Budget management helps you manage budgets in one place, track spending progress, and keep your monthly budget on pace. With Budget management, you can:
Plan your monthly budget in advance
Monitor whether spend is tracking against plan
Set special budgets for key dates, such as promotions or campaign events
Let the system adjust pacing for upcoming dates
Allocate budget across a group of campaigns or managed groups
Budget groups come in two levels — profile level and campaign level, and only one level can be enabled per profile. See budget group levels below for a comparison.
Where to find it
Advanced Ads Settings → Budget Management.
Core Concepts
We recommend reading the following concepts before getting started.
Budget Group Levels
Budget management offers two budget group levels, each with a different control scope and a slightly different feature set:
Dimension | Profile Level Budget Group | Campaign Level Budget Group |
Scope | All campaigns under one store | A custom selection of campaigns or Managed Groups |
Use case | Top-level budget control for the whole store | Group control by product line, campaign objective, or ad type |
Operating modes | Two modes (Monitoring only / Dynamic allocation) | Three independent switches (Daily scheduling / Allocate budget by percentage / Auto pacing) |
Auto pacing | Not supported | Supported |
Profile-level Budget Group: Operating Modes
A profile-level budget group is configured by selecting one of two operating modes:
Monitoring only mode: The system only tracks spending and pacing; it does not change the daily budget of any campaign in the group. Suitable when you want to observe spending pace first.
Dynamic allocation mode: Use this mode if you want the system to dynamically allocate the store’s remaining monthly budget based on spend performance during the current month.
The logic works as follows:
When the monthly budget is updated, the system first calculates the remaining monthly budget for the profile
It then allocates the remaining budget across the remaining dates in the month
If today’s budget is updated directly, the system immediately delivers the budget using the value you set
Campaign budgets in the store are scaled up or down proportionally based on their current budget share, so the total matches the store-level daily budget
If any calculated value exceeds the platform’s maximum or minimum limit, the budget is delivered using the allowed limit instead
Note: Profile-level budget groups do not support auto pacing. To let the system autonomously optimize pacing, create a campaign-level budget group instead.
Campaign-level Budget Group: Budget Control Switches
A campaign-level budget group is configured by combining three independent switches that control how much the system intervenes in budget and pacing:
Daily scheduling: Sets a strict daily budget for every day of the month on a calendar. When on, the system follows the calendar. The system runs one allocation at 00:00 each day. If you update the monthly or today’s budget, the system immediately refreshes the budget for the current date.
Allocate budget by percentage: When on, you can assign a budget share to each campaign or Managed Group in the group, and the group's daily budget is distributed by that share. When off, shares are auto-calculated from each object's existing daily budget.
Auto pacing: When on, the system dynamically optimizes daily budget based on spending pace and performance (see How Auto pacing Works).
The three switches can be turned on or off independently. Common combinations:
Daily scheduling | Allocate budget by percentage | Auto pacing | Use case |
Off | Off | Off | Monitor spending pace only, no budget changes |
Off | On | Off | Spread monthly budget evenly with a fixed share |
On | On | Off | Strictly follow your calendar, distribute within group by % |
Off | On / Off | On | Let AI fully optimize pacing |
On | On / Off | On | Your chosen dates are fixed; AI optimizes the rest |
How Auto Pacing Works
When auto pacing is on, the system operates as follows:
Goal: Reduce the monthly pacing deviation (i.e., spend the budget as planned by month end) while preserving key performance metrics such as ROAS as much as possible.
Trigger: Recalculated once per day(6AM) as part of daily budget delivery — Budget Management sets a daily budget framework rather than adjusting continuously during the day.
Adjustments happen at two layers:
Today's budget: Recalculated every day using the same allocation formula as Daily scheduling, based on the latest month-to-date spend, then distributed to campaigns according to the in-group budget shares.
In-group budget share: When Allocate budget by percentage is on, each object's share is shown with an "AI optimized" indicator, and the system may fine-tune the share based on performance.
Budget Utilization Mode
When Auto pacing is on, all AI-enabled managed groups in the budget group automatically enter budget utilization mode, and it stays on for as long as auto pacing is on. This mode is designed to make sure the budget allocated by auto pacing actually gets spent:
When it activates: budget utilization is low and actual ACOS / ROAS is performing better than the target. AI then optimizes more aggressively to improve budget utilization — larger and more frequent bid adjustments, more active keyword/ASIN harvesting, and a lower probability of pausing targets. In this mode, bids may move beyond the configured bid range.
