It is the last week of September. Finance wants a Q4 number, the CEO wants to know what happens if you add 30% for Black Friday, and your only evidence is last year's spreadsheet and a feeling. Google Ads Performance Planner is Google's built-in answer to that question. It is free, it lives inside your account, and most performance marketers either ignore it or trust it too much.
This guide covers what the tool does in 2026, which campaigns still qualify after the March changes, how to build a Q4 plan with it step by step, and where its forecasts need a second opinion. It ends with the part most guides skip: turning a plan into something you can check against reality every week.
In the accounts I manage, the plan is rarely the problem. The problem is week six, when spend drifts from the plan and nobody notices until the month closes.
What Google Ads Performance Planner actually does
Google Ads Performance Planner is a forecasting tool inside Google Ads. It estimates how changes to budgets and bid targets would affect clicks, conversions and conversion value over a date range you choose. It never changes your account on its own. Every recommendation has to be applied by you.
According to Google's documentation, forecasts are refreshed daily and based on the last 7 to 10 days of performance, adjusted for seasonality. The model simulates the relevant auctions and accounts for seasonality, competitor activity and your landing pages.
That short lookback window is the single most important thing to understand about the tool. It explains both why the forecasts react quickly and why they sometimes go wrong.
Forecast
Projects spend, clicks, conversions and conversion value for a future period, based on recent performance.
Allocate
Suggests how to split budget and bid targets across the campaigns in the plan to reach your goal.
Compare scenarios
Lets you move along the spend curve and see what an extra euro is expected to return.
Changes nothing
Plans are read only. Budgets and targets stay untouched until you edit them yourself.
Which campaigns qualify in 2026
Performance Planner supports Search, Standard Shopping, Performance Max, Demand Gen and App campaigns. Each type has its own eligibility rules. If a campaign is missing from your plan, it almost always fails one of these.
| Campaign type | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Search, Shopping, Performance Max | Bid strategy unchanged for 10 days. At least 3 clicks, 10 impressions and 1 conversion. Spend in the past 17 days. |
| Demand Gen | No bid strategy change for 7 days. At least 14 impressions in the past 7 days. 5 or more conversions when using Target ROAS or Maximize conversion value. |
| App | Running for 10 days or more. At least 10 conversions in the past 10 days. Not limited by budget. |
What changed on March 9, 2026
Google removed Display and Video campaigns from Performance Planner, together with impression share metrics such as top and absolute top impression share. Existing plans that used them can no longer be opened. PPC Land covered the change, which was announced through a Help Center update rather than a formal release. If your Q4 plan relies on YouTube or Display reach, you need another way to forecast it.
The bid strategy rule is the one that catches people in Q4. Switch a campaign from Maximize conversions to Target CPA on October 1 and it drops out of planning until October 11. If you want Performance Planner for your holiday budget, make your bidding changes early or not at all.
How to use Performance Planner for a Q4 budget plan
You find the tool under Tools, then Budgets and bidding, then Performance Planner. Click the plus icon to start a new plan. Here is the workflow I use for a quarterly forecast.
Group campaigns that share one goal
The planner optimizes budget across every campaign in the plan. Mixing brand search with prospecting Performance Max lets it shift money toward cheap brand conversions you would get anyway. Build separate plans for brand, non brand search and Performance Max.
Match the date range to how finance reports
A single October to December plan hides the shape of the quarter. For e-commerce, build one plan for October, one for November and one for December. November carries Black Friday and Cyber Monday and will look nothing like the other two.
Pick one key metric and the right conversion goals
Choose conversions or conversion value, then select only the conversion goals that matter for the business. A plan optimized toward newsletter signups will happily spend your Q4 budget on newsletter signups.
Set a target, then read the curve
Enter a spend or CPA target. Then move along the forecast curve instead of accepting the single recommended point. The useful question is not what total CPA looks like at a higher budget, but what the extra conversions cost.
Apply changes yourself, in steps
Nothing changes until you edit the campaigns. Raise budgets gradually rather than all at once, and write down the planned monthly spend per campaign. That number becomes your pacing baseline.
