Google's Ads Product Liaison, Ginny Marvin, published answers on October 16, 2026, to the questions advertisers have been asking about Google Ads' new channel prioritization and budget allocation controls, and some of those answers do not match Google's own help documentation. Writing in the Ads Decoded newsletter on LinkedIn, Marvin said the controls are supported in the Google Ads API at launch, that they are fully testable with Drafts & Experiments and fully compatible with shared budgets, and that Performance Max advertisers can set Search partner spend to 0%. The same newsletter gives a 5% to 90% ROAS tolerance range for promotion mode, a figure Google had not previously published.

In Short

Two days after Google added settings that let advertisers rank where their money goes first and cap spending on partner sites, Google's advertiser liaison posted answers to the most common questions about them. Some answers repeat what Google already said, but a few go further than Google's help pages, especially on whether the settings can be changed through software tools and used in tests. If you buy Google ads, the newsletter suggests more is available than the documentation says, but the two sources have not yet been reconciled.

The two posts

The main source is an edition of Ads Decoded, the LinkedIn newsletter Marvin writes under the Google Ads page, titled "The big-picture guide to directing your ad spend." It is dated October 16, 2026 and signed "Ginny." At the time of capture, the newsletter showed 225,418 subscribers, the Google Ads page 962,768 followers, and the edition itself 89 reactions, 11 comments and 6 reposts.

The second source is a post on X from the AdsLiaison account, which describes itself as carrying "official posts from Google's ads product liaison," pointing to the newsletter. The post is timestamped 11:12 PM on October 16, 2026, in the time zone of the device that captured it, and had 2,142 views. "The news is out and the questions have been coming in," it begins.

The newsletter covers more than channel controls. It has four parts: a question-and-answer section on channel prioritization and budget allocation, a list of three bidding and budget features "rolling out in time for the holiday push," a section on customer lifecycle goals, and a four-step framework for goals, bidding, budgets and planning. It also embeds the October 15 Ads Decoded episode in which Marvin interviewed Tal Akabas, whom the newsletter calls a "budget and bidding product specialist."

What the controls are, in Marvin's words

The features themselves were published on October 14. PPC Land reported then that Google Ads lets advertisers rank channels as High or Low priority and limit spend on Low priority channels to a percentage of the average daily budget, and a follow-up the next day stressed that the cap on Display spend works on a best-effort basis.

Marvin's summary matches that description. Under channel prioritization, "the system will fully fund your high priority channels first (within your target CPA or ROAS goals) before directing any remaining budget to lower-priority channels." Under budget allocation, for any channel marked Low priority, "you can also set an optional, percentage-based daily budget cap." She presents both as going "beyond binary opt-in/opt-out choices."

The section heading in the captured newsletter reads "Top Q&A: channel customization and budget allocation," while the body and the X post use "channel prioritization." The difference appears to be editorial rather than a separate feature.

The channel options she lists by campaign type are the same as the help page's:

  • Search: Google Search, Search Partners and the Google Display Network
  • Shopping: Google Search and Search Partners
  • Performance Max: "Google channels" (Search, YouTube, Gmail, Discover and Maps, prioritized together as a single setting), Search Partners and the Display Network
  • Demand Gen: "Google channels" and the Display Network, with "existing channel controls" unchanged

That last line matters for Demand Gen buyers. Since early 2025, Demand Gen campaigns have let advertisers switch YouTube, Discover, Gmail and the Display Network on or off individually. Marvin confirms those switches stay in place alongside the new two-tier ranking, which groups Google's own surfaces into one bucket.

The seven answers

Marvin answered seven questions. Several restate the October 14 material. Four go further than, or diverge from, the help page.

Existing opt-outs stay

"Existing opt-in/opt-out settings for the Display Network and Search partners are unchanged," Marvin wrote. A Search campaign opted out of Search partners stays opted out, and "individual placement controls also remain." Nothing in the release switches a network back on for advertisers who had turned it off.

