PPCspreadsheetsbudget

Template Library: 8 Spreadsheets to Model PPC Budgeting with Google’s Total Campaign Budgets

ddashbroad

2026-01-28

10 min read

Download 8 Google Sheets templates to plan, simulate, and reconcile total campaign budgets with daily optimized spend.

Stop guessing daily bids — plan, simulate and reconcile total campaign budgets with eight ready-to-use spreadsheets

Marketers and site owners: if you’re juggling multiple short-term promotions, shopping pushes, or timeboxed launches, Google’s new Total Campaign Budgets (rolled out to Search & Shopping in early 2026) removes the need for constant daily fiddling — but it also changes the way you should plan and validate spend. These downloadable spreadsheet templates give you an end-to-end toolkit to design a total campaign budget, simulate Google’s daily pacing, and reconcile actual optimized spend to your expected targets.

Why use spreadsheets in a world of built-in pacing?

Google’s total campaign budgets let the platform optimize daily spend across a campaign window so you hit a target budget by the end date. That reduces manual work — but it introduces new challenges:

Google may front-load or back-load spend based on opportunity — you need to know when that will materially affect performance or cash flow.
Daily optimized spend will vary vs. your linear expectations; finance teams still want reconciled numbers and variance explanations.
Cross-campaign allocation and promotions complicate shared budget strategies.

Spreadsheets are still the fastest, most auditable way to prototype pacing strategies, run monte-carlo style simulations, and keep stakeholders aligned. Below are eight templates you can copy, adapt, and automate to work with Google Ads’ Total Campaign Budgets.

What you’ll get

Each template includes: a clear purpose, required inputs, expected outputs, core formulas, and a short automation recipe (Google Ads Scripts and Google Sheets Apps Script snippets) to pull daily spend and trigger alerts. Use them standalone or chain them for a complete workflow.

Template 1 — Campaign Total Budget Planner (Design phase)

Purpose

Define the total spend, campaign dates, target KPIs (CPA, ROAS), and high-level allocation rules before you flip on a campaign’s total budget flag.

Inputs

Campaign name
Start date / End date
Total campaign budget
Target CPA or target ROAS
Historical daily spend average and std dev (optional)

Key outputs & formulas

Campaign duration (days): =DAYS(end_date,start_date)+1
Linear daily budget: =total_budget / duration
Buffer reserve (finance): =total_budget * buffer_pct

Why it matters

Use this before enabling Total Campaign Budget. It documents expectations and gives finance a single-number reference.

Template 2 — Daily Pacing Simulator (Monte Carlo)

Purpose

Simulate how Google might pace spend across the campaign window under different volatility scenarios — helps answer “will Google spend the budget early?” or “are we likely to hit cash-flow limits?”

Inputs

Duration (days) from planner
Total budget
Historical mean daily spend and daily stdev (or use a default 20% volatility)
Number of simulations (e.g., 500)

Core simulation approach

For each simulation, distribute the total budget across days using a random-weighted distribution that respects the mean and stdev. A lightweight approach (works in Google Sheets):

=LET(
  n, Duration,
  randVals, ARRAYFORMULA(RANDARRAY(n,1)),
  unit, randVals/SUM(randVals),
  daily, unit * total_budget,
  daily
)

Or use historical multiplier approach to reflect variance:

=target_daily * (1 + (stdev/mean) * (RAND()-0.5) * 2)

Outputs

Distribution charts (percent of simulations that front-load >X% in first Y days)
Probability of overspend in early window (e.g., >40% of budget used in first 3 days)

Template 3 — Spend Reconciliation Ledger (Daily Actual vs Expected)

Purpose

Document actual daily spend reported by Google Ads and reconcile it to your planner/simulator expectations. This is the primary sheet finance will read.

Columns

Date
Expected daily (from planner or rolling forecast)
Actual daily (pull from Ads)
Cumulative expected
Cumulative actual
Variance (absolute)
Variance (%)

Key formulas

Cumulative actual: =SUM($C$2:C2)
Variance %: =(CumulativeActual - CumulativeExpected) / CumulativeExpected

Actionable rules

Alert if variance > ±15% for two consecutive days
Flag campaigns where cumulative actual > 110% of expected before final third of the campaign

Template 4 — Conversion-Weighted Pacing

Purpose

When ROAS/CPA matters more than spend alone, weight daily pacing by expected conversion opportunity (hour/day-of-week, marketing calendar signals).

