Google Ads Will Let You Cap How Much of Your Budget Goes to Display Ads
Google Ads is adding settings that let advertisers rank channels as High or Low priority and cap spending on the low ones. Search campaigns with Display turned on face a February 2027 change that could shift spend if nothing is updated.
For owners who manage their own Google Ads, this is a simple way to keep most of the budget on Google Search while still testing Display in small amounts. The bigger risk is the February 2027 switch: with channels defaulting to High priority, a Search campaign with Display on could start spending differently without anyone touching it.
If you run your own Google Ads Search campaigns, part of your budget may be going to the Google Display Network: image and text ads on other websites and apps, not on Google’s search results. On October 14, 2026, Google announced two new settings that give you more control over where that money goes.
What changed
- Channel prioritization: you mark channels High or Low priority. In Search campaigns, Google Search, Search partners (other sites that show Google search ads) and the Display Network can each get their own setting. Google funds High-priority channels first and sends what’s left to Low-priority ones, while still working toward your cost-per-acquisition (CPA) or return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) target.
- Budget allocation: for Low-priority channels, you set the most of your daily budget they can use. As reported by Search Engine Journal, a 0% cap blocks a channel.
- Both work for Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns, at the account or campaign level, including shared budgets.
The deadline to know about
Starting February 2027, Google will retire the current Display spending setup for Search campaigns that have Display turned on, and says spend may shift. Search Engine Journal reports that every channel starts at High priority by default. To keep things working the way they do now, Google suggests setting Display to Low priority with a 50% budget allocation.
What’s confirmed and what isn’t
- The caps are applied on a “best-effort” basis, in Google’s words. Google aims to stay within them but doesn’t guarantee it.
- Google says the controls are rolling out globally over the next few months. It hasn’t said when they will show up in any specific account.
- In Performance Max and Demand Gen, Google’s own properties (Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail and Discover) are grouped as one “Google channels” option, so you can’t separate Search from YouTube there.
- Google hasn’t shared any performance results. Search Engine Journal notes that if a campaign already hits its targets, limiting channels can narrow what Google’s automated bidding has to work with.
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