Google Ads is adding two optional controls that let advertisers rank channels by priority and cap how much of a daily budget goes to the lower tier. A February 2027 change will move Search campaigns that use the Display Network onto the new system.
What Google announced
Tal Akabas, Director of Product Management for Google Ads, introduced channel prioritization and budget allocation in a post on Google’s Ads and Commerce blog on October 14. He framed the purpose in one sentence: “Marketers want more transparency into their ad campaigns and choice over how they direct their ad budgets.” The post says the controls build on Smart Bidding Exploration and campaign total budgets.
Channel prioritization lets an advertiser label inventory as “High priority” or “Low priority” for a specific channel or group of channels. According to Google, when it is configured, campaigns fully fund the high-priority channels, within their target when the campaign uses Target CPA or Target ROAS, before allocating the remaining budget to lower-priority channels. On Search campaigns, Google Search, Search partners and the Google Display Network can each sit at a different level. In Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns, Google surfaces such as Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail and Discover are prioritized together as “Google channels.” The controls roll out at the account and campaign levels and also apply to shared budgets, across Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen.
Budget allocation sits on top of the priority setting. When a channel or channel group is marked Low priority, the advertiser can set a maximum percentage of the daily budget for it. Google’s wording is deliberately qualified: “On a best-effort basis, our tools will aim to keep spend on those channels within that limit.”
Where the cap does the work
Google sets out when each control changes spend. Priority alone changes spend mainly when a campaign is limited by its budget, because the system then has to choose which channel gets funded first. Campaigns on Target CPA or Target ROAS bidding that are not limited by budget see little effect from priority alone, and Google calls budget allocation “particularly helpful” for them. A campaign with room to spare therefore needs the percentage cap to change anything.
Here is our arithmetic on the mechanics. A campaign with a $2,000 average daily budget and Display set to Low priority at a 10% allocation would aim to keep Display at or below $200 on a day. The same campaign with Display set to 0% would aim to spend nothing there. The word “aim” carries the same weight in both cases, since Google describes the limit as best effort.
Google presents the pair as a middle path for advertisers who have switched off Search partners or the Display Network entirely. In the post’s words, “These features give marketers more control than all-or-nothing opt-outs.” Those advertisers can now test the networks with a stated ceiling instead of a blanket exclusion.
The February 2027 deadline
The dated item in the announcement affects accounts that did nothing. Starting in February 2027, for Search campaigns with the Google Display Network turned on, the current spend allocation setup will go away, and Google says advertisers may see a shift in channel spending. To keep the existing configuration, the post tells advertisers to set the Google Display Network to “Low priority” with a 50% budget allocation.
Google says the features start to roll out progressively and reach Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen over the next months. Because availability varies by account, the Display setting is worth checking in the interface now instead of waiting for the controls to appear.
What it means for the marketing leader
The announcement moves a decision from a switch to a number, and a number needs an owner. For years the Search partners and Display question had two answers, on or off. A percentage allocation has to be chosen per campaign or account, and someone has to defend that choice when finance asks why Display took 20% of a budget last quarter.
In our reading, the 50% allocation Google suggests for preserving today’s behavior is a migration default and should be treated as one. An advertiser who has never examined Display performance inside Search campaigns would be adopting a ceiling Google picked for continuity. The February date gives teams about four months to look at the channel report and replace that default with a figure they can justify.
Agencies carry a second task. Each of these controls can differ by campaign type and by level, so a client with Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns can end up with three different rules for the same network. A one-page record of which campaign has which priority and allocation will matter the first time spend shifts and someone has to explain it.
Google also says API and Editor support are coming but did not date them in the post. Teams that manage accounts through scripts or the Google Ads API, which now ships twice a month, should expect the new settings to appear there later than in the interface and plan manual checks in the meantime. This is the latest in a run of Google changes that hand allocation choices to the platform’s own systems, a pattern we described in Amazon, Meta, Discord and Google Hand More Ad Buying to Software. Earlier this month we also covered how DV360 merged its brand suitability controls, another case of Google folding settings into fewer, more central controls.
A short checklist before February
Pull the last 90 days of channel-level spend for every Search campaign with the Display Network on. Record the conversion value per dollar for Search partners and Display next to Google Search itself. Decide, campaign by campaign, whether Display earns a priority tier and a percentage, and write the number down with the reason. If a campaign has no evidence either way, use Google’s 50% setting for continuity and schedule a review for the first month after the migration, when spend by channel will show whether the default held.
Source: Google Ads and Commerce blog, Guide your campaign spending with new priority and allocation features