Inputs

Historic conv per day-of-week or hour
Promotional multipliers (e.g., weekend sale = 1.4x)

Formula example

Normalized weight per day = historic_conv_day / SUM(historic_conv_week). Then:

=total_budget * normalized_weight * promo_multiplier

Why it helps

This aligns budget spend with periods of highest conversion efficiency, letting Google’s optimizer have better inputs that match business priorities.

Template 5 — Seasonality & Promotional Adjuster

Purpose

Adjust the baseline planner for known seasonality, creative launches, or external events (e.g., Black Friday, product drops). Works as a multiplier matrix.

How to use

Populate a calendar grid with multipliers for each date (0.8–2.0 typical range).
Multiply baseline daily by the date multiplier and re-normalize to keep the total_budget constant if needed.

Re-normalize formula

=daily_raw / SUM(daily_raw_range) * total_budget

Template 6 — Multi-Campaign Rollup & Allocation

Purpose

When multiple campaigns share a portfolio budget or when you need to split a total budget across channels, this sheet models allocation strategies (performance-proportional, equal share, priority-based). Multi-campaign rollups are increasingly important as platforms consolidate signals — see Next‑Gen allocation and partnership models for related approaches.

Allocation modes

Pro-rata by historical spend or conversions
Priority weighting (give promos a fixed %)
Dynamic rebalancing rules (e.g., shift 10% to best performing campaign at mid-point)

Sample pro-rata formula

=total_portfolio_budget * (campaign_metric / SUM(all_campaign_metrics))

Template 7 — Forecast vs Actual Dashboard (KPI summary)

Purpose

High-level dashboard with current spend, spend run-rate, expected vs actual CPA/ROAS and variance commentary suitable for stakeholders.

Key cards to include

Budget used % (cumulative actual / total budget)
Run-rate to end: (total_budget - cumulative_actual) / remaining_days
Projected CPA if performance stays constant: projected_cost / projected_conversions

Template 8 — Automation & Reconciliation Script Template

Purpose

Automate daily pull of Google Ads spend by campaign and trigger alerts when pacing strays beyond thresholds. Two practical options below: Google Ads Scripts (runs in Ads account) and an Apps Script for scheduled reconciliation & email alerts.

Google Ads Script (daily spend to Google Sheet)

// Paste into Google Ads Scripts
function main(){
  var sheetUrl = 'PASTE_SHEET_URL';
  var sheetName = 'DailySpend';
  var spreadsheet = SpreadsheetApp.openByUrl(sheetUrl);
  var sheet = spreadsheet.getSheetByName(sheetName);
  var today = Utilities.formatDate(new Date(), 'GMT', 'yyyy-MM-dd');

  var rows = [];
  var campaignIterator = AdsApp.campaigns()
    .withCondition("Status = ENABLED")
    .forDateRange('YESTERDAY')
    .get();

  while(campaignIterator.hasNext()){
    var campaign = campaignIterator.next();
    var stats = campaign.getStatsFor('YESTERDAY');
    rows.push([today, campaign.getName(), stats.getCost(), stats.getImpressions(), stats.getClicks(), stats.getConversions()]);
  }
  if(rows.length) sheet.getRange(sheet.getLastRow()+1,1, rows.length, rows[0].length).setValues(rows);
}

Apps Script for reconciliation & alert

// Triggers daily, checks variance, sends email
function dailyReconcileAlert(){
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.openByUrl('PASTE_SHEET_URL');
  var sheet = ss.getSheetByName('Reconciliation');
  var lastRow = sheet.getLastRow();
  var variance = sheet.getRange(lastRow, 7).getValue(); // variance % column
  var campaign = sheet.getRange(lastRow, 2).getValue();

  if(Math.abs(variance) > 0.15){
    MailApp.sendEmail('ops@company.com', 'Pacing alert: ' + campaign,
      'Pacing variance is ' + (variance*100).toFixed(1) + '% for ' + campaign +
      '. Check the Reconciliation sheet for details.');
  }
}

Walkthrough: a UK beauty retailer wants a 7-day total budget of £50,000 for a flash sale starting Friday. They fear Google will front-load spend on day 1 of the sale and exhaust budget while real conversions peak on day 3–4.

