Skip to main content

Pause spend when over budget (Google Ads)

Have Opteo pause a Google Ads account's campaigns when it goes over its monthly budget, and switch them back on next month.

Google Ads works with daily budgets per campaign, and it can spend more than a daily budget on some days, so there's no simple way to cap a whole ad account for the month. Pause spend when over budget does it for you: Opteo pauses the ad account's campaigns once its monthly spend goes over your budget, and switches them back on at the start of the next month.

It's for Google Ads only.

Switch it on

  1. Open the ad account and click Settings at the bottom of the left-hand menu.

  2. In Monthly Budget, enter the most the ad account should spend this month.

  3. In Acceptable Variance, enter how far over budget you're happy to go, up to 30%. Enter 0 to pause exactly at the budget.

  4. Switch on Pause spend when over budget. The text underneath shows the exact spend at which Opteo will pause.

  5. Click Update Monthly Budget.

See Set your Monthly Budget.

What happens

Opteo checks the ad account's spend for the month every hour. Once it goes over your budget plus the variance, Opteo pauses every campaign that's running and adds the label Paused temporarily to prevent budget overspend in Google Ads.

Video, experiment and Local Services campaigns are never paused.

Opteo switches the labelled campaigns back on when:

  • a new month starts

  • you raise the Monthly Budget or Acceptable Variance enough to leave room to spend

  • you switch Pause spend when over budget off and save

If you remove the label from a campaign in Google Ads, Opteo won't switch that campaign back on.

Alerts

You'll get these alerts by email, in Slack if you've connected it, and on the Alerts page:

  • All Campaigns Pausing in N Days: Opteo expects the ad account to go over budget before the month ends.

  • All Campaigns Paused: Opteo has paused the campaigns.

  • All Campaigns Reactivated: the campaigns are back on.

  • Account Access Denied: Opteo can no longer make changes in the ad account, so it has switched this setting off. Campaigns will now keep spending.

Good to know

If you cancel your Opteo subscription or unlink the ad account, Opteo stops checking it. Any campaigns it has paused stay paused until you switch them back on in Google Ads.

Did this answer your question?

Related Articles