Testing, and the 0% setting

Her second answer is where the 0% figure appears. "On PMax, you'll be able to set a budget allocation for SPN to 0% if desired or test increasing the max percentage daily budget allocation," she wrote, using Google's abbreviation for the Search Partner Network.

The help page published on October 14 already stated that a 0% allocation on a Low priority channel means "Google won't spend on that channel." What the newsletter adds is the explicit application to Search partners in Performance Max, the campaign type where advertisers have pressed hardest for a partner opt-out. A setting that let some Performance Max advertisers turn off Search partners and the Display Network was spotted in an alpha test on April 30, 2026, and in late July Google confirmed it was a pilot limited to selected advertisers.

A 0% allocation is not the same instrument as that opt-out. It requires marking the channel Low priority first, and the help page describes every allocation as a target Google "will aim to" respect, adding that "this isn't a guarantee." Marvin's answer does not repeat that caveat, nor does it say the 0% setting is exempt from it.

For Search campaigns, she describes a sequence: an advertiser who opts into the Display Network or Search partners and moves the channel to Low priority "will then also have the option to set a daily budget allocation cap." The cap only exists on the Low priority tier.

Smart Bidding: an answer missing from the capture

Marvin notes that "these are budgeting controls and not bidding controls." For Maximize conversions and Maximize conversion value, she wrote, prioritization "steers spend to 'High priority' channels first before allocating any remaining budget to lower-priority ones."

The answer for Target CPA and Target ROAS is not in the captured copy. The heading "When using Target CPA or Target ROAS:" is followed directly by the next question, with no text in between, which suggests the content was an embedded element that the capture did not render. The help page fills the gap. For Target CPA and Target ROAS campaigns that are not limited by budget, "priority levels generally don't change how spend is distributed," and only the percentage allocation has an effect.

Account, campaign and shared budgets

Settings can be applied at account level as defaults "per campaign type," which campaigns "inherit," and overridden at campaign level. "Shared Budgets: These settings are fully compatible and supported when using shared budgets," according to Marvin.

The help page is narrower. It requires campaigns in a shared budget to be of the same type for the controls to apply, and Google's separate shared budgets page says shared budgets are only available on Search, Shopping, Display and Video campaigns, with Performance Max listed as incompatible. "Fully compatible" therefore applies to the campaign types that can use shared budgets at all.

API at launch, Editor later

This is the clearest conflict. "They are supported via the Google Ads API at launch, with Google Ads Editor support coming soon," Marvin wrote.

Google's help page, as reported on October 14, said: "Support for the Google Ads API and Google Ads Editor is coming soon," and listed only the Google Ads interface and Search Ads 360 as launch surfaces. The October 15 PPC Land report reached the same conclusion from the same page. The newsletter moves the API from the "coming soon" column into the launch column. It does not name an API version or the resources that expose the settings.

For agencies, the difference is practical. The help page also says the controls cannot be set from a manager account, so an agency applying them across dozens of client accounts would do so either one account at a time in the interface or through the API. Marvin's newsletter does not address manager accounts.

Experiments

"Settings are fully testable using campaign Drafts & Experiments," Marvin wrote. The help page places two limits on that. Multi-campaign shared budgets are not supported in experiments, and "all channels in those experiments are treated on the same priority tier." The newsletter's "fully" reads past both.

Rollout: weeks or months?

The two posts, written by the same person on the same day, disagree on pace. The LinkedIn newsletter says the settings "will be rolling out globally over the coming months." The X post says they "will be rolling out globally over the coming weeks." Google's October 14 blog post said "over the next months," and the help page gave October 15, 2026 as the start of progressive availability. In the October 15 podcast episode, Marvin had said "coming weeks."

Reporting

No new reporting was added. Marvin points to existing tools: network segmentation and placement reporting in Search and Shopping, the channel performance report and placement reporting in Performance Max, and network segmentation in Demand Gen. Search partner placement reporting has been available since August 2025, when Google enabled site-level data for the network.

