Automations

Raise and lower budgets

Move daily budgets up or down as demand and results change.

This automation moves daily budgets both ways. It raises the budget of campaigns that are spending everything you give them and performing, and lowers the budget of campaigns that are not spending what they have.

If you only want budgets to go up, use Raise budgets that run out instead. The two are not meant to run together on the same campaigns.

How it decides

Like its counterpart, this automation works from how much of its budget a campaign spends: what it spent over a window, compared with what its daily budget allowed across that window. You pick the window under Measured over: 2, 3, 7, 14 or 30 days, with 7 as the default. A budget that follows demand has to react quickly, so the shorter windows suit this automation better than they suit its counterpart.

There are two figures, one at each end:

• Above Raise when budget spent is above, the campaign is using its budget and is a candidate for more.
• Below Lower when budget spent is below, it is not using what it has and is a candidate for less.

Between the two, nothing happens. That gap is deliberate: without it, a campaign sitting near one number would be adjusted every single run.

Either direction can be switched off independently, so you can run it as increase only or decrease only while you build confidence.

Performance checks

Minimum conversions applies in both directions. Below it, the campaign is left alone.

Performance check then decides which results are looked at, and this is where the automation is cleverer than it first looks. The checks are read in the direction of the change:

• Increasing asks whether performance is good enough to deserve more budget.
• Decreasing asks whether performance is poor enough to justify less.

So a minimum ROAS of 400% means "raise only campaigns bringing in at least four times what they spend" and "lower only campaigns below that". The same number, read from both sides. ROAS is entered as a percentage; CPA (cost per acquisition) is an amount in the account currency.

Set the check to match how you judge the account. It is a dropdown with three options, and only the target for the one you pick is shown:

• No performance check looks at results not at all. How much of the budget was spent decides.
• ROAS uses the minimum ROAS.
• CPA uses the maximum CPA.

A target of 0 skips the check. A campaign with spend and no conversions has no ROAS and no CPA, and fails a check rather than passing it.

Conversion lag

Conversions arrive after the click, sometimes days after. Judging a window that runs up to yesterday makes recent performance look worse than it is, and would have the automation cutting budget on campaigns that are actually fine.

Conversion lag shifts the data window back by that many days, so the automation reads a period whose conversions have mostly landed. Set it to roughly how long your conversions typically take.

How much it moves

Each change is a percentage of the current daily budget, clamped between a smallest and a largest amount in the account currency. The largest always wins, so the automation cannot move a budget further than you allowed even if the smallest is set higher than the largest by mistake.

A campaign is never left on a zero or negative budget, since that would pause it. If a change would do that, it is skipped.

Settings

Filters restricts the automation to campaigns carrying a campaign label.

Date range holds the window budget spent is measured over and the conversion lag.

Thresholds holds the two budget-spent figures, minimum conversions and the performance check with its target.

Actions holds the two direction switches, how much each change moves the budget, and its smallest and largest amounts.

Suggested approach

Start with decreases switched off. Increases are easier to judge, since you can see whether the campaigns being raised are ones you would have raised.

Widen the gap between the two figures if you see the same campaigns being changed every run. A narrow gap makes the automation restless.

Every run changes budgets in Google Ads, so read the reason column on the first few. It names how much of the budget the campaign spent and the figure it passed, which is the quickest way to tell whether your settings are where you think they are.