Every Google Ads Search campaign has a small section called Networks. Inside it sits a checkbox labeled "Include Google Display Network." Tick it, and the ads you wrote for people searching on Google can also show up on websites, apps and videos across Google's Display Network, which Google says covers more than 3 million sites.
Plenty of owners have that box ticked without ever deciding to. It was on when someone set the campaign up, or it got switched on years ago and nobody looked again. Most of them have never noticed a problem, and there is a reason for that. Google has been running a rule in the background that kept Display on a short leash. Almost nobody was told the rule existed.
That rule is going away. Starting in February 2027, Search campaigns with Display turned on move to a new system, and the leash comes off unless you put one back on. This piece covers how the old rule worked, what changes in February, what we found when we checked 102 Search campaigns we manage, and the three settings you can choose between before Google chooses for you.
Today, Display Only Gets the Money Your Search Ads Couldn't Spend.
Google's own help page describes the current setup plainly. When Display is switched on in a Search campaign, Google "automatically delivered ads on the Google Display Network using unspent budget," with "a 50% budget allocation applied in the backend."
Tal Akabas, a Google Ads product manager, put it more simply on Google's Ads Decoded podcast in October: if you've opted into Display on a Search campaign, "we will only spend extra budget on the Google Display Network." He described it as a mechanism "effectively doing channel prioritization in the back end."
In everyday terms, Search eats first. Your budget goes to the people typing searches that match your keywords. Only when Search can't use the whole day's budget, because there weren't enough matching searches or the bids couldn't win enough of them, does the leftover money spill over to Display. And even then, Display can take at most about half the budget.
That is why most owners with Display switched on never felt it. On a busy campaign, Search uses nearly all the money and Display gets crumbs. On a quiet campaign, Display gets the leftovers, but only the leftovers. Either way, the people who are actively searching for what you sell get funded first.
It matters which comes first, because the two networks reach very different people. A Search ad shows up because somebody typed "emergency plumber near me" or "commercial gym music license." They raised their hand. A Display ad shows up next to an article, inside a mobile game, or on a weather app, because Google's systems guessed the person might be interested. Some of those guesses turn into customers. Many more turn into accidental taps from someone scrolling past.
In February, Display Competes With Search for the Same Budget.
On October 14, 2026, Google announced two new controls called channel prioritization and budget allocation. They are rolling out to Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen campaigns over the coming months, so you may not see them in your account yet.
The idea is reasonable. Instead of an on/off switch for each network, you get a middle setting. You can mark a network as High priority or Low priority, and you can put a spending cap on any Low priority network. We'll get into how each works below.
The catch is in the fine print about defaults. Google's help page says it directly: "By default, all channels are set to High priority." That includes the Display Network in a Search campaign.
For now, Google is leaving existing campaigns alone. Search campaigns with Display turned on that haven't set any priorities "continue to use current Display Expansion behavior" until February 2027. Then the old back-end rule is retired. In Google's words: "the current spend allocation setup will go away, and you may see a shift in channel spending between Google Search, Search partners, and the Google Display Network." Akabas described the switchover as a February to March window.
Put those two pieces together. Today, Display waits for Search to finish. After the switch, if you've changed nothing, Display sits at the same High priority as Search and draws from the same budget. Google hasn't published how much spend will actually move, and for a campaign on Maximize Conversions it depends on where Google's systems predict conversions. But the protection that kept Display behind Search in line is gone unless you set it again.
One piece of good news: nothing is being switched on for you. Akabas was clear that "if you're opted out, you will stay opted out." If your campaigns have Display unchecked, February changes nothing for them. This is only about campaigns where the box is already ticked.
We Checked 102 Search Campaigns. One Had Display On, and It Bought One Lead.
Before writing this, we pulled the network settings for every active Search campaign across the 24 Google Ads accounts we manage. There are 102 of them. Display was switched on in one. Search Partners, Google's network of other search sites, was switched on in none.
