The Mid-Month Pacing Call: A Performance Max Budget Simulation
Objective: Run a month of a live Performance Max campaign as weekly dashboard checkpoints, using the 2026 budget report and audience-exclusion tools to decide when to intervene and when to let the algorithm keep learning.
You're running acquisition PMax for HelloFresh's new plant-based box line, with a $30,000 monthly budget and a target ROAS of 4.0.
Read the budget pacing report and placement data each week, decide whether to adjust exclusions or hold, and land the month within target ROAS without shutting off spend prematurely.
Before you start
What you'll need
Free path (everything below is enough to finish)
Free platform access, cost is media spend only
Free, connects directly to Google Ads reporting data
Paid upgrades (optional, faster/deeper)
Useful once PMax sits alongside Meta and email in one attribution view, not required for this simulation
The process
Simulation
Week 1, first budget projection
Week 1 of 4The campaign launched a week ago. You open the new 2026 budget report for the first time.
Week 1 budget report Spend to date: $10,200 of $30,000 monthly budget Projected end-of-month spend: $43,600 (145% of budget) ROAS to date: 3.4 (target: 4.0)
The projection shows you're on track to overspend the monthly budget by 45% if nothing changes. What do you do?
Final deliverable
A 4-week pacing and exclusion decision log, with each week's budget-report reading and the resulting action.
See a reference example
Nykaa, PMax pacing log (excerpt) Week 1: Projected overspend 38%, daily cap lowered Week 2: Pacing back on track, ROAS 3.6 Week 3: 71% of Display conversions matched existing customers, exclusion list uploaded Week 4: ROAS 4.1, ahead of target
Success criteria
You're done when you can:
- Correctly identifies the week 1 pacing overrun and the correct lever (daily cap, not ROAS target)
- Correctly identifies the audience-exclusion opportunity in week 3