Shift budget

Move budget while the opportunity is still open. Find campaign headroom, correct pacing, and approve the exact budget moves while the signal is fresh.

When to use

• "Where can we move $12k without pushing CAC above target?"
• "Which campaigns should get more budget?"
• "Are we on pace for the month?"
• "This campaign is capped — should we raise it?"
• "Cut spend on what isn't working."

Before you start

1. Targets. ROAS, CPA or CAC target per campaign or channel. If there isn't one, use the trailing 30-day average and say so.
2. Protected budgets. Ask whether any campaigns, tests or budget floors must not move (brand search, prospecting floors, active tests). recall_memory may already know.
3. The plan. For pacing questions, the monthly or flight budget per channel.

Workflow

1. Pacing

Compare spend so far with the plan and each campaign's budget.

• Budget utilization = spend ÷ (daily budget × days). Below about 85% means the campaign can't spend what it has; look for the cause (bid cap, small audience, low rank) before adding money.
• Google: google_ads_run_gaql for spend by day, budget, and search impression share lost to budget vs rank.
• Meta: facebook_list_campaigns and facebook_list_adsets for budgets (returned in cents), and facebook_get_adaccount_insights for spend.
• TikTok: tiktok_get_campaigns, tiktok_get_adgroups and tiktok_get_basic_report_enhanced. Account balance and ad group quota: tiktok_get_account_finance.
• Microsoft Ads: bing_ads_list_campaigns, bing_ads_list_budgets (shared budgets) and bing_ads_get_performance.

2. Headroom: where the next dollar works hardest

A campaign can take more budget only when all of these hold:

• It's at or better than target over 7 and 14 days, not just yesterday.
• It's actually constrained: impression share lost to budget (Google), sustained full spend of its budget, or a stable 3-day ROAS against a 7-day ROAS.
• It has enough conversions to trust (see the guardrails skill for each platform).
• Nothing changed in the last 48–72 hours.

Cut or cap where results are below target and trending worse. Diagnose first (diagnose-performance); don't cut a campaign that's just in its learning phase.

Default to hold when the data is thin or contradictory.

3. Size the moves

Read meta-guardrails or google-ads-guardrails first. Key limits:

• At most 20% per move on Meta and Google Search/Shopping. Up to 50% on mature Performance Max (google-ads-pmax-scaling).
• Budgets exist only at campaign (CBO) or ad set (ABO) level on Meta, and campaign level on Google. Never "move budget between ads, placements, audiences or keywords"; those aren't controls.
• Don't change the budget and the bid strategy of the same campaign at the same time.
• Always say whether a budget is daily or lifetime. Warn on increases above 100% or cuts above 50%.

Output

1. Pacing: spend vs plan by channel and campaign.
2. Headroom: campaigns that can scale inside target, and why.
3. Proposed moves: a table with campaign, current budget, new budget, change %, reason and expected effect. Show that the total fits the plan.
4. Held: what you chose not to move, and why.

Making the change

• Meta: facebook_propose_update_campaigns (campaign budgets, bid strategy, spend cap) or facebook_propose_update_adsets (ad set budgets on ABO campaigns). Pass budgets in account currency; the tools convert.
• Google: google_ads_propose_update_campaigns (budget, tCPA/tROAS targets). Call google_ads_get_currency first.
• TikTok (beta): tiktok_propose_update_campaigns and tiktok_propose_update_adgroups. For Smart+ campaigns, tiktok_propose_manage_smart_plus with UPDATE_BUDGETS, one ad group per proposal. Check tiktok_get_automated_rules first so a rule doesn't undo the change.
• Microsoft Ads: read-only through the connector. Give the user the exact moves to make.

Every change: one item per field change → dry run → show current and new values → the user approves in chat → mode: "live" with only the approved operation_ids. Never go live without that yes.

Put it on a schedule

Offer a daily budget pacing agent. With write access and ask_approval, it proposes moves for approval, capped by maxBudgetChangePct (see automate-with-agents).