That ratio is deliberate. For a business that wants leads or sales, we start every Search campaign with Display off. The one exception is a business-to-business campaign that sells to gyms, which runs on Maximize Conversions with a $50 daily budget. Display had been left on there. Here is what it did over the last 90 days, under today's leftover rule:
- Search: $1,822 spent, 475 clicks, 26 conversions. About $70 per conversion.
- Display: $319 spent, 589 clicks, 1 conversion.
Display brought in more clicks than Search did, for about a sixth of the money. On a dashboard that only shows clicks and cost per click, it would look like the better network. It produced one conversion. Search produced 26.
Notice too that this is the protected version. The campaign averaged about $24 a day against a $50 budget, so Search left plenty unspent, and Display was only eating leftovers. That $319 came from money Search didn't need. After February, with no settings changed, Display would no longer be limited to what Search leaves behind.
We're not claiming Display never works. Google's own help page says Search campaigns with spare budget that opt into Display "can deliver up to 15% more conversions at similar CPA." For some businesses, especially ones with a visual product and a well-built set of image ads, that can be true. Our point is narrower. Whether Display earns its place is something you should decide by looking at your own numbers, not something that happens because a box was ticked years ago.
One Checkbox in Network Settings Decides Whether Your Search Budget Reaches Display.
Finding out where you stand takes about ten minutes.
Start with the setting itself. Open each Search campaign, go to Settings, expand Networks, and look for "Include Google Display Network." If it's unchecked, February doesn't touch that campaign. If it's checked, keep reading. While you're there, note whether "Include Google search partners" is checked too, because the new controls apply to that network as well.
Then look at what Display has actually been doing. On the Campaigns page, set the date range to the last 90 days, open the Segment menu, and choose Network (with search partners). Each campaign splits into rows for Google Search, Search partners and the Display Network. Compare the Display row's cost and conversions to the Search row's. Use 90 days, not 30. A small campaign can go a month with no Display conversions by chance, and it can also get one lucky one.
Two things to watch for while you're in there. First, look at conversions, not clicks. Display clicks are cheap and plentiful, and that is exactly what makes them look good on the wrong report. Second, check which conversions are being counted. If the campaign counts page views or button clicks as conversions, Display will rack those up easily. Count the leads and sales that reach you.
Google has said fuller channel reporting for Search campaigns is coming in the first quarter of 2027. Until then, the Network segment is the report you have.
The Priority Setting Picks Which Network Spends First. The Display Cap Limits How Much It Gets.
The new controls have two parts, and they do different jobs.
Priority sets the order. Every network starts as High priority. If you mark Display as Low priority, Google is supposed to fund your High priority networks first and only send money to Display after that. This is essentially the old back-end rule, now a setting you can see and change.
Budget allocation sets a ceiling. On any network marked Low priority, you can enter a percentage. Google then aims to keep that network's daily spend at or below that share of your budget. Set it to 0% and, per Google's help page, "Google won't spend on that channel."
The part that trips people up is that priority doesn't always do anything. It depends on your bid strategy:
- Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value, Maximize Clicks, Manual CPC: priority works the way you'd expect. High priority networks spend first, and Low priority networks get whatever is left.
- Target CPA or Target ROAS, limited by budget: priority works. High priority networks spend first, as long as they can hit your target.
- Target CPA or Target ROAS, not limited by budget: priority does nothing. Google's help page says so directly: "Channel prioritization doesn't change how your budget is spent when your campaign isn't limited by budget." Google is already chasing every conversion it can find at your target, on every network you've switched on. The only control that bites here is the cap.
So if you run a target-based strategy with plenty of budget headroom, which is the setup Google recommends, marking Display as Low priority and walking away won't change anything. You need the percentage cap.
Your Display Cap Is a Slice of the Budget You Set, Not of What You Actually Spend.
This is the detail most likely to cost you money, and it's written in one sentence of Google's documentation: budget allocation "is calculated as a percentage of the campaign's average daily budget... not as a percentage of actual campaign spend."