Read marginal CPA, not average CPA
Say your non brand search plan shows two points on the curve for November:
- arrow_forward€20,000 spend. 400 conversions at a €50 CPA.
- arrow_forward€26,000 spend. 460 conversions at a €56.50 CPA.
The average CPA only rises by €6.50, which sounds acceptable. But the extra €6,000 buys 60 conversions. That is €100 per additional conversion, double your current CPA. Whether that is worth it depends on your margin or customer value, not on the average. This is the calculation to bring to the budget conversation. Our Google Ads budget calculator walks through the same logic from the other direction, starting from revenue targets.
Where Performance Planner forecasts need a second opinion
Google does not publish an accuracy figure for Performance Planner. Treat the output as a directional estimate from a model that sees only part of your world. These are the blind spots that matter most in Q4.
The last 10 days define the future
If those days included a promotion, a tracking outage or a bidding change, the forecast inherits it. Many advertisers saw CPCs move after Google changed how budget limited Target CPA and Target ROAS campaigns bid on August 17. We covered that in our bidding target optimization guide. Check the recent trend before you trust a plan built on it.
It only sees Google
Performance Planner has no idea what Meta, LinkedIn or Microsoft Ads are doing for you. It cannot tell you whether the next €5,000 works harder on Google or on Meta. Cross channel allocation stays your job.
It trusts your conversion data completely
Duplicate conversions, a broken tag or heavy modelling under consent mode all flow straight into the forecast. If you have not audited tracking recently, our consent mode guide is a good place to start.
It does not know your promo calendar
Seasonality in the model is based on broad demand patterns, not on your 25% off weekend or your stock levels. For short promotions, Google offers seasonality adjustments, which tell Smart Bidding to expect a change in conversion rate. Google says they work best for events of 1 to 7 days and may underperform beyond 14 days.
The recommendation leans toward more spend
That is not a conspiracy, but it is a pattern. Treat the recommended budget as an upper bound to test against your own economics, not as a target.
From plan to pacing: keeping Q4 on track
A forecast is a promise you make in September. Q4 is where you find out whether you kept it. The gap between plan and actual spend opens slowly, and in a quarter where November can carry 40% of the budget, a small drift in week two becomes a real problem by week five.
The fix is simple and slightly boring. Turn the plan into expected spend per day, then compare actual spend against it on a fixed rhythm.
A worked example
Your approved Q4 plan for Google Ads is €60,000: €16,000 in October, €26,000 in November and €18,000 in December. November is not linear. You expect the last ten days, around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, to take half of it.
- arrow_forwardNovember 1 to 20. €13,000 over 20 days, so €650 per day.
- arrow_forwardNovember 21 to 30. €13,000 over 10 days, so €1,300 per day.
- arrow_forwardCheck on November 10. Expected spend is €6,500. If you are at €7,600, you are 17% ahead of plan with the expensive part of the month still to come.
Catching that on November 10 means you can trim a few campaigns and protect the Black Friday budget. Catching it on December 1 means explaining an overspend. Our guides on ad budget pacing and preventing ad overspending go deeper into thresholds and alerts, and the marketing budget template gives you a place to store the plan.
Where aubado fits
Performance Planner helps you make the plan. aubado helps you keep it. You set monthly budgets per channel, including uneven months like November, and aubado checks actual spend against them once a day across Google Ads, Meta and LinkedIn. When a channel drifts, you see it early and act while it still matters. Check once a day, then close the tab.
A short Q4 planning checklist
- checkFreeze bid strategy changes. Finish them at least 10 days before you build the plan.
- checkAudit conversion tracking. A forecast is only as good as the conversions it learns from.
- checkPlan per month, per goal. Separate plans for brand, non brand and Performance Max.
- checkDecide on marginal CPA. Price the extra conversions, not the average.
- checkSchedule seasonality adjustments. Use them for short promotions only.
- checkTrack actual against plan. Daily or at least weekly, with a clear threshold for action.
Frequently Asked Questions
Make the plan. Then keep it.
aubado checks your ad spend against your monthly budgets once a day, across Google Ads, Meta and LinkedIn. Less time in spreadsheets, fewer surprises at month end.
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