend the first $150 and then the $150 free AdWords credits would cover the next $150.
But here’s the catch: The credit is applied after one month, not after you spend $150. In other words, if you pay at least $150 in AdWords credits during the first month, then, the second month, you’ll receive the $150 in free credits. If you only spend $100 during that first month, you’d only receive $100 in free AdWords credits.
In my case, I was charged $250* around the one month mark and before the $150 was credited to my account.
Had I known that, I would have set my budget to $5/day so that the first month was closer to $150 ($5/day x 30 days).
While $250 isn’t a lot, it wasn’t expected and it wasn’t budgeted for. So this can come as a pain point. I know there are a lot of small businesses that are on tight budgets, so hopefully this is helpful for you to know up front. 😉
* The math doesn’t add up perfectly to $300 because I paused the campaign and made some changes.