I got $100 in one the Google adwords promotion campaign and decide to spend it for fun. I set up 1 site with it with budget $10 /day. I have chosen about 25 keywords which are relatively popular since I needed to raise the minimum bid on some to $.1 to activate it. Now after 10 days, I have spend $.32. (32 cents) I have no problem spending money on the company account but on this account, it seems I can not spend anything independent if I raise the bid or the day limit.
I think they treat those accounts differently for some reason G seems to keep "upping the ante" on me every time I log in to that account, my keywords continue to be 'deactivated for search' despite me constantly raising the bid for their requirements - I think they want us to drain these account out since it's free credit. If you ask me, that will only serve to defeat the whole purpose for their promotion since many who are the recipients of the promotion are new to the game and it is sure to burn them out.
Give it time. Once your ads start kicking in, your $100 will evaporate in no time. When I first began using Adwords I kicked it off with a voucher. For a while it seemed like nothing was happening so I didn't bother logging in for a few days ... by the time I did the voucher was toast and I'd begun to rack up the account. <edit> You need to re-write your ads. If they keep getting deactivated despite increasing the bid then the ad quality is usually the cause. You should work out some new ads. See what your competitors are writing to get an idea of what works in that field.
Something just doesn't seem right about an ad that bids at 30 cents, then I log in and it says I need to up the bid to $1 to activate it for search (which I do) then the next day I log in and it's now asking me to up the bid to $5 to enable it for search ??? You're kidding me right?
I have none of your problems. except few keywords that was needed to be raised to $.1 (notified from start), the rest are on $.05, they don't even complain about not getting enough click for ad shown and everything is activated and normal.
$.1 is quite a low price and you said you have chosen popular words. Maybe you need to raise the amount. Personally I can't find currently good keywords for under $.12
Im slightly worried about my account getting drained in no time. I am running my first adwords campaign as somewhat of a test to see if I can actually get any business from it. If my account gets drained and I get no business I don't plan on using it anymore. Can you guys explain more about making "better ads" ? To me this means nothing unless I know how you define "better".
Test 4 or 5 ads per ad group. Delete the ones that fail and build off the ones that succeed. You set the criteria for "fail" and "succeed"
A better ad as defined by Google Adwords means more clicks per 100 impressions. To Adwords this says that your ad is more relevent. If you remember this one fact, it will take you a long ways with Google both in natural search listings AND Pay per Click. Like I mentioned before, test more than one ad with your best ads. Try to use your keywords in your title and in your ad body. These are bolded in the ad when they match and this catches the eye of the searcher and compells them to click. As a goal, try to get your Click-Thru-Ratio above 1%. The higher the better. You can actually pay less per click and place higher in position than your competitor if you you have a higher Quality Score.