Adjust budgets

Once acos and bids are dialed in, the next step is budget allocation. By combining utilization rate with acos, you can shift budget toward campaigns with headroom and trim spend on inefficient ones. Registering and monitoring monthly budget caps is also covered in this category.

When to use this category

• “I want to raise the budget on campaigns where both utilization and acos are healthy”
• “I want to cut the budget on inefficient campaigns”
• “I want to set this month’s ad spend cap at 1,000,000 JPY”
• “How’s our budget utilization status looking?”

Execution order tip

The standard order is bid adjustment → budget adjustment. Because changing bids also changes utilization rate, dialing in bids first makes budget decisions more stable.

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Prompt 1: Daily budget optimization (utilization rate x acos)

🎯 Goal

Sort campaigns into “raise” and “lower” candidates with clear reasoning, based on the combination of utilization rate and acos.

📋 When to use

• You want to raise the budget on campaigns with high utilization and good acos
• You want to lower the budget on inefficient campaigns
• You want to automatically surface campaigns with headroom

📝 Prompt

Using the most recent finalized week, propose daily budget optimizations against my target acos {{TARGET_ACOS}}.
- Utilization rate at or above {{HIGH_UTIL}} and acos at or below target → raise candidate
- Acos above 1.5x target with utilization rate below {{LOW_UTIL}} → lower candidate
Set the minimum daily budget to {{MIN_BUDGET}} JPY.

Placeholders:

Placeholder	Description	Default source
{{TARGET_ACOS}}	Target acos (e.g. 15%)	Auto-referenced from monthly KPI target
{{HIGH_UTIL}}	Utilization rate considered “fully spent” (e.g. 90%)	Default 90%
{{LOW_UTIL}}	Utilization rate considered “underspent” (e.g. 50%)	Default 50%
{{MIN_BUDGET}}	Minimum daily budget after a cut (e.g. 500)	Default 500 JPY

⚙️ What the AI does

1. Filter campaigns — Pull campaigns with a daily budget greater than 0 from the most recent finalized week
   • Why finalized week: Unfinalized weeks have incomplete data, making utilization judgments unstable
   • Why exclude daily budget = 0: To avoid mistakenly raising the budget on paused campaigns
2. Identify raise candidates — Flag campaigns with utilization rate at or above 90% and acos at or below target as “leaving demand on the table” and propose a +20% raise
   • Why 90% utilization: Below 90% there is room in the budget envelope, so the issue is bids, not budget
   • Why +20%: Keeps the change within a range where utilization and acos impact can be observed in one step
3. Identify lower candidates — Flag campaigns with acos above 1.5x target and utilization rate below 50% as “wasted spend” and propose a -20% cut
4. Minimum budget guard — Clamp the post-cut daily budget so it does not fall below {{MIN_BUDGET}} JPY
   • Why set a floor: Budgets too low lose delivery opportunities and erase the data needed to judge them
5. Return an approval table — 5 columns: Campaign name, Current daily budget, Recommended daily budget, Utilization rate, acos

📊 Example Output

Daily budget adjustment candidates: 11 (6 raise / 5 lower)

Campaign	Current daily budget	Recommended daily budget	Utilization rate	acos
SP - Amino Acid Shampoo	3,000 JPY	3,600 JPY	96%	12.8%
SP - Refill Shampoo	5,000 JPY	6,000 JPY	92%	14.1%
SP - Commercial Shampoo	4,000 JPY	3,200 JPY	38%	24.6%
…(8 more)…

Total raises +¥4,200/day, total cuts -¥3,800/day expected. Reply “execute” to apply. To approve individually, say something like “execute only #1”.