Use Template 1 to set expectations: duration 7 days, linear daily = £7,143.
Run Template 2 with historical stdev at 30% for Search campaigns: simulation suggests a 22% chance of >35% budget used in first 2 days.
Adjust with Template 5: increase multipliers for day 3–4 (1.3x) and normalize to keep total budget fixed — consider seasonal guidance from 2026 beauty launch trends when planning product-heavy promos.
Deploy campaign with Total Campaign Budget on, and enable Google Ads Script to push daily spend to the Reconciliation sheet.
Monitor Template 3 daily; set Apps Script to alert at ±15% variance. If Google still front-loads >40% in first 2 days, add a manual constraint or pause non-critical audiences.

In early 2026, teams using Total Campaign Budgets (including a UK retailer case reported in industry press) found they could run confident short-term campaigns while cutting constant daily budget edits. The spreadsheets ensure you still own the narrative — why spend happened and what it means for KPI delivery.

Advanced strategies & 2026 trends

In late 2025 and into 2026, three developments change how you should use these templates:

Google’s Total Campaign Budgets across Search, Shopping & PMax — expect cross-campaign signal aggregation. That means multi-campaign rollups (Template 6) are more important.
More AI-driven opportunity scoring — Google is using demand forecasting and auction-time signals, which increase day-to-day variance but improve overall budget efficiency. Simulators should model higher volatility for opportunistic days (big events).
Privacy and first-party data — as advertisers rely more on first-party conversion signals and server-side tracking, conversion-weighted pacing will become more accurate. Enrich your sheets with conversion-lift signals from CRM imports and model observability playbooks like operationalizing supervised model observability.

Predictions for 2026 and beyond:

Expect platform-level pacing controls to include “soft constraints” (e.g., min/max daily % allocation) — your spreadsheets will be the place to design those constraints.
Real-time reconciliation will move closer to streaming ( BigQuery + Looker/Sheets) — but lightweight Sheets + Ads Scripts will remain the operational control plane for many marketing teams.

Checklist: Before you flip the Total Campaign Budget switch

Document total budget, start/end dates and finance buffer in Template 1.
Run at least 200 simulations in Template 2 and review probability of early exhaustion.
Set daily alerts from Template 3 and ensure an Ops owner is assigned to respond.
Adjust for seasonality with Template 5 and weight by conversion when needed (Template 4).
Automate daily pulls and reconciliation using the script templates.

Actionable takeaways

Document expectations first: a shared planner reduces finger-pointing when Google optimizes aggressively.
Simulate variance: Monte Carlo-style distributions expose the probability of front-loading and help set finance buffers.
Reconcile daily: automated daily pulls plus a reconciliation ledger let you explain variance quickly.
Weight for conversions: don’t optimize spend pacing in isolation from conversion opportunity windows.
Automate alerts: simple scripts cut response time and keep campaigns aligned with business needs.

"Total campaign budgets reduce manual budget edits, but you still need a control plane to plan, simulate, and reconcile. Spreadsheets remain the quickest way to do that." — dashbroad product strategy

How to get the templates (download & install)

Copy the master template file (link provided on the dashbroad templates page).
Make a copy into your Google Drive (File → Make a copy).
Update the sheet URLs in the Google Ads Script and Apps Script snippets with your sheet’s URL.
Authorise the scripts: in Google Ads Scripts, run once and accept scopes; in Apps Script, set a daily trigger for reconciliation.

Final notes & best practices

Use these spreadsheets as a living contract between marketing and finance. Even if Google eventually exposes richer pacing controls, you’ll benefit from having an auditable, simulation-driven approach to budget planning and reconciliation. Keep one person accountable for monitoring alerts and tied to a playbook for remedial actions (reduce bids, pause low-priority audiences, or adjust creatives).

Want a pro tip: keep a copy of your pre-launch simulation and then append actuals into the same file. Over time you’ll build a campaign-level pacing profile library that reduces uncertainty and informs allocation decisions in minutes.

Call to action

Ready to stop firefighting budgets? Download the eight-template spreadsheet pack from dashbroad, copy it to your Drive, and run the included scripts. If you want a custom version built for your account (campaign naming conventions, currency formatting, and automated BI export), contact the dashbroad team for a free template audit and implementation plan.

dashbroad

Contributor

Senior editor and content strategist. Writing about technology, design, and the future of digital media. Follow along for deep dives into the industry's moving parts.