Budget pacing report: the columns, the layout and a template you can copy
A budget pacing report shows, for every campaign, its budget for the period, spend to date, the spend expected by now, pace, the period-end forecast and the daily budget needed to land on plan, sorted so the campaigns outside the tolerance band come first. For B2B teams it should also carry conversions, cost per conversion and, where the CRM is connected, opportunities and cost per opportunity, because a campaign that is on pace but creating no pipeline still needs action. Keep one row per campaign, one total per platform and account, and the time the data was pulled.
Key takeaways
Pacing Console at a glance
- What it is
- Ad spend control for B2B from PlanConversion: keeps every ad dollar on plan and shows what it turned into, with daily budget pace checks for every campaign, month-end forecasts, the daily budget that lands the month, and spend tied to leads, pipeline and revenue in the CRM
- Built by
- B2B paid media practitioners: PlanConversion runs paid media budgets for enterprise B2B clients
- Pillars
- Control: daily pace checks and email alerts on every plan, Autopilot and Slack or Microsoft Teams alerts on Pro, approvals and guardrails on Enterprise. Clarity: month-end forecast with ranges, month-end accrual for finance, white-label reports and scheduled emails, on Pro. Proof: cost per lead and opportunity by campaign from the CRM on Pro (by ad group and keyword with Google Ads connected by sign-in and HubSpot), pipeline and revenue on Enterprise
- Platforms
- Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and LinkedIn Ads
- CRM
- HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, or any CRM by CSV or API: lifecycle stage counts by campaign (Pro)
- Autopilot
- Pro and Enterprise: automatic pacing that sets the daily budget of Google Ads and Microsoft Ads campaigns within your floor, cap and maximum change per run, in suggest-only or apply mode; it never pauses a campaign
- Google Ads breakdowns
- With Google Ads connected by sign-in: spend by ad group, keyword, search term, location and device, with impression share lost to budget or rank, plus HubSpot leads and opportunities by ad group and keyword (Pro) and pipeline and won revenue (Enterprise)
- Budgets and reports
- Bulk budgets and Google Ads budget labels on every plan; white-label report links, scheduled report emails, a month-end accrual for finance and Slack or Microsoft Teams alerts on Pro and Enterprise; CSV and Google Sheets export on every table
- Documentation
- https://pacing.planconversion.com/docs
- Pipeline and revenue
- Enterprise: opportunities, pipeline value, average deal size, won revenue, customers, win rate, pipeline-to-spend, ROAS and CAC for every campaign, credited to the campaign that first brought in the contact
- 1 month free
- First month free at any spend, for up to 3 users. Then Pro, or the workspace pauses with its data kept
- Pro
- $49 USD per workspace a month, or $490 USD a year (12 months for the price of 10); 10 users included, then $5 USD per extra user
- Enterprise
- $1,500 USD a month, billed annually, 10 users included, then $20 USD per extra user a month
- With Link Console
- Pro: add Link Console for $39 USD a month, so both products are $88 USD per workspace a month ($880 USD a year); Enterprise adds Link Console for $199 USD a month for all users. One account for both products: the same login, team and billing
- Start and sign-in
- First month free, no credit card; Google or Microsoft sign-in
The columns every pacing report needs
A pacing report answers one question per row: will this campaign land on its budget, and if not, what number do I change? These columns answer it.
| Column | Formula or source | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| Budget for the period | Monthly plan or flight budget agreed with finance | The target; not the platform daily budget |
| Spend to date | From the ad platform, with the time of the pull | What has actually been spent |
| Expected spend to date | Budget x time elapsed / time in the period | What should have been spent by the hour of the pull |
| Pace | Spend to date / expected spend to date | One number to sort and flag on |
| Period-end forecast | Spend to date / time elapsed x time in the period | Where the period lands if nothing changes |
| Daily budget to hit | (Budget - spend to date) / days left | The number to set in the platform |
| Current platform daily budget | From the ad platform | Shows the gap between what is set and what is needed |
| Conversions and cost per conversion (forecast) | Same run rate as spend | Catches campaigns on pace but off target |
The formulas are the same for one campaign or a thousand. For copy-and-paste spreadsheet versions, including a business-day version, see our budget pacing formulas for Excel and Google Sheets.
