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# What "Low priority, 50%" leaves out
- URL: https://cascader.io/blog/low-priority-50-percent-display-expansion/
- Published: 2026-10-29T14:00:32.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-29T14:00:32.000Z
- Description: Google says Low priority with a 50% allocation keeps your Display setup through the February 2027 change to Search campaigns. As of October 16, 2026, Google described that setup as running at similar cost per conversion to Search. Neither setting in the recipe is about cost.
- Author: Rick Hecker

On October 14 Google announced two optional controls for Google Ads. Channel prioritization puts each channel a campaign serves on, such as Google Search or the Display Network, into a High or a Low tier. Budget allocation puts a percentage limit on a Low channel, and Google says its tools will aim to keep spend within it "on a best-effort basis". The announcement also carried one change that isn't optional. Starting in February 2027, Search campaigns with the Google Display Network turned on lose "the current spend allocation setup". Advertisers who want to keep their current configuration, [Google's blog](https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/channel-prioritization-budget-allocation/?ref=cascader.io) says, "can set the Google Display Network to 'Low priority' with a 50% budget allocation." On [r/PPC](https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/comments/1x5vthi/channel%5Fprioritization%5Fand%5Fbudget%5Fallocation%5Ftwo/?ref=cascader.io), one commenter heard a cap in that, and welcomed it: "being able to cap it at 50% without killing it entirely feels long overdue." A recipe for keeping something is only as good as its match to the thing kept. So what was the current configuration?

Google describes it in one sentence, at the top of its [Help page for Display Expansion on Search campaigns](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7193800?ref=cascader.io). As of October 16, 2026, under the label "Previous setup", the page says that when enabled, Display Expansion "automatically delivered ads on the Google Display Network using unspent budget at similar cost per conversion as Search and with a 50% budget allocation applied in the backend." That sentence has three parts. Display spent money Search left unspent. It did so at a cost per conversion similar to Search's. And a 50% allocation sat over it. The first and last describe how the budget was handled. The middle one describes a result. Google names nothing that enforced it, and further down the same page treats it as an average to expect: Display's cost per conversion "should be similar" to Search's "on average". The recipe has two settings. Low priority copies the first: the [new Help page](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/18385152?hl=en&ref=cascader.io) says Google "prioritizes spend on High priority channels ... before distributing any remaining budget to Low priority channels." The 50% allocation copies the third, roughly. The old sentence never says what its 50% was half of. The new one is "a percentage of the campaign's average daily budget", and the Help page's own version of the recipe adds that it "operates on a best-effort basis". Nothing in the recipe mentions cost per conversion.

Follow some money to see whether that matters. This is a construction with illustrative numbers, not account data. A Search campaign on Maximize Conversions has a $200 average daily budget, and its keywords run out of eligible searches at about $120 on most days. That leaves $80 unspent. Under the previous setup, as Google describes it, the $80 was open to Display, and the result was a cost per conversion similar to Search's. Under the recipe, Display is Low priority, and the new Help page's rule for Maximize Conversions reads: "High priority channels spend your budget first. If your budget cannot be fully spent on High priority channels (e.g. based on your campaign settings or eligible traffic), remaining budget is allocated to Low priority channels." So the $80 goes to Display. The 50% line is at $100, above the $80, so the cap the commenter welcomed never touches the money. The page attaches no cost condition to that remaining budget. The strategy's stated aim is to spend the budget "most efficiently to maximize conversions", which is a goal for the whole budget, not a requirement that Display match Search. The same sentence about remaining budget appears for Maximize Conversion Value, Maximize Clicks and Manual CPC. And the Display Expansion page, in the part rewritten for the new model, now says: "Cost per conversion on Display may vary depending on your chosen bidding strategy, priority settings, and custom budget allocation." A paragraph later, it still expects the old result for exactly this kind of campaign. It says Search campaigns "that have spare search budgets and are opted into Display Expansion can deliver up to 15% more conversions at similar CPA to Search." This campaign has $80 to spare. But for its strategy Google names no rule that aims Display's spending at Search's cost. Whatever produced similar costs before, the recipe sets nothing that asks for them.

