Keep Google Ads spend on pace with your monthly budget

SKILL.md---
name: google-ads-budget-pacing
description: "Every weekday: Google Ads spend month to date against your monthly budget, where the month lands at this rate, and the daily spend that lands it on budget. Use when the user asks for this, or when it runs on a schedule."
---

# Google Ads budget pacing

Every weekday: Google Ads spend month to date against your monthly budget, where the month lands at this rate, and the daily spend that lands it on budget.

Google Ads thinks in daily budgets; finance thinks in a monthly number. Overspend lives in the gap between them: Google may spend up to twice a daily budget on a busy day, budgets raised for a promotion are never lowered, and nobody adds it up until the invoice arrives.

The agent adds it up every weekday. It totals spend since the 1st, compares it with how much of the month has passed, projects the month end at the current rate and gives the daily figure that lands on budget. Marketing and finance end up looking at the same number.

## Two ways to get the data

Use the API or MCP route when you have an MCP server, a CLI or an API token for the app. Otherwise, if you can drive a browser the user is signed in to (Claude in Chrome, a Playwright or Chrome DevTools MCP server), use the browser route. Say which one you used.

## Route A: API or MCP server

### What you need

- Read access to the Google Ads account and its customer ID; pacing never edits budgets.
- Google Ads API access through a Google Cloud project with API access and OAuth credentials (developer tokens were retired in September 2026), plus `login-customer-id` for a manager account; or the official Google Ads MCP server, which is read-only and enough here.
- The monthly budget, for the whole account or per group of campaigns.

If something is missing, say what and stop; do not invent numbers.

### Steps

1. **Total spend since the 1st** (Google Ads): Run GAQL on `campaign` for `segments.date BETWEEN` the first of the month and yesterday, selecting `campaign.name`, `campaign.status`, `metrics.cost_micros` and `campaign_budget.amount_micros`. Divide micros by 1,000,000.
2. **Compare with the calendar**: Expected spend by now is the monthly budget times days elapsed over days in the month. Pacing is actual over expected; between 95% and 105% counts as on pace.
3. **Project the month end**: The straight-line projection is spend so far divided by days elapsed, times days in the month. Report the last 7 days' daily average next to it, since a budget raised mid-month makes the straight line too low.
4. **Work out the correction**: The daily spend that lands on budget is what remains of the budget divided by the days left. Set it against the sum of current daily budgets and say by how much to raise or cut them.
5. **Post the tile**: Projected month-end spend is the number, with one point per weekday run as history. The glance shows month to date against budget as a progress bar, and the card opens to the campaign table.

## Route B: the browser

### What you need

- Signed in to Google Ads with at least Read-only access to the account; through a manager account, pick the client account first.

If something is missing, say what and stop; do not invent numbers.

### Steps

Start at https://ads.google.com/aw/campaigns. The user is signed in already; never type passwords or codes, and ask if a sign-in page appears.

1. **Open the Campaigns table for this month**: Open `https://ads.google.com/aw/campaigns`. If the account picker appears, choose the client account (a manager account lists them all). In the date picker at the top right choose `This month`.
2. **Read cost and daily budgets**: Make sure the `Cost` and `Budget` columns show (Columns, then Modify columns, under Performance and Attributes). Read the Total row for spend since the 1st, then each enabled campaign's cost and daily budget.
3. **Read the last 7 days**: Switch the date range to `Last 7 days` and read the Total cost again. Divided by 7 it gives the current daily rate, which is what a budget raised mid-month shows up in.
4. **Cross-check Billing**: Open Billing, then Summary, for the month-to-date charge; on an invoiced account, Account budgets shows the spending limit. Use the Campaigns total for the math, since billing figures run a day or so behind.
5. **Do the pacing math**: Expected spend is the monthly budget times days elapsed over days in the month; pacing is actual over expected, with 95% to 105% on pace. Project the month end at the straight-line rate and at the 7-day rate, and give the total daily budget that lands on the monthly number.

Note: Cost in the Campaigns table can lag a few hours and excludes invalid-click credits, so it differs slightly from Billing. The table is fine for a few dozen campaigns; past that, use Download above the table and total the file.

