In February, Google drops the hidden 50% Display budget split in your Search campaigns. Here’s what to change, and the catch in its new channel controls.
Mike Ryan and Chris Scharmueller unpack Google’s newest layer of channel controls for Search, Shopping, PMax and Demand Gen. Set a channel to low priority and Google spends on your high-priority channels first, sending only what’s left to the low ones, with an optional budget cap you can slide all the way down to zero. Display expansion in Search campaigns is the one to act on: its 50% budget split disappears in February 2027, so set Display to low priority with a 50% cap if you want to keep things as they are.
It sounds like real control. But in PMax and Demand Gen, Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail and Discover all sit in one “Google channels” bucket, so the only channels you can realistically deprioritize are Display and Search partners. And if Google already goes after the most incremental conversion first, what does the new setting actually add?
Then a true horror story for Halloween: a client’s Google Ads account hacked late on a Thursday night, every company email address removed, and hundreds of unlimited-budget campaigns sending traffic to an affiliate site. Chris walks through how the account was recovered that same night, and Mike explains why ads are one of the main ways hackers get in.
💡 Key Takeaways
- Action item: display expansion in Search campaigns currently runs on a fixed 50% budget split you can’t see or change. In February 2027 that split goes away and Display moves to the new priority system. To keep today’s behaviour, set Display to low priority with a 50% budget allocation. Campaigns on Target Impression Share lose Display entirely.
- Google’s channel prioritization and budget allocation controls cover Search, Shopping, PMax and Demand Gen, and have been rolling out since mid-October 2026. Every channel starts at high priority, and you can set any of them to low.
- Google spends on high-priority channels first and sends the remaining budget to low-priority ones. On tCPA or tROAS campaigns that aren’t limited by budget, priority alone barely changes where the money goes. The budget cap does the work.
- For a low-priority channel you can set a maximum share of the daily budget. It’s best-effort, not a hard limit, and 0% stops spend on that channel. Budget caps aren’t available in Demand Gen.
- The catch: in PMax and Demand Gen, Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail and Discover are bundled together as “Google channels”. Deprioritize that and you kill the campaign, so in practice only Display and Search partners are worth setting to low.
- Account hacks are a real risk: three smec clients were hit this year. Spend alerts that pause campaigns limit the damage. And never log in to your ads account, or your bank, through an ad. Type the URL.
🔗 Resources & Links
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