Link shared budgets to portfolio bid strategies

In Google Ads, a shared budget is a single average daily budget for multiple campaigns in a portfolio bid strategy. You can now link portfolio bid strategies and shared budgets together. It's best practice to implement shared budgets with portfolio bidding. Portfolio bidding allows you to be as efficient as possible with your total budget and with bid strategies on campaigns that share the same goals. For details on how shared budgets improve campaign performance, read About shared budgets.

Once a portfolio bid strategy is associated with a shared budget, the shared budget will always be associated with the campaigns that are part of your portfolio bid strategy. When a campaign is added or removed from the portfolio bid strategy, the shared budget will be automatically updated to reflect the change. When appropriate, you'll be asked whether you want to update the current budget.

You can link a shared budget to a portfolio bid strategy in the following ways:

• Create a shared budget during portfolio bid strategy creation
• Create or edit a portfolio shared budget through portfolio strategy settings
• Create or edit a portfolio shared budget from the daily budget column

This article guides you through the process of creating a shared budget specifically for portfolio bid strategies.

Create a shared budget during portfolio bid strategy creation:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon .
2. Click the Budgets and bidding drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Bid strategies. The 'Portfolio bid strategies' table opens.
4. Click the plus button, and choose the type of bid strategy that you’d like to create.
5. Enter the name of your new portfolio bid strategy.
6. Select the campaigns that you want to include (you can also add more campaigns after your portfolio bid strategy is created).
7. Enter the bid strategy settings:
   1. Ensure that 'Create a shared budget to use with this portfolio bid strategy' is ticked (this is the default setting).
   2. Enter the average daily budget amount (the average that you want to spend each day across all of the campaigns in the portfolio bid strategy).
      Note: This budget amount must be filled in, even if you have not yet selected the campaigns.
      • If campaigns were selected earlier, the shared budget amount will pre-populate with the calculated sum of the individual campaign budgets.
        For example, if the budget for each campaign is £50, and you selected five
        campaigns, the pre-populated budget amount would be £250
      • If you want to edit the shared budget amount, delete the pre-populated amount and enter a new amount. The pre-populated amount won't return once you’ve edited it, even if you delete the amount.
8. Click Save.

Create or edit a portfolio shared budget through portfolio strategy settings:

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon .
2. Click the Budgets and bidding drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Bid strategies. The 'Portfolio bid strategies' table opens.
4. Click the name of the bid strategy that you want to edit in the first column. The 'Portfolio strategy report' opens for the selected name.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the report and click Settings.
6. Click the tick box to open the option 'Use a shared budget with this portfolio bid strategy'.
   • If you want to unlink your shared budget from your portfolio bid strategy, untick the tick box. You'll now be able to add or remove campaigns directly from the shared budget.
7. Edit (if needed) a new shared budget amount.
8. Click Save.

Create or edit a portfolio shared budget from the daily budget column

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon .
2. Click the Budgets and bidding drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Bid strategies. The 'Portfolio bid strategies' table opens.
4. Hover over the 'Budget' column for the portfolio bid strategy that you want to change. Depending on the budget status, you can create a new shared budget or edit an existing budget. Refer to Budget status at the end of this article.
5. Click the pencil icon to create a new or edit an existing portfolio shared budget.
6. Click Save.

Budget status

Related links

• About average daily budgets
• About shared budgets
• Manage a shared budget across campaigns