When you have a smaller digital marketing budget, every dollar counts, and you often need to get creative to make sure your ads show where you want.

Most small businesses have only have a small chunk of change for their advertising, which means you cannot afford to be wasting your money in ineffective areas.

What to do when you have a small budget:

Retargeting site visitors and purchasers

We all know that it takes more money to acquire a brand-new customer than it does a customer who has already purchased or otherwise engaged with the brand.

Paid search and paid social can be a very competitive space, so it’s crucial to use audience targeting to the best of your abilities.

One easy way to get the biggest bang for your buck, with lower CPAs (Cost per acquisitions) and higher ROAS (return on advertising spend), is to retarget site visitors and purchasers.

These users have already shown intent and interest in your brand, making it easier for them to engage.

Geotargeting

Geotargeting is one the first settings you need to decide on. Should you target states, cities, ZIP codes, or something else?

The smaller the geographic area, the less traffic you will get so balance relevance with budget. Consider adding negative locations where you do not do business to keep stragglers from seeing ads.

Ad scheduling

If your business is open during specific hours, it might make sense to set ads to run only while you are open.

If you sell online, you are always open, but it may be smart to review reporting to determine if there are any times of the day when there is a negative ROI.

Device targeting

Every good advertiser has a strong call-to-action in their ad. Whether it is to fill out a form, to make a purchase, or to sign up for a newsletter, there should be an action you want a user to make once they have clicked your ad.

We can use bid adjustments at either the campaign or ad group level to prefer either computers, mobile phones, or tablets.

These bid adjustments can also be used to exclude a device type entirely, just like the ad scheduling bid adjustments.

Long-Tail Keywords

Choosing the right keywords can make or break your AdWords account. For Search campaigns, they are the tool of communication with Google to place your ad on the expansive advertising wall.

To use your AdWords budget effectively, it is best to give Google keywords that have high intent and are directly relevant to your business.

Short conclusion

Low budget accounts can be effective if they are managed correctly.

Whatever you are testing within the account, always try to keep all variables within the experiment constant besides the variable you are testing.