## The report

- **Projected month-end spend** at the current rate, against the monthly budget.
- **Month to date**: spend so far, what was expected by today, and pacing in percent.
- **The last 7 days' daily average**, next to the daily spend that lands the month on budget.
- **By campaign**: spend so far, daily budget and projected month end.
- What to change, for example "Cut daily budgets by about 26% to land on $30,000".

## Post it to Briefkin

When `BRIEFKIN_TOKEN` is set, or `~/.config/briefkin/env` exists (the installer from https://briefkin.dev/docs writes it), also send the result to the user's Briefkin board as one card. Keep the `item_key` the same on every run so the card updates in place, use a new `event_id` per run, and put today's real numbers in place of the example ones. If the request fails, say so once and carry on.

```bash
[ -n "${BRIEFKIN_TOKEN:-}" ] || . ~/.config/briefkin/env
curl -sS -X POST "${BRIEFKIN_URL:-https://briefkin.dev}/v1/events" \
  -H "authorization: Bearer $BRIEFKIN_TOKEN" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d @- <<'JSON'
{
  "v": 1,
  "event_id": "google-ads-budget-pacing/<date of this run, e.g. 2026-10-16>",
  "item_key": "google-ads-budget-pacing",
  "project": "Acme",
  "source": "Google Ads budget pacing skill",
  "kind": "metric",
  "title": "On pace to spend $33,480 of a $30,000 budget",
  "metric": {
    "label": "Projected month-end spend",
    "value": 33480,
    "prefix": "$",
    "better": "lower",
    "period_start": "<start of the period, ISO 8601>",
    "period_end": "<end of the period, ISO 8601>"
  },
  "glance": [
    {
      "type": "Progress",
      "props": {
        "label": "Month to date",
        "value": 54,
        "text": "$16,200 of $30,000",
        "tone": "warn"
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "Grid",
      "props": {
        "columns": 3
      },
      "children": [
        {
          "type": "Stat",
          "props": {
            "label": "Expected by today",
            "value": 14520,
            "prefix": "$"
          }
        },
        {
          "type": "Stat",
          "props": {
            "label": "Last 7 days",
            "value": 1170,
            "prefix": "$",
            "unit": "/day"
          }
        },
        {
          "type": "Stat",
          "props": {
            "label": "Needed per day",
            "value": 863,
            "prefix": "$"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "widget": [
    {
      "type": "Table",
      "props": {
        "columns": [
          "Campaign",
          "Month to date",
          "Daily budget",
          "Projected"
        ],
        "align": [
          "left",
          "right",
          "right",
          "right"
        ],
        "rows": [
          [
            "Non-brand Search",
            "$7,800",
            "$560",
            "$16,120"
          ],
          [
            "Performance Max",
            "$4,600",
            "$330",
            "$9,510"
          ],
          [
            "Brand Search",
            "$2,100",
            "$150",
            "$4,340"
          ],
          [
            "Display Remarketing",
            "$1,700",
            "$130",
            "$3,510"
          ],
          [
            "Total",
            "$16,200",
            "$1,170",
            "$33,480"
          ]
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "Callout",
      "props": {
        "text": "Pacing at 112% with 16 days left, and at the last 7 days' rate the month lands nearer $34,880. Daily budgets of about $863 in total, 26% below today's, land it on $30,000.",
        "tone": "warn"
      }
    }
  ],
  "size": "md"
}
JSON
```

Widgets come from the Briefkin catalog (https://briefkin.dev/v1/catalog). Without a token, just give the user the report.

Set `period_start` and `period_end` to the window the number covers: the tile names it from them ("Last 7 days", "Today", "This month"). For a count right now (open items, a balance), send `"period_label": ""` so no period shows; for another name, send it as `period_label` (at most 24 characters).

## Run it on a schedule

Suggested: Weekdays at 9:00 (`0 9 * * 1-5`). From cron, with the agent signed in on that machine:

```bash
0 9 * * 1-5 claude -p "Run the google-ads-budget-pacing skill"
# Codex: codex exec, Gemini CLI: gemini -p, Copilot CLI: copilot -p, OpenCode: opencode run
```

Or use the agent's own scheduler (Claude Code routines, Codex automations, Claude or ChatGPT scheduled tasks): https://briefkin.dev/skills/google-ads-budget-pacing#schedule

Source: https://briefkin.dev/skills/google-ads-budget-pacing