Overview
If you're new to Adpulse, we'd recommend you read the 'Budgets Explained' article prior to creating a budget, so you understand how best to set them up
A budget in Adpulse is a way to track and manage advertising spend across one or more campaigns. It defines how much you want to spend over a set period; daily, weekly, monthly, or custom, and allows you to group campaigns from one or more ad accounts under a single spend target.
A Budget in Adpulse is made up of several components:
Parent, or Child (can include one or more Ad Accounts, and campaigns)
Such as CPA, ROAS, or Conversions, etc, so performance can be measured during the budget period
Defines the start and end date (period) for your budget. You can create multiple schedules per budget.
A cohesive suite of tools designed to help you manage ad spend more efficiently across multiple campaigns and platforms.
Multi-Account or Single Account Budgets
Whether you're managing a single account or a whole portfolio, budgets give you centralised control and visibility over how your ad spend is being used.
A budget can be made up of one or more ad accounts from the same or different ad platforms. For example, one budget can be made up of:
1 ad account
Ie. Google, or Facebook, or TikTok, etc
Multiple ad accounts:
Google, Google, Google
Google, Facebook, Tik Tok
There are three types of Budgets:
A Parent budget can have up to two tiers of Child Budgets ’beneath’ it, and there is no limit on the number of Child Budgets that can be created.
Some examples of Parent/Child Budget structures:
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1. Parent Budgets
Parent budgets are the top level of the budgets and can include one or more ad accounts. Typically, they track budgets, spend, and performance at the ad account or client level.
Depending on the size and structure of the account, they may or may not have Child Budgets
When you create a Parent Budget, it defaults to include all the campaigns within the included ad accounts.
Use Cases for Parent Budget:
The client has a budget target and CPA for all of their activity within an Ad Account(s).
The spend is not large enough to justify splitting out the spend into Child Budgets
2. Child Budgets
You can have as many Child Budgets as you like; they are a collection of campaigns/shared budgets/ad sets within a single Ad Account.
You can select the campaigns/shared budgets within a Child Budget in a number of ways - How to use the Campaign Selector when creating a Child Budget.
Use Cases for Child Budget:
You want to set Budget Targets and KPIs at a more granular level. Examples where you might use a Child Budget:
Brand Campaigns, Remarketing, Display, Performance Max, etc
Product categories: Furniture, Electronics, etc
Locations, where each location has its own campaign(s) and budget
3. Google Account Budgets
You can create Adpulse budgets using the date ranges and budgets from a Google Account budget you have set up. If an ad Account has a Google Account Budget, it will be selected by default.
"Account budgets, formerly known as budget orders, are used by advertisers who pay by monthly invoicing. When you create an account budget, you choose a certain amount of money that you'd like to spend over a period of time. This can help you control your costs in addition to your average daily campaign budgets."
How to Create a Budget
Each Ad Account, or group of Ad Accounts, needs a Parent Budget as a first step. Once this is created, you can use the triple-dot menu options to create Child Budgets beneath it.
All budgets in Adpulse have the same settings, the only difference between Parent and Child budgets is;
Parent Budgets typically include all the campaigns within one or more ad accounts
Child Budgets contain a subset of campaigns within one or more of it's Parent Budget Ad Accounts
To create a new Parent Budget
At the top of the budgets page, there will be a notification advising you that you have X ad accounts missing budgets - click this to open a modal.
From the modal, click 'Create a Budget' next to the Ad Account. This will open the 'create a budget' page.
To create a new Child Budget
Open the triple-dot menu on the budget that you want to create a child Budget for and select 'Create Child Budget'. This will open the 'create a budget' page.
1. The 'create budget page'
The 'Create budget page' is the starting point for both Parent and Child Budgets, and the steps to create each are pretty much the same.
2. Choosing Ad Accounts and Campaigns
Selecting Ad Accounts
When you create a Budget, you can choose other new ad accounts that also don't have existing Parent Budgets to include in this budget (creating a Multi-Account Budget), or just the one.
When creating a Child Budget, you can only select from the Ad Accounts that are included in the Parent.
Selecting Campaigns / Shared Budgets / Ad Sets
When you create a Parent Budget, by default, it selects all the campaigns within the selected Ad Accounts. This cannot be changed while creating the budget, but can be edited after it has been created.
For Child Budgets, you will get a Campaign Selector to choose the campaigns you want to be included within the budget. You can select Campaigns statically or dynamically.
Select Campaigns Budgets - Static
This will provide you a list of all the campaigns within the Ad Account and you can manually select which ones to include.
Select Campaigns Budgets - Dynamic
Rather than manually selecting, you can filter by Campaign/Shared Budget name, and it will only include those that match the filter criteria. This will dynamically include and remove campaigns as per this filter.
