Create a budget plan

A budget plan shows how you want to allocate spend over a time period. You can optionally include a budget bid strategy to manage spend and bid changes in a plan.

To begin creating a plan, you specify the time range, budget groups, and a conversion goal. A plan can run anywhere from one week to one year from the start date of the plan. 

You can create multiple, sequential budget plans in each budget group if the time frame for each plan is less than a year.

• The next plan that you create inherits most settings from the previous plan. The target spend (and custom allocations) aren't inherited by the next plan.

• The start date for a plan can be any date after the budget group was created, even past dates.
  For example:

  • You want to create a budget plan for a budget group that was created on January 5.

  • Today's date is April 30.

  • You can create a budget plan that starts on or after January 5.

• You can change the time range of the plan as long as the plan has not completed, and the new end date is today or in the future.
• You can't create a plan that ends in the past.

Two options for creating budget plans

You can choose to:

• Create one budget plan at a time
• Create multiple budget plans at a time

The steps differ slightly depending on how many plans you're creating at the same time and what level you're scoped to. For example, you might see + Budget plans (plural) in the UI when you're scoped to the advertiser level or + Budget plan (singular) when you're scoped to an individual budget group. In addition, you can also create budget plans by navigating to the "Budget groups" tab, selecting one or more budget groups, and then clicking New > Budget plans.

Regardless of how or where you start the process, Search Ads 360 creates one budget plan for each budget group that you select in the budget plan editor. So, if you select 3 budget groups in the budget plan editor, Search Ads 360 will create 3 budget plans.

The steps that follow are part one of the budget plan creation process for a plan that covers a specified time range. Learn more about creating a recurring budget plan.

Set a time range, budget groups, and goal

You are must create a budget group that contains campaigns before you can set up a budget plan. 

1. Navigate to an advertiser.

   Steps for navigating to an advertiser

   1. Click the navigation bar to display navigation options.

   2. In the "Agency" list, click on the agency that contains the advertiser. You can search for an agency by name or scroll through the list.

   3. In the "Advertiser" list, click on the advertiser.

   4. Click Apply or press the Enter key.

   Search Ads 360 displays the advertiser page, which contains data for all of the advertiser’s engine accounts.

2. In the left navigation panel, click Budget management.
3. Do one of the following:
   • Click the Budget groups tab, select one or more budget groups, click New, and then click Budget plans.
   • In the table, click the name of a budget group (this will scope you to the budget group), click the Budget plans tab, and then click + Budget plan.
   • Click the Budget plans tab, and click + Budget plans.
     If it's the first time that you're creating a plan in a budget group, you can click the Create plan button instead of the + Budget plan button.

4. In the budget plan editor, on the "Select a time range, budget groups, and goal" page, do the following to select the time range that the budget plan will cover.

   The default time range is one month. The minimum time range is one week.

   Budget plans can't overlap within a budget group.
   1. Next to "Time range", click the arrow  to display the list, and then click Set date range.
   2. Click the default date range to display the calendar.
   3. To select the start date, click the date on the left and then scroll to select the date you want.
   4. To select the end date of a plan, click the date on the right, and then scroll to select a future date that is, at most, one year from the start date.
   5. Click Apply.
5. Select a currency.

6. Select one or more budget groups.

   Depending on how you started the process, one or more budget groups might already be selected. If you want, you can select different budget groups.

7. Select or create a goal.

   You can't select a different conversion goal in a plan. Instead, you can remove the plan, and then create a new budget plan for the same time range.

8. Click Continue.

 

Next steps

Perform the following steps to complete the budget plan: 

1. Set the budget for the group of campaigns.

   Optional steps:

   • Compare estimates for different methods of setting campaign budgets and bids.
   • Set a performance benchmark.
   • Enable and configure a budget bid strategy.
2. View budget pacing chart and allocation table.
3. Optional. Specify other goals only for reporting.
4. Review plan settings before saving the plan.