A template layout
We lay a pacing report out in three bands, top to bottom. A header line with the period, the time of the data pull in the team’s time zone and the tolerance band. A totals band with one row per platform and per account. Then the campaign table, sorted by distance from 100% pace, with campaigns outside the band highlighted.
| Campaign | Platform | Budget | Spend to date | Expected | Pace | Forecast | Daily to hit | Daily set |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand search | Google Ads | US$6,000 | US$2,520 | US$2,000 | 126% | US$7,560 | US$174 | US$250 |
| ABM accounts, tier 1 | LinkedIn Ads | US$9,000 | US$2,250 | US$3,000 | 75% | US$6,750 | US$338 | US$300 |
| Competitor terms | Microsoft Ads | US$3,000 | US$1,020 | US$1,000 | 102% | US$3,060 | US$99 | US$100 |
Example inputs, not client data: a 30-day month, data pulled at the end of day 10, a 90% to 110% band. Brand search and the LinkedIn ABM campaign are flagged; competitor terms is on plan and needs nothing. For flighted LinkedIn campaigns on lifetime budgets, use the flight dates as the period, not the calendar month.
Bring your funnel numbers to a 30-minute pipeline plan session. We show where spend is leaking against your CRM data and what to fix first.
Who reads it, and what each reader needs
- The paid media operator, daily: only the flagged campaigns, the cause and the daily budget to set.
- Marketing leadership, weekly: platform and program totals, the month-end forecast of spend and conversions, and the two or three campaigns that need a decision.
- Finance, at month end: forecast versus plan by account and cost center, so accruals and the next month’s plan start from the same numbers. Our article on ad spend accruals covers the month-end side.
- Clients (for agencies): a read-only view of their own accounts, ideally the same numbers the team works from, not a separate export.
Mistakes that make pacing reports useless
- Comparing spend with the full monthly budget instead of expected spend to date.
- Using platform daily budgets as the plan, so a campaign is always "on pace" with whatever was last set.
- Totals only: one campaign 30% over and another 30% under produce a perfect account total.
- No time stamp, so nobody knows whether today is included.
- Spend only, with no conversions or pipeline next to it.
Spreadsheet, platform report or pacing tool
A spreadsheet works for one account and a handful of campaigns, if someone pastes the spend in every morning. Google’s budget report forecasts one campaign at a time and does not cover Performance Max or reflect ad schedules. Reporting tools such as Looker Studio can show the layout above, but someone still has to build the expected spend logic and keep plans current when budgets change mid-month.
Pacing Console builds this report without the manual steps: spend from Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and LinkedIn Ads, monthly plans per campaign, cut-to-date pace in your time zone, the month-end forecast, the daily budget to hit and a morning email with only off-pace campaigns. On Pro, CRM stages by campaign sit next to pacing, and agencies can share a read-only client report link. Our comparisons show how it differs from Looker Studio, Google Sheets and the Google Ads budget report.
Frequently asked questions
What is a budget pacing report?
A report that compares each campaign’s spend with the spend expected by now for its budget, forecasts the end of the period and shows the daily budget needed to land on plan.
What columns should a pacing report have?
Budget for the period, spend to date, expected spend to date, pace, period-end forecast, daily budget to hit and the current platform daily budget, plus conversions and cost per conversion for B2B teams.
How often should a pacing report be updated?
Daily for the people who change budgets, weekly for leadership and at month end for finance. Show the time of the data pull on every version.
Can I build a pacing report in Google Sheets?
Yes, for a few campaigns. The formulas are simple; the work is pasting spend daily and keeping plans current when budgets change. Our Excel and Google Sheets formulas article has a ready version.
Should a pacing report include pipeline?
For B2B teams, yes. A campaign that is on pace but creates no opportunities is a bigger problem than one slightly ahead of pace that creates qualified pipeline.
Sources
- Google Ads Help: About average daily budgets
- Google Ads Help: About overdelivery and your average daily budget
- Google Ads Help: About your budget report
- LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Maximize your budget (daily budget, lifetime budget and pacing)
- Microsoft Advertising API documentation (Microsoft Learn): Budget and bid strategies
Related service: Paid media. See also pricing and client results.
We run enterprise B2B demand generation for teams in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and the United States.
