Spend Caps
Spend Caps enable you to set a shared budget for a group of individual campaigns — providing a streamlined way to control spend for multi-campaign activations while reducing management overhead and the risk of overspend.
How it works
As an advertiser, there are a variety of situations in which you may need to make budget decisions that impact multiple campaigns. In these situations, you can use Spend Caps to group campaigns under a single, shared budget.
This budget (or “Spend Cap amount”) determines how much spend is allocated to the full group of campaigns — meaning that the total combined spend of the campaigns cannot exceed the overarching Spend Cap amount.
As long as the total combined spend remains below the Spend Cap amount, all eligible campaigns within the Spend Cap will continue to run. Once the total combined spend reaches the Spend Cap amount, all campaigns in the associated Spend Cap will automatically pause — preventing you from exceeding your overall budget.
Example:
Campaign Considerations:
Spend Caps are a part of the broader Ads Manager ecosystem and work in harmony with other campaign settings. Therefore, in order for a campaign to run within a Spend Cap, the status for the campaign itself must be “Running”.
Campaigns with other statuses (Draft, Paused, Exhausted, etc) may be added to Spend Caps, but they will not begin to spend until their individual status is “Running”.
Currency Considerations:
USD will be set as the default currency for all Spend Caps, but advertisers can choose to change this setting. In addition to USD, options for the Spend Cap currency will be determined by the currencies of funding instruments that an advertiser has associated with their account.
For example:
If all of an advertiser’s funding sources are in USD, then they will only be able to create Spend Caps in USD.
If all of an advertiser’s funding sources are in CAD, then they will be able to create Spend Caps in USD (default) or CAD.
If an advertiser has some funding sources in CAD and some in JPY, then they will be able to create Spend Caps in either USD (default), CAD, or JPY.
Create a Spend Cap
Once you’ve created your campaigns and you’re ready to start grouping them under a shared budget, take the following steps to create a Spend Cap.
- Navigate to your Spend Caps tab. This tab can be found by clicking on your ads account name in the top right corner of the Ads Manager page then selecting “Account settings”. On your account settings page, you will see a tab titled: “Spend Caps” — click on that tab.
- Create a Spend Cap. Click on the “Create Spend Cap” button in the top right corner of the page. This will launch a module for creating your Spend Cap.
- Fill in Spend Cap details. Name it, set a Spend Cap amount, and input the Booking reference/PO # (where needed).
- Add your Campaigns. Click the “Add” button in the top right corner of the Campaigns section of the module. Select one or more of your previously created campaigns by scrolling through the list or using the Search bar to find specific campaigns by name. After choosing your campaigns, click “Review” to navigate back to the Edit Spend Cap page.
- Go live! Once you’ve filled in your details and selected your campaigns, your Spend Cap is ready to be activated. Simply click on the “Save” button, and you’re good to go!
After saving, a newly created Spend Cap with a “Pending” status will appear in the table on your Spend Caps manager page. The new Spend Cap will take a few minutes to process, then the status will change to “Active”. At this stage, the Spend Cap is live and being applied to all associated campaigns — preventing the total combined spend of the campaigns from exceeding the Spend Cap amount.
Manage your Spend Cap
Once a Spend Cap is created, you can view details, add / remove campaigns, increase / decrease the total Spend Cap amount, and pause or delete the entire Spend Cap.
View details: Click on the “View details” link in the “Name” column of any non-deleted Spend Cap.
Add Campaigns: Click on the “View details” link and navigate to the “Campaigns” section of the module. Click the “Add” button, select your desired campaign(s), click “Review”, then “Save”.
If a campaign has existing spend, it will carry that existing spend into the Spend Cap. Even though this spend occurred outside of the Spend Cap, it will be counted against the overall Spend Cap amount.
Remove Campaigns: Click on the “View details” link and navigate to the “Campaigns” section of the module. For any campaign that you would like to remove, click on the red trash can icon to the left of the campaign name. On the pop-up module, select “Yes, remove campaign”. The campaign will be removed once you acknowledge the pop-up module, you do not need to “Save”.
If you remove a campaign from a Spend Cap, the spend associated with that campaign will be returned to the Spend Cap and will become available to the remaining campaigns.