Now a second construction, also illustrative. A Target CPA campaign has a $1,000 average daily budget but spends about $400 a day, because the target holds it back. Here the new page's rows say something different. When a Target CPA, Target ROAS or Target CPC campaign isn't limited by budget, "Channel prioritization doesn't change how your budget is spent", and the bidding "aims to hit your target across all channels". So Low priority does nothing. The 50% line is at $500, above the whole day's spend, so the allocation does nothing either. What restrains Display is the target, the same bar Search has to clear. On a day when the budget does run short, the page says money "shifts to Low priority channels when they can deliver conversions at your target." The target isn't "similar to Search". But it is an aim at cost that Google documents for Display as well as Search, and it doesn't depend on the recipe.

Put the two campaigns side by side and the recipe is inverted. In the target campaign, both of its settings sit idle, and the target is a documented aim at cost. In the Maximize campaign, both settings do their work, and nothing documented aims at Display's cost. The recipe copies the parts of the old setup that the Maximize campaign still uses. It has nothing to say about the similar cost Google still expects there.

Timing turns this into a choice. The Help page says that until February 2027, Search campaigns with Display on "that haven't set channel priorities or budget allocation, continue to use current Display Expansion behavior". It also says that if you set channel priorities on Search campaigns before then, "the new settings apply to these campaigns right away and replace current Display Expansion budget behavior." Following Google's recipe in October therefore retires the previous setup in October. For the target campaign little changes. The Maximize campaign moves about four months early from the setup Google describes as delivering similar cost per conversion to one where, in Google's new wording, cost "may vary". That falls in the season the blog has in mind when it says advertisers "can confidently spend as the holidays approach". The history shows what is at stake. Segment that campaign's results by network and compare Display's cost per conversion with Search's. That gap is what the previous setup actually delivered in this campaign, and after the switch nothing the recipe sets aims at it. Account-level priorities apply "to every campaign of that type", and the page doesn't say whether an account default counts as setting priorities on a Search campaign for this rule.

Waiting keeps the previous setup only until February. Google's pages don't say which settings a migrated campaign lands on. The general default they document is "By default, all channels are set to High priority." [Search Engine Journal](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ads-introduces-channel-prioritization-and-budget-allocation/592833/?ref=cascader.io), reporting on a Google roundtable, applies that default to February in its own words: "Since the new controls will default all channels to 'High priority,' advertisers who don't make changes could see their spending shift between networks." It also reports that the product team confirmed a one-click migration option "when the new controls launch". As of October 16, that option doesn't appear in Google's announcement or on its Help pages for these controls and for Display Expansion. If campaigns land on High, Display is no longer second in line and has no ceiling. In the target campaign the target still applies. In the Maximize campaign Display competes for the whole budget, held back only by the strategy's whole-budget aim. Separately, [Google's Help page for these controls](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/18385152?hl=en&ref=cascader.io) says that as part of the February 2027 change, the Display Network "will no longer serve on Search campaigns utilizing the Target Impression Share bid strategy." For a Maximize campaign that wants a cost bar on Display after February, there are three documented options:

- a Target CPA strategy, which aims for the target across channels;
- a smaller allocation, which Google aims to hold on a best-effort basis and which limits the amount Display can take, not the cost of each conversion;
- or 0%, the one allocation Google describes as an outcome rather than an aim: "Google won't spend on that channel."

The Display Expansion page holds both halves of this at once. In its "How it works" section, Display cost per conversion "may vary depending on your chosen bidding strategy, priority settings, and custom budget allocation." Right after that, campaigns with spare Search budget "can deliver up to 15% more conversions at similar CPA to Search". A note further down still says that "on average" Display's cost per conversion "should be similar" to Search's. Google keeps expecting the old result, and it names the settings that decide it. Low priority with a 50% allocation sets the queue and a best-effort ceiling. That is the cap the commenter heard, though Google says it "isn't a guarantee". Neither setting is about cost. In a target campaign, the target is. In a Maximize campaign, the similar cost Google still expects is left to the strategy, and to whoever reads the network report.