Google Ads Updates Budget Pacing For Ad Scheduling

Google sent out an email to some Google Ads advertisers about changes coming to Google Ads budget pacing for ad scheduling. These changes go into effect on March 1, 2026.

The email says, "Starting on March 1, 2026, we'll gradually begin rolling out a change to Google Ads average daily budget pacing for advertisers using Ad Scheduling."

The email was posted Jordan Fry on LinkedIn and it reads:

Your monthly spending limit remains 30.4 times your Average Daily Budget. However, our systems will now proactively attempt to spend up to this limit regardless of a campaign's Ad Schedule. This change can help ensure a more consistent monthly spend for customers. Spending limits will remain the same: you'll never be billed more than twice your Average Daily Budget in a single day or 30.4 times your Average Daily Budget per month.

Your campaigns will never run on days when they are turned off using Ad Schedules. Be sure to adjust your budgets accordingly if your spending goals will be impacted by this change.

Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, responded about these concerns with some more clarity on this change. She wrote:

Your client’s use case for ad scheduling is very common. First, I just want to underscore that this has no impact on ad scheduling itself, and ads will continue to only run during your scheduled times.

We’re making this change to better align budget pacing functionality when ad scheduling is place with advertisers’ expectations for monthly spending limits (30.4x daily budget for campaigns using daily budgets).

Ad spend will continue to be driven by the campaign’s goal, e.g. conversions or conversion value.

We recommend reviewing daily budgets in these campaigns and adjusting if they are not aligned with monthly spend goals.

Here is a screenshot of this email:

This was also on X:

Hi Jordan, Your client’s use case for ad scheduling is very common. First, I just want to underscore that this has no impact on ad scheduling itself, and ads will continue to only run during your scheduled times.

We’re making this change to better align budget pacing…

— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) February 19, 2026

Forum discussion at LinkedIn and X.

Update: Greg Finn summed up the changes about 3:30 into this video:

Update 2: Ginny added more details:

Hi all, A few clarifications on the budget pacing w/ ad scheduling update. As you note, the 2x max daily spend rule remains & campaigns will not exceed the monthly spend limit:

1. If you did not receive the email notification, your accounts aren't included in this initial phase. We're rolling this update out gradually; advertisers will be notified individually well before the change takes effect for their specific accounts. Only accounts in this first wave will see the change go into effect on March 1st.

2. In the example of a campaign set to only spend on weekends: If the daily budget is set to $100, the monthly spend would have been 8 (on avg about 8 weekend days/month) x $100 = $800. With this change, it will be 8 days X $200 (up to 2x the daily spend limit) = $1,600 monthly spend limit. If you want to keep to a monthly spend limit of $800, you should lower the daily budget to $50, and plan to hit the 2X daily spend routinely given the headroom you already know the campaign has.

3. No need to set a rule to pause the campaign on certain days. Instead, set the daily budget to be in line with the monthly spend goals. More on average daily budgets here.