Efficiency still comes first: if ACOS is already worse than the target, the system does not keep pushing for maximum spend.
What is turned off: AI budget dayparting and budget boost do not run in this mode (the dayparting toggle may still show as enabled in the UI).
When auto pacing is turned off: Managed groups revert to their normal settings and behavior.
Working with AI Budget Dayparting
Budget management and AI budget dayparting work at two different levels, so they do not conflict on pacing: Budget management decides how much a campaign should spend each day, while AI budget dayparting decides when during the day that budget is available — it redistributes the day's budget across hours based on recent hourly spending capability and ad performance, without changing the day's total.
There are two situations where budget management dynamically adjusts daily budgets based on the month's actual spend:
Profile-level budget group in dynamic allocation mode: fully compatible with AI budget dayparting. When budget management adjusts a campaign's daily budget, dayparting automatically recalculates its hourly distribution based on the new daily budget and keeps running — the adjustment is not treated as a manual change.
Campaign-level budget group with auto pacing on: AI-enabled managed groups automatically enter budget utilization mode (see above). To make sure the budget can be fully spent, AI budget dayparting is not triggered in this state, even though its toggle may still show as enabled.
Auto Pacing and AI Coordination
When the budget group contains a managed group with AI on, and its action psace has bid optimization or targeting optimization enabled, auto pacing shows an AI other controls column to indicate which AI actions may run alongside the budget adjustments:
Category | Included Action Spaces |
Bid optimization | Adjust placement bids, bid dayparting, optimize base bids |
Targeting optimization | Keyword/ASIN negation, keyword/ASIN harvesting, pause targets |
Display rules:
Colored icon: AI is on and at least one action space in the category is enabled.
Gray icon: AI is off, or all action spaces in the category are disabled.
Hover tooltip: Hovering shows exactly which action spaces are enabled.
Monthly Overspending Stop & Automatic Start
Optional switches, independent from the three switches above:
Overspend Stop: When the budget group's cumulative spend reaches close to 95% of the set monthly budget, the system automatically changes any active campaign in the group to paused, marked as "paused by budget group".
Auto Start: When either of the following happens, the system restores campaigns marked "paused by budget group" back to active, and re-delivers daily budgets per the current rules:
You change the monthly budget and overspend stop has been triggered before
A new month or a new budget cycle begins
When auto start takes effect, you receive an in-app notification.
Monthly Budget Accumulation
If there is remaining budget in the current month and a budget value is already set for the next month, the remaining budget from the current month is automatically added to next month's budget. To enable the rollover, set next month's budget in advance (see Create a Budget Group — Step 2).
How to Use
Create a Budget Group
Step 1: Select objects in the group
The Managed group tab is shown first by default, so you can add a managed group as a whole.
You can filter campaigns or managed groups by label.
Step 2: Fill in basic info
Budget group name: Reflect the control dimension, e.g.,
Profile-US-Total BudgetorCampaign-NewProduct-Q2.Monthly budget: Enter the total budget for the month. The system validates the lower bound: month-to-date spend + remaining days × active campaign count × marketplace minimum daily budget. Values below this lower bound cannot be saved.
Next month's budget (optional): Pre-set the budget for next month; it takes effect automatically on the 1st of the next month. This also enables monthly budget accumulation (see Core Concepts).
Step 3: Configure operating mode
See Core Concepts for how each mode and switch works:
Profile-level budget group: pick one of the two operating modes (Monitoring only / Dynamic allocation).
Campaign-level budget group: toggle the three switches as needed (daily scheduling / Allocate budget by percentage / Auto pacing). Turning on daily scheduling opens the monthly calendar, where you can set specific daily budgets or pause specific days (see Daily Budget Allocation Calendar).
Step 4: More settings (optional)
Overspend Stop & Auto Restart: See Core Concepts.
Monthly Budget Accumulation: See Core Concepts.
Budget Alert: See Budget Alert.
After filling everything in, click Save. The budget group takes effect immediately and the system delivers today's budget under the current switch combination.
