Google Ads will change how campaigns can send part of your search budget to ads on other websites and apps. Search campaigns using Display Expansion will automatically move to a channel-priority system from February 2027, with spending potentially shifting between Google’s search results, search partners and its Display Network.
The migration notice, spotted by Hana Kobzova and reported by PPC News Feed on October 23, also explains how to retain the current configuration. Advertisers can put the Display Network on Low priority and assign it a 50% daily budget allocation.
One bidding strategy has a different outcome: Search campaigns using Target Impression Share will stop serving on the Display Network under the change.
Display gets a spending preference you can change
Display Expansion lets a Search campaign reach people while they browse websites and apps. Google’s notice describes its previous setup as using spare budget, with a 50% allocation applied behind the scenes.
The replacement lets advertisers choose High or Low priority for channels and add an optional allocation for Low-priority inventory. Campaign settings can override account defaults, giving an individual campaign different instructions without changing every campaign in the account.
Google says Display’s cost per conversion can vary with the bidding strategy, priorities and allocation selected. Setting a percentage therefore needs a separate check of what those visits and conversions cost after the change.
A low priority may leave spending unchanged
Google’s detailed channel guidance says priorities generally do not change spending distribution when campaigns using cost or return targets are not constrained by budget. Those campaigns still pursue their target across channels; an allocation on a Low-priority channel continues to apply.
The allocation uses the campaign’s average daily budget, rather than its actual spending. For an illustrative $200 daily budget, a 10% allocation means Google aims to hold that channel to $20, even on a day when the campaign spends only $100.
In that example, $20 would be 20% of actual spend. A report showing more than a 10% share would therefore not, by itself, show the setting had failed. Google also describes the limit as best effort, with daily overshoots possible.
Changing the settings starts the transition early
The controls began rolling out progressively on October 15, with availability varying by campaign type and account. Applying channel priorities to a Search campaign before February replaces its existing Display Expansion budget behavior immediately.
That makes the first change a useful point to record the campaign’s existing channel spending. Compare the same channels afterward, using the configured daily budget when checking allocation and actual conversion costs when judging results.
Source: PPC News Feed
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