Can you please explain why we may have a change in spend month over month in either Google or social ads when there has been no change in budget or invoice?
Since our monthly ad-spend fluctuates, our team is looking for some standard language to answer questions clients may have about these fluctuations.
Our contracts give us an allowance of 10% fluctuation of the media budget (due to the auction-based nature of advertising systems), we are within our scope if we are +/- 10% of invoice.
Reasons for why your spend could fluctuate into an overspend or underspend.
- Spend was prorated at launch due to the kickoff date or payment receipt date.
- We received late payment and we are making up for the invoiced amount of spend. Catching up.
- Our monthly budgets are broken down into daily budgets. We get to that number by dividing the spend amount by 30.4. In shorter months like February there would be an underspend compared to that average.
- Inability or delay to launch a particular portion of campaign (e.g. social ads were late due to Facebook access issue) may have caused an underspend.
- A channel that was underperforming created a surplus in which we needed to distribute to other channels.
- An overspend can come out of a drastic budget change mid month.
- We made a package change mid month and it caused an overspend or underspend to occur vs. the last invoice.
- Overspend changes in location targeting or bidding strategy, that take some time to level off and adjust.
These are examples of why underspend or overspend occurs. This can vary case by case, but in the broadest sense, these are the most common reasons.