Increase / decrease the Spend Cap amount: Click on the “View details” link then click “Edit” in the top right corner of the “Spend Cap details” section. Click into the “Spend Cap amount” field, adjust the budget as needed, then click “Save”.
Please note that adjusting the “Spend Cap amount” may cause eligible campaigns to resume spending or pause.
Rename Spend Cap: Click on the “View details” link then click “Edit” in the top right corner of the “Spend Cap details” section. Click into the “Name” field, edit the name as needed, then click “Save”.
Pause Spend Cap: Click on the check mark toggle to the left of the “Status” column — changing the status to “Inactive”.
Pausing a Spend Cap does not pause the associated campaigns within the Spend Cap. By switching the status to “Inactive”, you are turning the Spend Cap off, and it will no longer be applied to the associated campaigns. Campaigns associated with an “Inactive” Spend Cap will default to Ad Group Budget, Campaign Budget, or Funding Source settings. At any time, you can unpause the Spend Cap by clicking on the toggle again.
Delete Spend Cap: Click on the “View details” link then click on the red “Delete” button in the bottom left corner of the module. Acknowledge the pop-up module by selecting “Yes, delete Spend Cap”.
- Deleting a Spend Cap does not pause the associated campaigns within the Spend Cap. Campaigns associated with a “Deleted” Spend Cap will default to Ad Group Budget, Campaign Budget, or Funding Source settings. Deleted Spend Caps cannot be restored.
Status Check:
Spend Caps can have 5 different statuses — each with its own meaning:
Pending: The Spend Cap is in a processing stage due to recent creation or edits. When the status is “Pending”, the Spend Cap is not being actively applied to the associated campaigns. The status will automatically switch to “Active” when processing has completed. This phase should only persist for a few minutes.
Active: The Spend Cap is live and being applied to all associated campaigns. There is budget remaining.
Exhausted: The total combined spend of the associated campaigns has reached the Spend Cap amount. The associated campaigns have been paused. Increasing the Spend Cap amount will return the Spend to the “Active” status and unpause any eligible, associated campaigns.
Inactive: The Spend Cap has been turned off and is no longer being applied to the associated campaigns. At any time, you can turn the Spend Cap back to “Active” which will reapply the Spend Cap to the associated campaigns.
Turning a Spend Cap to “Inactive” does not pause the associated campaigns. Campaigns associated with an “Inactive” Spend Cap will default to Ad Group Budget, Campaign Budget, or Funding Source settings.
Deleted: The Spend Cap has been deleted and is no longer being applied to the associated campaigns. You cannot restore a deleted Spend Cap.
- Deleting a Spend Cap does not pause the associated campaigns. Campaigns associated with a “Deleted” Spend Cap will default to Ad Group Budget, Campaign Budget, or Funding Source settings.
Frequently asked questions
Yes — the Spend Cap amount must be ≥ $10
Yes — you are able to have multiple Spend Caps active at the same time. In fact, you can have multiple Spend Caps in any status: Pending, Active, Exhausted, Inactive, or Deleted.
No — a campaign can only belong to one Spend Cap at a time. A campaign must be removed from its current Spend Cap in order to be added to a different Spend Cap.
Deleted Spend Caps are an exception to this rule. When you delete a Spend Cap, any associated campaigns become eligible to be added to other Spend Caps.
No — you will need to create the campaign then add it to the Spend Cap via the Spend Cap editing workflow.
Only people with “Account Administrator” permissions are able to navigate to the Spend Caps tab.
You may see campaigns within a Spend Cap slow down or halt before the full Spend Cap amount has been exhausted. This is an intentional feature to ensure that you do not overspend on your budget.
Yes - In addition to USD (default), the options for the Spend Cap overarching currency will be determined by the currencies of funding instruments that an advertiser has associated with their account.
Yes — within a Spend Cap, the currency of an individual campaign can differ from the overarching Spend Cap currency. In this case:
The campaign currency will automatically be converted to the Spend Cap currency.
The rate conversion will occur at the time of spend, will be based on daily rates, and will be used for Spend Cap budgeting purposes only.
The ads account will be billed in the actual currency associated with the campaign’s funding source.
Additional reading
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