A budget maximum is a limit on the amount of money you can spend

A budget maximum is a limit on the amount of money you can spend in a particular period of time, such as a month or a day. The first rule when setting your budget is to not budget more than you are actually willing to lose. Some ads do perform well right out of the gate in terms of click-through rate and volume, but that does not mean they will convert well and earn commissions for you. It is entirely possible to spend thousands of dollars in a few short hours and then discover later that you generated no commissions whatsoever.

In fact, it has happened to me, and the experience almost caused me to quit the business altogether, just weeks before I began to strike it rich. Don’t let a similar mistake push you out of the business too early. Set your budget high enough to generate some traffic to analyze, but never set it higher than the amount you are actually prepared to spend.

In the beginning, think of an ad budget as a sort of safety valve. It’s a limit you set in case an ad really takes off before you even know whether it can earn back what you spend on it. Once an ad proves it can earn you more money per click than it costs per click to run it, go ahead and open up that valve as wide as you like or can afford. But with a new and unproven campaign, use that safety valve to protect yourself.

Don’t forget what I told you before: What most search engines refer to as a daily budget is really just a figure used to calculate a monthly budget. The figure you enter for a daily budget can be exceeded, even doubled or tripled, on any given day as long as by the end of the month the daily average is below your maximum. This isn’t something that will happen very often to you, if at all, but you should still be cautious and keep a close eye on new campaigns.

Don’t worry if you are still wondering, “But how do I actually do all this?” It’s finally time to start a real search campaign, and now I am going to walk you through the actual steps with both Google and MSN. By the end of this article, your first search campaigns will be up and running.