Daily Budget Allocation Calendar
The monthly calendar is shown when a profile-level budget group is in dynamic allocation mode, or when a campaign-level budget group has daily scheduling on. The calendar style depends on whether auto pacing is on:
Without auto pacing (profile-level budget groups always look like this; campaign-level budget groups look like this when auto pacing is off):
Future dates: Show the auto-allocated daily budget; dates you manually set are highlighted in a different color. Hover to see the budget share.
Today and past dates: Show the actually delivered daily budget; dates you manually set are highlighted; today's spend is shown. Hover to see the budget share.
With Auto pacing on (campaign-level budget groups only):
Future dates: Your manual dates are marked Custom; other dates show an AI optimizing indicator with the planned delivery amount. Hover to see the budget share.
Today and past dates: Your manual dates are marked Custom; other dates show an AI optimized indicator with the actual optimized delivery, plus today's spend.
Operations on the calendar:
Click a single day: Enter a fixed budget; the day is locked as "custom" and no longer participates in auto allocation.
Multi-day drag-select: Drag to select a date range and apply a fixed value or pause status in bulk.
Recalculate Daily Allocation
When you open the edit page of a campaign-level budget group, if daily scheduling is on, today and future dates show the budgets you previously set, not the post-reallocation result — so the numbers you see in the edit page match what you originally set.
To recalculate based on the latest spending data, click the Recalculate daily allocation button on the edit page. The system runs a full reallocation and updates today and future dates.
Edit, Pause, Delete
On the budget group list, the following actions are available on any row:
Edit: Modify the budget group name, in-group objects, monthly budget, the three switches, and control options. Changes take effect immediately under the new rules.
Pause: Pause the entire budget group; campaigns in the group stop receiving budget deliveries from the group's rules.
Delete: Delete the budget group. Campaigns in the group keep their daily budget settings and statuses.
Bulk Operations
Select multiple Budget Groups on the list to perform the following bulk operations:
Turn on / off Budget Groups: Switch the enabled state of multiple Budget Groups at once.
Turn on / off Overspend Stop & Auto Restart: Toggle control switches in bulk.
Turn on / off Budget Alert: Toggle the Budget Alert switch in bulk. If the selection contains a disabled Budget Group, this bulk operation is disabled.
Delete: Delete multiple Budget Groups in bulk.
Note: Bulk operations require that all selected budget groups belong to the same profile; cross-profile selections are blocked.
Budget Alert
Budget Alert sends in-app notifications when the Budget Group's spending pace deviates from expectation, so you can react in time:
Underpacing: Spending is too slow; the budget may not be fully consumed by month end.
Overpacing: Spending is too fast; you may overspend by month end.
To enable, check Budget Alert on the Budget Group create or edit page. Xnurta sends a notification when the current month's actual spend progress deviates from the ideal progress by more than 50% (actual progress = month-to-date spend ÷ monthly budget; ideal progress is based on the daily budgets planned to date).
Note: Budget Alert only sends notifications; it does not change campaign budgets or statuses. To automatically respond to overspending, enable Overspend Stop; to actively manage pacing, enable Auto pacing.
Use Cases & Best Practices
Recommended Mode Combinations
Different control goals call for different switch combinations:
New account, observe first: Create a profile-level budget group + Monitoring only mode, observe the real spending pace for 1–2 months, then decide whether to switch to Dynamic allocation mode or a campaign-level Budget Group.
Store-wide monthly cap: Profile-level budget group + Dynamic allocation mode + Overspend Stop, so the store stays on pace and won't go over by month end.
Hit-the-target with performance balance: Campaign-level budget group + Auto pacing on + Allocate budget by percentage on. Let AI drive pacing while you focus on the monthly total.
Big sale spikes: Campaign-level budget group + Auto pacing on + Daily scheduling on. Set fixed budgets on the calendar for the big sale dates; AI compresses or expands the others.
New product sprint: A campaign-level budget group with only new-product campaigns, with Auto pacing + Auto Restart + Budget Alert all on, so pacing, resume, and alerting are handled automatically while the new products ramp up.
Pairing Auto pacing with Managed Group
Auto pacing's budget adjustments and the managed group's AI action space are complementary — budget decides "how much to spend" while the action space decides "how to spend it more precisely".
