09 Oct The “surprize” of AdWords currency settings

Often people don’t see the obvious and stop ask themselves questions about simple things. But, with AdWords we need to stay like children. Forever!
You write something and check it thoroughly. Several times! And, just for a final test, you show it to another person. BAAMMM – in less than a second they point to one or two mistakes or misspellings in your text. I used to go mad on this. Now, I don’t care anymore. I’ve learned this is normal (check TED talks). We love our mistakes and don’t focus too much on them 🙂
What has this to do with AdWords?
Having been working as an AdWords account manager for years, I’ve created thousands of accounts, but never happened to me to test campaign performances with different account settings (despite the fact that I continually chat with several account managers about AdWords optimization).
There are three basic account settings you can work on: time zone, country and currency. CPCs differences per country have been widely described (look at Mark Irvine and Larry Kim posts to have an idea), but no one tried to test different currencies.
Changing the currency will in fact define also the smallest unit you can not pay below, and in AdWords auctions you have to bid just 1 cent over your competitors to win your position.
When the chosen currency sub-unit is lower than the original one, you will of course achieve significant reductions, without doing absolutely anything else!
It is evident, isn’t it? But mistakes and biases are always obvious… when you finally spot them! 😉
In the example shown below changing the currency from Euro to Croatian Kuna the average CPC decreased from 0,15€ to 0.55HRK (~0,08€). Almost half of the previous one! Without doing any other change, except for the currency switch.
BEFORE:
 

CPC and cost when Account currency was in EUR

AFTER:

CPC and cost when Account currency was in HRK

Not too bad. Isn’t it? 😉

But be careful… Before you start to play with this option you should:

• Check any possible LEGAL & TAX issue;
• Have LARGE CLICK VOLUMES to have significant savings;
• Get familiar with the new currency and PREPARE YOUR CLIENT (to avoid heart attacks);
• Have a look at geo-political situation of the chosen country and at PAST EXCHANGE RATES to avoid rapidly changing ones.

Here are some interesting currencies you can test (and their current exchange rates with Euro):

• 1 EUR = about 115 Pakistan Rupees
• 1 EUR = about 120 Serbian Dinars
• 1 EUR = about 138,000 Japanese Yens
• 1 EUR = about 310 Hungarian Forints
• 1 EUR = about 1,330 South Korean Wons
• 1 EUR = about 3,380 Colombian Pesos
• 1 EUR = about 15,500 Indonesian Rupiahs
• 1 EUR = about 25,00 Vietnamese Dongs

Of course the more fractioned is the new currency in comparison to 1 Euro Cent the more savings you can potentially obtain from switching to it.
If you decide to do it, please tweet me your feedack at @mvarga 😉