The February 2027 change

"For Search campaigns opted into GDN, the current spend allocation setup will go away, starting Feb '27," Marvin wrote. To keep the current configuration, advertisers can set the Display Network to "Low priority" with a 50% budget allocation. That matches the blog post. In the podcast, a speaker said the change would not roll out until the "February, March time frame next year." The newsletter returns to February.

The newsletter does not mention the help page's statement that the Display Network will stop serving on Search campaigns using Target Impression Share.

Where the newsletter and the help page differ

Topic Help page (October 14) Marvin newsletter (October 16)
Google Ads API Coming soon Supported at launch
Google Ads Editor Coming soon Coming soon
Shared budgets Same campaign type required; Performance Max incompatible "Fully compatible and supported"
Experiments No multi-campaign shared budgets; all channels on one tier "Fully testable"
Rollout pace Progressive from October 15 "Coming months" (LinkedIn), "coming weeks" (X)
Demand Gen allocation "Budget allocation is not supported for Demand Gen campaigns" Not addressed
Target Impression Share on Search Display Network stops serving Not addressed

The Demand Gen row deserves attention. The newsletter's testing answer says that "regardless of campaign type," a Low priority setting means High priority channels are funded first. It makes no claim about allocation on Demand Gen, and it does not repeat the exclusion either. In the October 15 episode, Akabas had told Demand Gen advertisers they could test the Display Network with "a budget allocation," which the help page says is not available to them.

Three holiday features

The second section of the newsletter lists three features "rolling out in time for the holiday push."

Smart Bidding Exploration

According to Marvin, Smart Bidding Exploration, "which gives the system a small ROAS tolerance to bid opportunistically and find incremental auctions, is now fully launched for PMax retail (with a product feed) and Shopping campaigns." She adds that it "requires uncapped budgets to function properly."

That is a status change. On May 7, Google said it would extend Smart Bidding Exploration to feed-based Performance Max and Shopping, and by June 22 PPC Land reported both formats were in a restricted beta, while Performance Max without a feed had become globally available. In the October 15 episode, Marvin described the feature as "rolling out" for retail Performance Max and "coming to" Shopping. One day later, the newsletter says both are fully launched. The uncapped budget requirement means a campaign held back by its daily budget gets less from the feature, a point Akabas also made on the podcast.

Promotion mode

Promotion mode is "rolling out in beta on Search and PMax," according to Marvin. It "allows you to schedule a promotional period and set a ROAS tolerance between 5-90%, leveraging Smart Bidding Exploration." An optional budget boost can apply during the promotion, and "once the promotion ends, it automatically reverts to your original settings."

The 5% to 90% range is new. When Google made promotion mode available in beta on June 15, its material described "temporary ROAS tolerance changes" without a range, and Marvin's clarification a week later gave a window of 3 to 14 days but no tolerance figures. The newsletter does not define how the percentage is applied. In Smart Bidding Exploration, tolerance refers to accepting a lower return than the target in exchange for more volume, so a 90% setting would allow a very large relaxation for the length of a sale. The newsletter does not repeat the 3 to 14 day window.

The beta label also sits uneasily with the podcast. On October 15, Akabas said: "We've had this in beta. We've been iterating on it with advertisers, and it's rolling out just now I think this week on search and PMax." That could be read as a move out of beta. The newsletter, published a day later, still calls it a beta.

Campaign total budgets

Campaign total budgets are "designed for new campaigns to advertise short-lived promotions," with a fixed total spend over a duration "between 3 and 90 days." The range matches what PPC Land reported when the feature reached Search, Performance Max and Shopping in open beta in January 2026.

Marvin suggests pairing total budgets with promotion mode for "short-burst sales." The October 14 help page adds a limit she does not mention: channel prioritization works with campaign total budgets only on Demand Gen. A Search or Performance Max holiday campaign on a total budget cannot use the new channel tiers, while the newsletter lists promotion mode only for Search and Performance Max. On the current documentation, no campaign type supports all three features together.

