Review budget pacing chart in a budget plan

The budget pacing graph lets you visually compare the estimated pace of spend during a budget plan.

Search Ads 360 estimates the pace of spend and performance if the desired spend is similar to past spend. Otherwise, dashes (---) are shown instead of estimates.

Hover over any point on the graph to display the estimated and target spend amounts on a specific date. Once a plan starts, the graph will also show the actual spend amounts. Completed plans display only the actual and targeted amounts.

Cumulative amounts are shown by default. You can configure the graph to show amounts for each of the plan's date segments.

The graph updates

The information in the graph changes while a plan is running. Initially, the graph includes only estimated pace. While a plan is running, the graph updates to include estimated and actual pace. When a plan is over (completed), the estimated amounts go away; only the actual numbers remain, along with the targeted amount. 

The method of managing spend in the plan, manual or automatic (with a budget bid strategy), determines whether certain information is included in the graph. 

During a plan with manually managed spend, the graph includes estimated, actual, and targeted pace of spend. If spend is managed by a budget bid strategy, only estimated and actual budget pacing and performance are shown. Incremental target spend amounts aren't shown because the budget strategy targets only the total amount over the plan. 

If you manage spend manually (that is, if you are adjusting the campaign budgets, bids, and bid adjustments), the budget pacing chart doesn't immediately reflect the changes. For manual spend, the estimates update about every 2 weeks.

The budget pacing graph does immediately reflect changes to custom spend in the allocation table.

During a plan, be sure to review budget pacing and performance on the budget group's "Overview" tab. 

(Optional) Revise target spend in the budget pacing step

1. Start creating a budget plan.

2. Click Continue until you reach the "View pacing and allocations" step.

3. Under "Target spend", click the pencil icon , and then enter a different amount. 

   When creating or editing a single budget plan, Search Ads 360 automatically recalculates the estimates and allocations, but will not automatically change any amounts in the "Custom spend" column in the "Budget allocation" table. When creating or editing multiple budget plans, the "Custom spend" column is not displayed in the "Budget allocation" table. 

(Optional) View non-cumulative estimates in a budget pacing chart

• Above the chart, click the more icon , and then click Show cumulative amounts to compare estimated, target, and actual spend amounts by week, month, or day. The length of the budget plan determines the segment of the time ranges in the chart.

 

To return to an earlier step, in the left navigation, click the step. 

 

Next steps

1. Review estimated spend and set allocations in a single plan or Review and set target spends for multiple budget plans
2. Optional. Set reporting-only benchmarks.
3. Review the budget plan before saving.