We recommend treating auto pacing and the managed group's AI action space as a paired setup: turning on auto pacing alone limits AI to budget allocation only; turning on action space without auto pacing leaves pacing to you.
Budget Group Planning Principles
Pick one level per store: profile-level for a simple store-wide cap, or campaign-level groups for finer control — the two levels cannot be enabled at the same time within a profile.
Group campaign-level budget groups by "business goal", not by ad type. For example, "New Product — Connectors" is more useful for operational decisions than "All SP campaigns".
Pilot auto pacing with one store first: observe a full month or two of pacing deviation and performance stability before rolling out.
Permissions and Visibility
Action | Who can do it | Limits |
View budget group list and details | Members with budget management view permission | Only see budget groups for stores they have access to |
Create / edit / delete budget groups | Members with budget management edit permission | Need edit permission on the relevant store |
Enable auto pacing | Accounts with the auto pacing permission | Available only for campaign-level budget groups; during beta, the switch is disabled without permission, with a hover tooltip saying "Feature in beta" |
Bulk operations | Members with edit permission | All selected budget groups must belong to the same store |
FAQ
Q: Can profile-level budget groups use auto pacing too?
A: Not currently. Auto pacing is available only for campaign-level budget groups. Profile-level budget groups use the two operating modes (Monitoring only / Dynamic allocation). To let AI autonomously optimize budget pacing, use a campaign-level Budget Group with Auto pacing on.
Q: When auto pacing is on, will the system change my budget automatically? At which levels?
A: Yes. With auto pacing on, the system recalculates today's actually delivered budget once per day, and may fine-tune in-group budget shares based on performance. All changes are recorded in the budget management operation Log.
Q: Will auto pacing conflict with daily scheduling?
A: They don't conflict, but they behave differently:
Daily scheduling only: Strict daily budget per your calendar, no automatic reallocation.
Auto pacing only: The system reallocates to optimize pacing.
Both on: The system treats your manually set dates as fixed, and lets Auto pacing reallocate the remaining dates.
Q: I opened the budget group edit page and the budgets look the same as what I set yesterday — why hasn't the allocation been refreshed?
A: This is intentional in the new version — it prevents the numbers in the edit page from changing every time you open it, which would make it hard to tell "what did I originally set?". To refresh the allocation based on the latest spending, click the Recalculate daily allocation button on the edit page, and the system updates today and future dates.(for auto pacing off budget groups)
Q: Will auto pacing affect my managed group's bids or targeting?
A: Auto pacing itself only adjusts budget allocation. However, when Auto pacing is on, AI-enabled Managed Groups automatically enter Budget utilization mode, which can make AI optimization more aggressive and turns off AI Budget Dayparting and Budget Boost — see Budget utilization mode in Core Concepts.
Q: How do I know exactly what budgets the system changed, and which campaigns were affected?
A: Check the operation log on the budget group: the budget management page records group-level setting changes and overall delivery actions; the all sponsored ads log records each individual daily budget change a budget group made to a campaign (with the operator shown as "Budget Management"). Auto pacing on/off events and each delivery are logged.
Q: What if auto pacing's results don't meet expectations (e.g., budget under-spent or ROAS dropping)?
A: You can turn off auto pacing on the budget group list at any time, and return to manual or fixed pacing. To diagnose, combine the budget management operation log with ad management reports: if budgets are delivered but spend is still low, the issue is likely in ad competitiveness, bidding, or targeting — consider enabling the managed group's optimize base bids or keyword/ASIN harvesting action spaces. If spend rises but ROAS keeps dropping, consider lowering the monthly budget or rebalancing in-group budget shares.
Q: Why was my campaign suddenly paused?
A: Possible reasons: The budget group it belongs to triggered overspend stop, and active campaigns in the group were changed to paused with a "paused by Budget Group" mark — topping up the monthly budget with Auto Resume on restores them
Q: Will deleting a budget group also delete the campaigns inside?
A: No. Deleting a budget group only removes the budget group's control over its campaigns; campaigns keep their daily budget settings and statuses from before the deletion.
Q: Can a campaign belong to multiple budget groups at once?
A: No. A campaign can only belong to one campaign-level budget group. Also note that within the same profile, profile-level and campaign-level budget groups cannot be enabled at the same time.