Many small campaigns don't spend their full budget. Maybe there aren't enough searches in your area, or you set the budget high so Search never runs out. Either way, the cap is figured from the number in the budget box, not from what you really spend.
Here's an illustration. A campaign has a $100 daily budget. On a normal day it actually spends about $60, because that's all the searches there are. The owner sets Display to Low priority with a 25% cap, thinking "Display will be no more than a quarter of my spend."
The cap is 25% of $100, which is $25 a day. On a $60 day, $25 is 42% of what the campaign actually spent. The owner thought they had capped Display at a quarter and gave it closer to half.
If you want Display to stay at a certain share of real spend, size the cap from what the campaign actually spends, not from the budget setting. If you're not sure, our piece on why Google Ads can spend twice your daily budget explains what "average daily budget" means and why the daily number moves around.
Two more things from the fine print. The cap is "best effort," which Google says "isn't a guarantee," and Display spend may occasionally go over it. And it resets every day, with nothing carried over, so an underspent Monday doesn't bank room for Tuesday.
Doing Nothing About Display Is Still a Choice. In February, Google Makes It for You.
You have three real options for any Search campaign with Display switched on. Doing nothing isn't one of them. It just means accepting the default, which after February is High priority with no cap.
Turn Display off, or set it to Low priority at 0%. This is our default for businesses that want leads or sales from search. The person typing your service into Google is the customer you're paying for, and Display mostly reaches people who weren't looking. Unchecking the box is the cleanest version. Low priority at 0% does the same thing while leaving it easy to test later. If you want help deciding which campaigns should keep any Display at all, this is the kind of call our Google Ads management team makes every week.
Set Display to Low priority with a 50% cap. This keeps today's behavior. Google's help page says that to "keep your current configuration, you can set the Google Display Network to 'Low priority' with a 50% daily budget allocation," and Google has said it will add a one-click button for exactly that. It makes sense when you've checked the Network report and Display is genuinely producing leads or sales at a cost you'd pay. Setting priorities before February applies the new settings right away and replaces the old rule, so you're in control of the switch instead of waiting for it.
Set Display to Low priority with a small cap, such as 5% or 10%. This is the testing setting. If you've never really judged Display, or you switched it off years ago and wonder whether it's improved, a small cap lets you find out without risking much. Size the cap from your actual spend, give it 90 days, and judge it on conversions you'd actually count.
A few edge cases are worth knowing:
- Target Impression Share campaigns lose Display entirely. Google says that as part of this change, the Display Network "will no longer serve on Search campaigns utilizing the Target Impression Share bid strategy." If that's your setup, February makes the decision for you.
- Search Partners gets the same middle ground. If you switched Search Partners off because of lead quality, you can now test it at Low priority with a small cap instead of all or nothing.
- Performance Max is a separate case. Display is built into Performance Max rather than being a checkbox, and the same controls now let you cap it there too. We covered that setup in our guide to Performance Max for lead generation, and why Performance Max's defaults favor Google in Performance Max Isn't Your Smartest Campaign. It's Google's.
- Settings can live at two levels. You can set priorities once at the account level, and individual campaigns can override them. Check both if a campaign isn't behaving the way you expect.
Ten Minutes in Network Settings Beats a Surprise Display Bill in March.
None of this is an emergency today. The old rule stays in place until February, and the new controls may not even be in your account yet. But it's the kind of change that's easy to miss, because it doesn't change anything you can see. Your budget stays the same, your ads stay the same, and in March some of your money is quietly going somewhere else.
Open your Search campaigns, check the Networks box, run the Network segment over 90 days, and make the decision on purpose. If Display is earning its keep, lock in the 50% setting. If it isn't, switch it off.
We manage Google Ads for small businesses every day, and a settings review like this is part of the routine. If you'd rather hand it off, we're happy to take a look. If you'd rather do it yourself, everything you need is above.
