On October 14, Google announced channel prioritization and budget allocation controls for Google Ads. The new controls are optional, and most of the coverage stopped there. The part that matters for your account is further down Google’s help page: in February 2027, Display Expansion on Search campaigns moves onto this system automatically.
What Google actually announced
Two controls. Channel prioritization lets you mark channels as High or Low priority, at account, campaign or shared budget level. Google funds High priority channels first and sends what is left to Low priority ones. Budget allocation, available only on Low priority channels, lets you set a daily percentage of the campaign’s average daily budget as a ceiling for that channel. Everything defaults to High, so nothing changes until you touch it.
Google’s help page is clear on the limits. The percentage is best effort, not a guarantee, and daily spend may occasionally go over it. It is calculated against your average daily budget, not your actual spend. Setting 0% means Google will not spend on that channel. Rollout started October 15 and is progressive, so availability varies by account and campaign type.
The February 2027 change
This is the date to circle. Google says that from February 2027, Search campaigns with Display Expansion turned on migrate automatically to channel prioritization and budget allocation. Its Display Expansion help page describes the old arrangement as a 50% budget allocation applied in the backend, a split you could not see or adjust. That setup is going away, and Google’s own announcement says advertisers may see spend shift between channels.
Google has not said, in anything we found, exactly what priority and percentage an unchanged campaign will land on after migration. What it does say is how to keep today’s behaviour: set the Google Display Network to Low priority with a 50% daily budget allocation. If you do nothing, treat your Display spend as an open question rather than a safe assumption.
One more line in the same help page matters if you buy on visibility. From February 2027, the Display Network stops serving on Search campaigns that use the Target Impression Share bid strategy.
Who this affects
Any Search campaign with “Include Google Display Network” ticked. Google notes that prioritization does little for campaigns that are not budget-limited, and that with Target CPA or Target ROAS and no budget limit, priority generally does not change how spend is distributed. So the exposure is highest on budget-capped Search campaigns.
It also touches Performance Max and Demand Gen, though differently. In Performance Max, Google channels are grouped as one tier, while search partners and the Display Network can each be ranked separately. Demand Gen supports prioritization but not budget allocation. And agencies take note: manager accounts cannot set this, so it has to be done in each client account or campaign, with API and Editor support listed as coming soon.
What to do before February
First, find the exposure. Filter your Search campaigns by network settings and list every one with the Display Network on. Pull Display spend and conversions for those campaigns over the last 90 days. If the Display line is already small or converting badly, your decision is easy.
Second, decide on purpose. If Display is earning its place, set it to Low priority with a 50% allocation to keep the current split, then adjust from data. If it is not earning its place, set it to Low with a small percentage, or 0%, and move that budget to Search where intent is higher. Google presents Low priority with a cap as an alternative to a full opt-out, which is useful if you want a test rather than a switch-off.
Third, check Target Impression Share campaigns. If you rely on them and any Display delivery, plan for that delivery to stop in February.
Fourth, set a baseline. Record channel-level spend and cost per conversion now, so a February shift shows up as a change you can see, not a mystery in blended numbers. This is the same discipline we covered in the AI Max upgrade post: when Google changes the plumbing, the only defence is knowing your numbers before it does.
The honest summary
This is a transparency upgrade wrapped around a forced migration. You gain real control over a split you could never see, and the price is that accounts that ignore it let Google decide. It does not need to be urgent today. It does need to be on your list before February.
If you are not sure how much of your Google Ads budget goes to Display and partner traffic, or what it returns, that is exactly what our free 15-point Profit Audit checks, alongside tracking health and whether your reported numbers match your bank account. You keep the findings either way.