Digital Advertising: Budget Settings

Overview

The Budget Settings page is built around transparency and ease of use. The budget you input for Digital Advertising is the total you'd like spent per month across all relevant channels: Google Search, Display Ad networks, Performance Max, and Facebook/Instagram (Social). The page shows your allocations to specific objectives and channels, any Custom Campaigns you've created, and the spending decisions made by our AI on the remaining, unallocated budget.

You can also schedule changes to next month's budget, allocations, and Custom Campaigns ahead of time using the Budget Scheduler — see the Budget Scheduler section below.

How It Works

Digital Advertising spends your monthly budget in an organized, fully transparent way, optimizing by default for Max Conversions. You may switch to a Max Clicks strategy, though this is recommended only at the very start of the month and in consultation with your Customer Success Manager.

Budget shifts happen across channels on a near-daily basis as the algorithm continuously balances your budget, real-time market opportunity, and lead volume. Throughout the month, the system spends between 95% and 105% of your intended monthly budget.

Where to Find It

The monthly budget setting is located in the Digital Advertising Settings, under the Budget tab.

Page Layout

The Budget Settings page has two main sections:

Adding Allocations

Allocations let you designate a portion of your monthly budget to a specific Channel or Advertising Objective. Allocations repeat the following month unless deleted — deleted allocations will not be visible the following month.

To allocate funds, click the blue Add Allocation button in the upper right corner of the Budget Settings page.

The Allocations Side Panel

Clicking Add Allocation opens a side panel guiding you through three components: Objective, Channel, and Budget.

Supported Objectives

• New Inventory
• Used Inventory
• Certified Pre-Owned
• Brand
• Dealer Near Me
• Competitor
• Trade-In
• Service
• Parts
• Custom Campaigns

Supported Channels

• Search
• Display
• Social
• PMAX (all Performance Max channels)
• PMAX VLA only (Performance Max vehicle ads only)
• PMAX non-VLAs (Performance Max non-vehicle ads only)
• Demand Gen
   

Editing Allocations

Edit an existing allocation by clicking the edit pencil icon to the right of its row in the Strategy and Allocations Center panel. The Edit window shows the current Objective, Channel, total budget, and the maximum funds available for this allocation based on spend and your remaining unallocated budget for the month. The date of the last update is shown in the lower-left corner.

Important to Note

• You may adjust your budget at any time and as often as you'd like, though changes toward the middle or end of the month are not recommended. Type the new total amount you want spent by the end of the month, and the system automatically calculates the increased daily spend needed.
   
• Wait at least 24 hours to see allocated spend reflected — it takes time to send preferences to Google and Facebook, create the campaign, run ads, and pull spend data back into the Fullpath Dashboard.
   
• You may allocate budget by Objective or Channel. With Custom Campaigns, you can also allocate by vehicle model or geo-target.
   
• If you reduce your budget after you've already spent the new, lower amount, ads will be paused, no further money will be spent, and the amount you entered will run starting the following month.

Budget Scheduler

The Budget Scheduler lets you plan out next month's budget, allocations, and Custom Campaigns in advance, instead of waiting until the new month starts. This reduces the chance of human error and gives you more flexibility to plan ahead.

Step 1 — Open the Budget Scheduler

On the Budget Settings page, click Schedule {Next Month}. The Budget Settings page also displays a scheduler status indicator, so you can tell at a glance whether changes are currently scheduled for next month.

Step 2 — Review Current vs. Scheduled Budget

The Budget Scheduler page shows next month's scheduled budget, with clear flags for any changes from this month's settings — for example, "Scheduled Edit," "Scheduled Deletion," or "Scheduled Start," along with the specific change (e.g., −$1,000, or a new allocation).
 

Step 3 — Schedule Custom Campaign Changes

From the Budget Scheduler, you can edit an existing Custom Campaign's start date, end date, and budget for next month. New Custom Campaigns are created from the Audience activation flow, not from the Scheduler — see Activation: Creating a Custom Campaign in Digital Advertising.

• A Custom Campaign's start date can only be set to this month. Next month is only available as a start date if a budget schedule is already in place for the account.
   
• If a start date falls mid-month, the campaign's status shows as Scheduled until the start date arrives, then changes to Active.
   
• If an end date falls mid-month, the campaign's status remains Active until the end date arrives, then changes to Removed.
   
• If a campaign has two different budgets set (one for the current month, one for next month), both are visible when you click into the campaign.
   
• If you have a scheduled Custom Campaign for next month and click Reset, you'll be notified that the campaign's scheduled changes will be disabled.

Step 4 — Save Your Scheduled Changes

A scheduled budget must be saved to take effect — drafts are not applied. Once saved, the Save button becomes disabled and you'll see an acknowledgment that your changes were saved. If you make further edits, Save becomes enabled again to prompt you to save the update.
 

Step 5 — Reset Scheduled Changes

Click Reset to discard any scheduled changes and revert next month's budget back to this month's settings. After resetting, you'll see this month's budget presented in the scheduler, and you must click Save again for the reset to take effect.

Editing This Month's Budget While a Schedule Is in Place

Change Logs

Every scheduled creation, edit, deletion, and reset is logged by client, user, and date. You can find this history on the dashboard, under Event Logs: https://dashboard.fullpath.com/acquire/event-log.

View Budget and Spend History

Review previous months' budgets to compare, analyze, or export for co-op submissions from the Digital Advertising product menu, or directly at https://dashboard.fullpath.com/acquire/budget-history.

Learn More

• Digital Advertising: Budget History
• Activation: Creating a Custom Campaign in Digital Advertising