If I cap adwords at $XX per day, and the estimate shows $XXX per day, will it just take my ads out once I hit the cap?
Don't trust the estimate, I cap mine way below that and I have never noticed my ads being taken out. What can help though is if you have content on maybe turn that off which will mean your ads will show up in search more often, much more relevant I would think as people are actively searching for your product rather than coming across it by accident. Also target your ads to the geographical area more closely......there's not much point having your ads showing in Japan for instance if they are not related to that country. I don't believe lowering your bid to be the answer, you need to be on the first page and maybe the second but after that you are just wasting money. I keep tweaking the price for each individual term so I can get as many as possible in the 3rd to 8th spot. By doing this I can lower some prices and raise others. It's a bit of work but it drives my $ further.
In the first few days you cap it you will sometimes see it go wildly over. That is because the estimate was incorrect by Google. It basically doesn't show your ad for 2 hours first thing in the morning and then pull them. It tries to estimate how many total should be shown then spreads them out. It may take as long as a week for the cap to truly work. Whatever you do, just don't let them determine your budget as this is the more dangerous thing.
It would be nice if members were automatically banned when they got to 50 neg posts or something... Group banning... Yeah!
thanks, I did see it going over for the first day but not too much. I'm going to try it again today and see what it does.