After you set up an account with the adCenter, you specify where the ad runs and set up a monthly budget. Creating a budget ensures that your advertising campaign doesn’t end up costing you more than you anticipated. Depending on the keywords you use for your ads, you might not reach your monthly budget. Alternatively, in a very competitive environment, it’s possible that customer clicks cost the maximum amount you specify.

Here’s how you set the ground rules for your adManager account:

1. Click WebSite on the Navigation bar of the Office Live Home page. The Page Manager opens.
2. Click adManager from the Navigation bar. If you’ve previously plunked down your credit card information, adManager’s Ad Settings page opens (see Figure 6-12).
3. Fill in the language and area for your ad and click OK. You can select a city, state, or country in which to display your ad from the Location drop-down list.
4. In the Search Engine Accounts and Budget area of the Ad Settings page, enter the total amount you want to spend each month on all of your ads. You can set your monthly budget amount anywhere from $1 up to $10,000. Your budget is divided by the number of days in the month. For instance, if you specify a $300 per month budget, your daily budget limit is automatically set at $10. If you don’t reach your daily limit, the remainder is then divided evenly over the remainder of the month. (Sounds kind of complicated — you might pity the guy who is sitting with his abacus trying to figure the whole thing out.)
5. Click OK to continue. A summary screen appears showing your budget and letting you know that you can increase or decrease your monthly budget at any time.
6. Click Next to continue. You are now ready to start creating ads.

Figure 6-12:
Setting your adManager preferences.

If, in the future, you’d like to change your monthly budget, follow these steps:

1. Click WebSite on the Navigation bar of the Office Live Home page. The Page Manager page opens.
2. Click adManager from the Navigation bar. Once you have signed up for an adCenter account, and specified your settings, the adManager Ad Summary page opens, as shown in Figure 6-13.
3. Click Settings to open the Ad Settings page.
4. Click Edit in the Search Engine Accounts and Budget section of the Ad Settings page.
5. Fill in the new amount for your monthly budget and click OK to save your changes.

Figure 6-13:
The Ad Summary page.

• Plan Your Way To Pay-Per-Click Campaign Success! Task number one is determining your product or service's Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. What is a USP? The USP...
• Finest Instructions For The Best Optimized Landing Pages – Using PPC Effectively [/caption] If you're looking for PPC landing page tips then the best advice you can get, especially if you are...
• Prefab Wednesday - Blogging The Construction Of A Res4 Architecture Prefab. Over at the blog A Prefab Project you can follow along with the construction diary of prefab cabin in Lost...
• Designing a Game Room on a Budget Your house will be a lot more fun if it has a great game room. This article tells you how...
• 5 Reasons To Dump Your Strict Budget You probably weren't expecting to hear Frugal Dad advocating getting rid of a budget. Well, I'm not, entirely. What I...