Example: Campaign Name contains 'Brand'.
If you added a new Campaign that contained the name 'Brand', then it would automatically be included in this Budget.
3. Set the Budget name and KPI
Enter a name for the budget; for Parent Budgets, this defaults to the Ad Account name, but can be anything
Select a KPI for the budget. Read about why KPIs are essential to set per budget.
Select a KPI type:
And then a period:
The Last X Periods will create a target that is the average of that number of periods. For example, Cost per Conversion, Last 3 periods - where the budget is recurring monthly = the average Cost per Conversion from the last 3 complete months as the target.
If you have a defined target, ie. CPA = $52 or ROAS = 5, then you can use the 'Fixed' option and then enter this value to track performance against.
Required Fields | Description |
KPI | Set a KPI to track your performance and optimize the Insights generated for your campaigns. Options are:
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KPI Detail | Here, you select the value against the KPI type. Options are:
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4. Create schedules for the budget
A budget schedule defines the start and end date for your budget - the time period Adpulse uses to track spend and apply automation. You can set a schedule to run daily, weekly, monthly, or over a custom timeframe, and these schedules can be either recurring or one-time.
You can also create multiple schedules in advance, consisting of recurring or custom time periods, allowing you to plan budget changes well in advance.
A Budget Schedule consists of:
A date range
This can be recurring or a one-off custom timeframe
A budget target
The rollover strategy (optional)
Creating a recurring Budget Schedule
Required Fields | Description |
Schedule Type | Recurring |
Budget Target | This is the budget for the period that will recur each period, either forever or until a defined end date |
Recurring Period | This is the length of the recurring period and can be defined in months or weeks, with multiples of each available. For example:
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Start Date | When you create a new budget, you need to specify a start day of the month for this schedule. This will default to the first date of the current period, but can be in the future. |
End Date | This is optional;
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Pro-rata | Enabling Pro-Rata sets the Budget Target at a pro-rata value for the initial Budget Period. It will calculate the budget portion for the rest of the period (budget/days) and use that as the Budget Target for that period. This will only impact the first budget period, and the full Budget Target will be used for subsequent periods. |
Rollover Strategy | When using a rollover strategy, any unspent budget will increase the next budget period, and any overspent budget will reduce it. Options are:
Rollovers will continue to accumulate from one period to the next, even if one, many, or all campaigns are paused within the budget. |
Rollover/Top-Up | This is where you can update the current rollover amount or add a top-up amount to the current budget period. The Top-Up is great if the client wants to add a little more budget to just this current period. |
Total Budget | This is the Total Budget for the current period (includes the Budget Target and any Rollover/top-up added) and is the value that pacing and AutoPacing will use. |
Creating a custom Budget Schedule
Required Fields | Description |
Schedule Type | Custom |
Budget Target | This is the budget for the period that will only apply to this custom time period. |
Start Date | When you create a new budget, you need to specify a start day of the month for this schedule. This will default to the first date of the current period, but can be in the future. |
End Date | A Custom Schedule must have an end date |
Rollover Strategy | When using a rollover strategy, any unspent budget will increase the next budget period, and any overspent budget will reduce it. Options are:
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Rollover/Top-Up | This is where you can update the current rollover amount or add a top-up amount to the current budget period. The Top-Up is great if the client wants to add a little more budget to just this current period. |
Total Budget | This is the Total Budget for the current period (includes the Budget Target and any Rollover/top-up added) and is the value that pacing and AutoPacing will use. |
5. Enable Budget Automation
Budget Automation is a cohesive suite of tools designed to help you manage ad spend more efficiently across multiple campaigns and platforms. Instead of juggling spreadsheets and checking/setting budgets manually, Adpulse can automatically pace, adjust, and safeguard your campaigns based on your chosen rules.
These automations give you greater control, prevent overspend, and reduce the time spent monitoring budgets daily.
The available Budget Automation settings are:
Adjusts budgets up and down each day
Puts upper limits on adjustments made by AutoPacing
Prevents budget overspending
Pauses campaigns when a budget ends, for example, sale periods
Set daily spending limits
Carry across over- or under-spend between periods.
Automation Notifications
Notifications are sent when Automation pauses and enables campaigns, and when there is an issue with updating the daily budget via AutoPacing.
You can send notifications in two ways:
Via an email to an Adpulse user - simply select the User Tag (Managing Tags)
Via a third-party platform by using Non-user Contacts
6. Save the budget
The Budget will be created and the data populated in a matter of seconds, with data updated hourly.
Now you have created a Budget with a KPI, which will now appear on the Account Performance chart on the Dashboard.