When you create ad campaigns on Google Ads,
you set an average daily budget to specify roughly
how much you are comfortable spending each day over the month.
This average daily budget helps you control
and maximize return from your Google Ads investment.
In this video, we will share how budget pacing works
and how you can use the budget report to understand the way your average daily
budget sets each campaign's spending limits.
Google will optimize your campaign spend for days of the month
when you're more likely to get clicks and conversions.
This means that on some days you might not reach your average
daily budget, and on others you might exceed it.
For example, traffic and spend may fluctuate when competition
and consumer demand increases or when you broaden your campaign targeting.
In order to pace your budgets while helping you
maximize return, Google uses two spending limits.
The first spending limit is a daily spending limit.
This is the maximum amount you can be billed for a campaign on a given day,
calculated by the average daily budget that you set multiplied by two.
The second spending limit is the monthly spending limit.
This is the maximum amount you can be billed for a campaign over
a month, calculated by your average daily budget that you set, multiplied
by thirty point four, the average number of days in a month.
Though your campaign may serve above these limits,
rest assured you will never pay more than these limits.
Sometimes it can be difficult to visualize your spending limits,
this is where the budget report comes in.
The budget report helps you understand how much
you are projected to spend by the end of the month,
and how past changes to your average daily budget
impacted your performance and spend limits.
There are three main ways to access your budget report in Google Ads:
Via campaign budgets,
Shared budgets through the Shared library, and on top of the ad groups page.
Note that to do so, you may need to switch
to the detailed view of the Google Ads interface.
In all three access points, click the pencil icon on your campaign budgets
and select "View budget report".
When viewing your budget report,
you can select the month on the top right.
You'll also see your current average daily budget here.
Your monthly spend limit is represented by the gray line
and your cost to date is shown as the solid blue line.
If you're viewing the current month, you'll see your forecasted
spend for the remainder of the month indicated by the dotted blue line.
There are prediction intervals
for your forecasted monthly spend represented by the shaded blue area.
Any changes you might have made to your campaign's budget
during the month are represented by the gray triangles.
These changes impact your monthly spending limit, as shown
by step changes in the gray line.
Below, you'll see your campaigns daily spend shown by the blue bars.
The gray bars represent the amount you have left
before meeting your daily spending limit.
Now that you've learned the components of the budget report,
next we'll walk through three budget scenarios
you might see when using the budget report.
In the first scenario, your budgets are underpacing.
This is seen when the forecast spend, the dotted blue line,
is projected to land below the monthly spend limit, the gray line.
This means there's an opportunity to add new keywords,
broaden keywords and targeting, and adjust bids.
In rare cases,
your campaigns may deliver more clicks and impressions than expected.
The report will display an explanation at the top and the maximum you can pay.
Remember, you will never pay more than your daily or monthly spending limit.
However, there is an opportunity to raise your budgets
to capture missed traffic.
In the third scenario, your budget is pacing as expected
if the report does not provide an explanation at the top.
In all scenarios, continue
to regularly use your campaign Recommendations
and budget report to monitor performance
and view personalized opportunities for your campaign.
Access your Google Ads account and view
your budget report to understand your budget pacing.
Reference our Help Center
or reach out to your dedicated Google representative with any questions.