Customer lifecycle goals

The newsletter lists two lifecycle goals: New Customer Acquisition, to "optimize campaigns to acquire new users," and customer retention, "designed to help you keep existing customers engaged and entice lapsed customers back." Google expanded these lifecycle options in April 2025, when win-back was limited to a Performance Max beta.

The newsletter gives no new status or figures for the goals. Its contribution is a setup instruction: upload first-party Customer Match lists through Data Manager, which Marvin says can "connect to dozens of native integrations," and set up the "new vs. existing customer parameter" in the conversion tracking tag. Both inputs feed the model that decides, per auction, whether a user is a new or existing customer.

The framework

The final section sets out four steps. Goals come first: conversion goals that reflect "true business goals," with conversions, values and audience data passed through Data Manager, which Marvin summarizes as "build Data Strength." Bidding second, with strategies and targets "backed into your business goals and financial results." Budgets third, using channel prioritization, total budgets and promotion mode. Planning last, deciding "how best to allocate your next dollar (or currency of choice)."

For planning, the newsletter says Performance Planner has received "new landscapes and data to make it more accurate, with more features coming," and points to two reports on the Recommendations page: Missed Opportunities and Recommended Investment Strategy. No accuracy figures or availability dates are given.

The order echoes what Google has argued since its August bidding change, when Marvin said targets become the efficiency lever in budget-capped campaigns. Budgets come third in that hierarchy, after goals and bids.

Reactions under the posts

The visible responses were few and not about the features. The most recent LinkedIn comment, written in Portuguese, accused Google Ads of offering no real support to customers and asked why scam advertisers can run ads without being blocked. On X, one reply addressed Marvin directly, saying her messages had gone unanswered for seven days. Neither post showed a reply from Google in the captured pages.

Why it matters

Google now has four public accounts of the same two settings: a blog post, a help page, a podcast and a newsletter, published over three days. They agree on the core mechanism. They do not agree on API support, experiments, shared budgets, Demand Gen allocation or rollout pace.

For most advertisers, the help page will decide what the interface allows. For agencies and tool builders, the API answer is the one that changes plans, since manager accounts cannot apply the settings and the interface is the only other route. If the API does carry the controls from launch, bulk configuration across client accounts is possible now. If the help page is right, it is not.

The 0% Search partner answer narrows a long-running dispute over Performance Max. Advertisers who asked to leave Search partners now have a documented way to send no budget there, on paper. Whether Google's systems hold that line in practice, given a help page that calls every allocation best effort, is something only placement reports will show.

The promotion mode range is the other figure to watch. A tolerance that reaches 90%, paired with an optional budget boost and Smart Bidding Exploration, gives Google's bidding wide latitude during a sale. The newsletter does not say how the percentage is calculated, and Google has published no results for the feature.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Product Liaison, writing in the Ads Decoded newsletter on the Google Ads LinkedIn page and posting from the AdsLiaison account on X. The answers affect advertisers running Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns, and agencies that manage them at scale.

What: A question-and-answer roundup on channel prioritization and budget allocation, plus updates on Smart Bidding Exploration, promotion mode, campaign total budgets, customer lifecycle goals and planning tools. Marvin said the controls are supported in the Google Ads API at launch, are fully testable in experiments and fully compatible with shared budgets, and that Performance Max advertisers can set Search partner allocation to 0%. Promotion mode, still in beta, has a 5% to 90% ROAS tolerance range. Several answers differ from Google's help page.

When: Both posts are dated October 16, 2026, two days after Google published the controls. The rollout is described as taking "coming months" in the newsletter and "coming weeks" on X. Search campaigns opted into the Display Network lose their current spend setup starting February 2027.

Where: Globally, in Google Ads. The newsletter says the Google Ads API supports the controls now, with Google Ads Editor support to follow.

Why: Marvin wrote that the questions "have been coming in" after the launch, and she framed the features as giving advertisers more control over spend on the Display Network and Search partners ahead of the holiday season.