What Google Ads channel prioritisation means for paid teams

Google Ads announced channel prioritisation and budget allocation on 14 October 2026, two optional settings that let advertisers rank Search partners, the Display Network and other channels and cap low priority spend as a daily percentage. Search campaigns running on Display move to the new system in February 2027, so every paid search account has a deadline.

Key takeaways

• Google Ads announced channel prioritisation and budget allocation on 14 October 2026, rolling out over the following months to Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen.
• Google AI funds high priority channels first, up to any Target CPA or Target ROAS goal, then spends what is left on low priority channels.
• A budget allocation caps a low priority channel at a share of average daily budget, so 5% of $1,000 aims for $50 a day or less, on a best-effort basis.
• From February 2027, Search campaigns with Display Expansion enabled migrate automatically, and Google says a 50% Display allocation keeps today’s behaviour.
• The settings can’t be applied from a manager account, and Google Ads API and Editor support is still to come.

What Google added to Google Ads

Tal Akabas, a director of product management at Google Ads, announced the two controls under the line “Say goodbye to all-or-nothing channel targeting”. Until now a Search campaign either served on search partners and Display or it didn’t. Now an advertiser can keep a channel switched on at low priority, so Google AI spends there only after high priority channels have had what they can use at the target.

Budget allocation adds a ceiling. For a low priority channel you enter a percentage of the campaign’s average daily budget, and Google aims to stay under it. The help page says the allocation resets each day, unspent or overspent amounts don’t carry over, and a 0% allocation stops spend on that channel. Settings work at account level, at campaign level and on shared budgets where every campaign is the same type, through a “Channel Prioritization” card in account or campaign settings. Search Engine Roundtable reported that an alpha of the feature surfaced in August.

Which campaigns get which control?

In Performance Max and Demand Gen, Google treats Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail and Discover as one block called Google channels. In Performance Max you can push Display and search partners below that block, in Demand Gen only Display, and in neither can you rank YouTube above Search.

Does prioritisation change spend at all?

Only on campaigns that run out of budget. Google’s help page says prioritisation “has no effect” when a campaign isn’t limited by budget, because a campaign with spare budget funds every channel that converts at the target anyway. Allocation still applies to those campaigns, and Google’s blog says it matters most for Target CPA and Target ROAS campaigns that aren’t budget-limited.

For a head of paid search that settles which lever to pull. On a budget-limited Search campaign, ranking search partners low protects Google Search volume. On a campaign with headroom, only a percentage cap moves the money.

Our view at Manual Focus is that most brands should replace their search partner and Display opt-outs with a low priority setting and a small allocation, because a capped test produces evidence and an opt-out produces none. Google’s own announcement addresses marketers who have “historically opted out” of search partners and Display, and until now those teams had no way to try either network at a controlled cost. A 5% cap gives them a test they can read after a month.

For cycling and endurance retailers the window to try this is before Black Friday and the spring riding season, when Search budgets run tightest and every click on Google Search counts. A shop that has always excluded Display or search partners could set one of them to low priority with a 5% cap on a budget-limited bikes or kit campaign in late October, so it has four weeks of evidence before peak spend begins. If the test earns its place the cap can rise for the sales period, and if it doesn’t the retailer has lost very little and gained a clear answer.

Google AI still chooses bids and placements, and the team now chooses the order it spends in and the limit on each channel, which is the split of work we argued for in Paid channels in the AI era. A margin-aware approach like our paid-search bidding agent playbook can then feed the targets that high priority channels are funded up to.

What happens to Display in February?

From February 2027, every Search campaign with Display Expansion enabled migrates automatically, and Google’s blog says the current spend allocation setup “will go away”. Advertisers may see spend shift between channels as a result. Google’s advice for keeping things as they are is to set the Google Display Network to low priority with a 50% daily budget allocation.

There is a second change in the same paragraph of the help page. Display will no longer serve on Search campaigns that use the Target Impression Share bid strategy, so brand campaigns built on impression share lose their Display reach whatever setting you choose.

