How do you change a recurring budget plan in Search Ads 360’s Budget Management tool? What if you want to make a temporary change to a budget plan? What happens if you make a change to next month’s budget plan?
Managing budgets in SA360 is easy and efficient. However, for me, at least, it’s also a little abstract. It took me a while to understand the mechanics of recurring budget plans; how they work, how to control the recurring budgets, what happens if you make adjustments.
If you’re struggling as I did to wrap your head around SA360’s recurring budget plans, perhaps this post will help.
When Does SA360 Create a Recurrence? From Where Does It Get the Target Spend?
On the first day of each month, Search Ads 360 creates the budget plan for the following month. For example, suppose it’s 11:59 p.m., March 31. One minute later, at 12:00 a.m., April 1 Search Ads 360 will look at the budget plans for April and copy them to the month of May.
You can think of it this way: The budget/target spend of the “recurring” part of your budget plan is always next month’s budget plan.
This is important to understand because, from our perspective as human beings, adjustments to the current month apply only to the current month. To change the budgets that SA360 creates automatically on the first of the month, we need to change next month’s budget plans.
For example, suppose it’s the month of March. Starting in April and repeating every month thereafter, you want the target spend to be $1000 higher than what it is now. You’ll add the $1000 to the budget plan for next month (April). Then, on April 1, SA360 will copy April’s budget plan to the month of May.
How to Make Temporary Adjustments to Budget Plans
This is good because it allow you to make temporary adjustments to the current month’s budgets without impacting the recurring plan. So, suppose you need to add $1000 to the current month’s budget (March) but it’s a one-time thing. You can add the $1000 to March’s budget and leave April’s budget as is. The budget for May will be identical to April. The recurring budget plan remains in tact.
What if you want to make a temporary change to next month’s budget plan? For example, suppose in March you know that you want to add $1000 to April’s budget. But you don’t want that additional $1000 to apply to subsequent months.
You have two choices.
You can wait until the first of the month to make the change (so that you’re editing the now current month).
Alternatively, you could change next month’s budget plan now (e.g. change April’s budget in March). Then, sometime on or after the first of the month (e.g. on April 1), you’ll have to remember to revert the following month’s budget plan (e.g. the budget plan for May).
The moral of the story is this:
Whatever you do to the current month’s budget plan applies only to the current month. Whatever you do to next month’s budget plan will be applied to all subsequent budget plans.
Side note: In addition to budget plans that recur monthly, Search Ads 360 allows you to create budget plans that recur over a custom period (e.g. every 45 days). For the sake of simplicity and clarity, I’m going to deal only with a monthly recurring budget plan. If you happen to use custom recurrence, simply replace the word “month” with “period” (e.g. “On the first day of each month period…”).