Google’s Help Center now states what Search advertisers were never shown: Display Expansion, the feature that spills unspent Search budget onto the Google Display Network, has been applying a 50% budget allocation in the backend. According to the updated help page, that hidden setup disappears in February 2027, when Search campaigns with Display Expansion move automatically to channel prioritization. Google says spending may then shift between Google Search, search partners and the Display Network, and advertisers who want to keep the current setup should set the Display Network to Low priority with a 50% daily budget allocation. PPC Land, which reported the updated wording on October 24, notes the page itself carries no update date.
What The Help Page Now Discloses
The help page for Display Expansion on Search campaigns opens with a three-stage note. Under the previous setup, it says, Display Expansion automatically delivered ads on the Google Display Network using unspent budget at a similar cost per conversion as Search, and with a 50% budget allocation applied in the backend. That allocation never appeared as a setting in the interface, so advertisers running the feature had no way to see it, change it, or confirm it.
The note then describes the updated options as of October 2026. Advertisers can now set priority tiers, High or Low, and assign an optional daily budget allocation percentage cap for channels such as the Google Display Network. Google says the percentage is calculated against the average daily budget and works on a best-effort basis, meaning daily spend on a channel may occasionally exceed it. Budget reaches the Display Network based on three inputs: the campaign’s bidding strategy, its assigned channel priorities, and any daily budget allocation configured at account or campaign level.
What Changes In February 2027
Starting in February 2027, Search campaigns with Display Expansion will automatically transition to channel prioritization, Google’s note says. Once that takes effect, the current spend allocation setup will go away, and advertisers may see a shift in channel spending between Google Search, search partners and the Google Display Network. The page does not say whether the migration happens on a single date or in stages within the month.
One group loses Display delivery entirely rather than moving to the new tiers. According to PPC Land’s reading of Google’s channel prioritization documentation, the Display Network will no longer serve on Search campaigns using the Target Impression Share bidding strategy after the migration. The Display Expansion page itself does not mention that consequence. For campaigns using Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value, Google says High priority channels are funded before remaining budget goes to Low priority channels, subject to any custom budget allocation.
How To Keep The Current Setup
Google’s own recipe for preserving the old behaviour is short: set the Google Display Network to Low priority with a 50% daily budget allocation. That combination reproduces the backend rule that is going away. The setting can be applied as an account-level default for a campaign type or as a campaign-level override, and a campaign that does nothing inherits its account’s defaults.
The change also explains a puzzle from earlier in October. When Google introduced channel prioritization and budget allocation controls on October 14, its guidance suggested a Low priority Display Network with a 50% allocation for advertisers who wanted to keep their existing setup, without saying why 50% was the matching figure. The updated Display Expansion page supplies the answer: 50% was not an analogy but the allocation the system was already applying behind the scenes.
Google’s performance claims for the feature are unchanged in the updated page. Search campaigns with spare Search budgets that opt into Display Expansion can deliver up to 15% more conversions at a similar cost per acquisition to Search, Google says, and advertisers using Maximize Conversion Value or Target ROAS can expect an average of 14% more conversion value. Both figures are Google’s own, with no sample or method published on the page.
Why It Matters
Display Expansion matters because it quietly moved real money. Any Search campaign with the Display Network switched on has been sending part of its budget to websites and apps outside Search, under a rule its owner could not see. From February 2027, that split becomes a visible choice instead of a hidden default, and the default for doing nothing is whatever the account specifies, not necessarily the old 50%. Advertisers who never touched the setting should check their account defaults before the migration, or they may find Display taking a larger or smaller share than the half it used to take.
Background
Display Expansion has long let Search campaigns reach the Display Network using budget that Search did not spend, with ads created automatically from the campaign’s search ads. Google has spent 2026 reorganising that inventory, including folding standalone Display campaigns into Demand Gen and extending its Demand Gen cost adjustments to 60 days, so the February 2027 migration is the point where the old automatic spillover finally becomes an explicit advertiser setting.
Source: Google Ads Help: About Display Expansion on Search campaigns, PPC Land
0 Comments