What to do before February 2027

1. List every Search campaign with Display on. Export bid strategy and budget status alongside it, so you know which campaigns migrate and which use Target Impression Share.
2. Choose the Display setting on purpose. Use the 50% allocation where Display earns its place, and a lower cap where nobody has checked. Annotate the date you change it, so any shift in results has a cause on record.
3. Turn one opt-out into a capped test. Pick a budget-limited campaign that excludes search partners, set them to low priority at 5%, and judge the result on cost per acquisition and new customer share after four weeks. Our attribution tear-down covers how to read a channel’s results against platform claims.
4. Plan account-by-account work. Manager accounts can’t apply these settings and the API and Editor can’t yet, so agencies and multi-brand teams need time for each account.
5. Bring the caps into budget planning. Percentages per channel are budget decisions, so put them in the same sheet as your quarterly mix. The channel-mix simulator shows how to model diminishing returns by channel before you set them.

What Google hasn’t said yet

Google calls the allocation best-effort, so spend can exceed the cap on a given day, and the help page doesn’t say by how much. The help page also doesn’t describe channel-level reporting, which you need to judge a low priority test. Rollout runs “over the next months”, with Demand Gen later and availability varying by account, so some teams will wait. Google hasn’t said whether a low priority channel gets lower-quality inventory or only less budget, and it gave no performance data for the new settings. Treat Google’s own framing, that the controls help marketers “confidently spend as the holidays approach”, as a reason to test before peak trading rather than proof the settings work.

Further reading

• Paid channels in the AI era, on which decisions paid teams keep when platforms bid for them
• Paid-search bidding agent, a playbook for setting targets by margin instead of revenue
• Attribution tear-down, for checking whether a channel’s results hold up
• What ChatGPT’s new ad measurement tools mean for paid teams, on judging a new channel with incrementality tests
• How to evaluate AI tools without falling for the demo

Our services page sets out how we help paid teams plan channel tests.

I run paid search for [brand] in [market]. From February 2027, Google Ads
moves every Search campaign with Display Expansion enabled onto channel
prioritisation and budget allocation, and Display stops serving on Search
campaigns that use Target Impression Share.

Attached are two files:
- a Google Ads campaign export with, for each Search campaign: the campaign
  name, whether Display Expansion is on, the bid strategy, the average daily
  budget, and whether the campaign is limited by budget
- a report for the last 3 months segmented by network, with cost,
  conversions and cost per acquisition for the Display Network and for Google
  Search in each campaign

Give me a table with the columns: Campaign | Display on? | Bid strategy |
Limited by budget? | Migrates in February? (yes/no) | Loses Display because
of Target Impression Share? (yes/no) | Suggested Display setting.

For the suggested setting, compare each campaign's Display cost per
acquisition with its Google Search cost per acquisition in the network report.
Use "low priority, 50% allocation" to keep today's behaviour where Display
converts at or near the Search figure, and "low priority, 5% to 10%" where it
converts much worse or has too few conversions to judge. Explain each
suggestion in a few words, with the two figures. If a campaign has no network
data, or a column is missing from either file, say which and put "no
performance data, decide by hand" in that cell rather than guessing.

I ran a test in Google Ads on the campaign [campaign name]. On [start date] I
set [search partners / the Google Display Network] to low priority with a
[5%] budget allocation, where before it was switched off.

Attached are:
- two reports for this campaign, one for the four weeks before the change and
  one for the four weeks after, with cost, conversions, cost per acquisition
  and new customer conversions, split by network where available
- a daily report for the four weeks after, segmented by day and network, with
  each day's cost on the low priority channel and the campaign's daily budget
  that day

Give me:
1. A table with the columns: Metric | Four weeks before | Four weeks after |
   Change.
2. From the daily report, what the low priority channel spent each day as a
   share of that day's budget, the average share, and on how many days it went
   over the cap. If the daily report is missing, say so and skip this part.
3. One recommendation: raise the cap, keep it, or switch the channel off,
   with the reason in two sentences.

If the volumes are too small to tell a real change from noise, say so plainly
instead of recommending. Don't use any figure that isn't in the reports.

Set this up as a routine that runs every Monday morning until the end of
February 2027.

Google Ads channel prioritisation and budget allocation can't be set from a
manager account, and the Google Ads API and Editor don't support them yet, so
each account has to be changed by hand.

Attached is our account list: account name, the Search campaigns in each, and
the Display setting we've decided for each campaign. Each week I'll attach the
same list with a "Done" column filled in.

Give me a change plan per account: the campaigns to change, the setting for
each, in the order to do them, with the campaigns that use Target Impression
Share and those already done marked. Then a short summary: accounts finished,
accounts left, and any account where the decided setting is missing. If this
week's list is missing or doesn't match last week's, say what changed rather
than assuming.