🔒 Safety controls

• Change magnitude is auto-clamped to +20% / -20% maximum (prevents sudden swings)
• Post-cut daily budget is clamped to a floor of {{MIN_BUDGET}} JPY (default 500 JPY)
• Campaigns with a 0 JPY daily budget are excluded (to avoid accidentally restarting paused campaigns)
• Nothing is applied unless you explicitly reply “execute”
• Each proposal has a 1-hour expiration, after which it must be regenerated
• Rollback is possible from daily budget history (contact support)

🚦 Execution modes

Phase	State	Conditions
Phase 1 (now)	One-shot	Available with Picaro connection only
Phase 2 (Q3 2026)	Daily execution	Monthly KPI target registered + saved as “Saved Prompt”
Phase 3 (Q4 2026)	Auto-execute (approval flow)	One-click Slack approval, daily, within spend cap
Phase 4 (2027)	Fully automatic	ML confidence >= 0.85, within guardrails

👉 Next steps

• Register monthly budget cap — Add a guard so total daily budgets don’t exceed your monthly cap
• Adjust bids — Utilization rate is heavily influenced by bids; optimize budget and bids together
• Set monthly KPI targets — Avoid re-typing {{TARGET_ACOS}} every time

❓ FAQ

Q: Can I approve raises and cuts at the same time? A: Yes. Raises and cuts are independent proposals against different campaigns, so a single “execute” reply for all of them works fine.

Q: Can I change the utilization rate thresholds (90% / 50%)? A: Yes — adjust {{HIGH_UTIL}} / {{LOW_UTIL}} in the prompt. Extreme values (e.g. 99% / 10%) narrow the candidate set too aggressively, so we recommend starting with the defaults.

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Prompt 2: Register monthly budget cap

🎯 Goal

Record a monthly ad spend cap and alert threshold in the system to enable automatic utilization monitoring.

📋 When to use

• You want to set this month’s ad spend cap
• You want to set the alert threshold at the same time
• You want to record the monthly budget in the system

📝 Prompt

Register the monthly budget cap for {{MONTH}} at {{BUDGET_AMOUNT}} ({{CURRENCY}}).
Set the alert threshold to {{ALERT_THRESHOLD}} (warn when utilization rate exceeds this).

Placeholders:

Placeholder	Description	Default source
{{MONTH}}	Target month (e.g. May 2026, or 2026-05)	User input
{{BUDGET_AMOUNT}}	Monthly budget cap amount (e.g. 1,000,000)	User input
{{CURRENCY}}	Currency (JPY / USD / EUR / GBP)	Default JPY
{{ALERT_THRESHOLD}}	Alert threshold (decimal 0-1, e.g. 0.8 = 80%)	Default 0.8

⚙️ What the AI does

1. Input validation — Checks the month format (YYYY-MM or “Month YYYY”), currency code, and threshold range
   • Why support currencies: So the same prompt can handle ad spend in overseas marketplaces (USD/EUR/GBP)
2. Overwrite check — If a cap is already registered for the same month, surface the diff and confirm overwrite
3. Save — Stores the monthly budget cap and alert threshold at the account level
4. Confirmation response — Returns the registered month, amount, currency, and threshold

📊 Example Output

Monthly budget cap registered.

Item	Value
Target month	May 2026
Monthly budget cap	¥1,000,000 (JPY)
Alert threshold	80% (warns at ¥800,000)
Registered at	2026-05-01 09:00

To check utilization status, run Check monthly budget utilization status.

🔒 Safety controls

• Alert thresholds outside the 0-1 range are rejected
• Already-registered months trigger an overwrite confirmation (prevents accidental overwrites)
• All registrations, updates, and deletions are recorded in the operation log
• We recommend matching the currency to your account’s primary marketplace currency

🚦 Execution modes

Phase	State	Conditions
Phase 1 (now)	One-shot	Available with Picaro connection only
Phase 2 (Q3 2026)	Remains one-shot	Monthly registration is one-shot by nature
Phase 3 (Q4 2026)	Auto-reminder at month start	Auto-suggest from prior month results + approval
Phase 4 (2027)	Auto-suggest + approval	Recommend a cap from the past 6 months of results

👉 Next steps

• Check monthly budget utilization status — See current utilization and remaining budget against the registered cap
• List / delete budget caps — Review and clean up past month caps
• Set monthly KPI targets — Register target acos and tacos here too so later prompts can auto-reference them

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Prompt 3: Check monthly budget utilization status

🎯 Goal

Show at a glance the utilization rate, remaining budget, and recommended daily budget (based on days remaining) against your registered monthly budget cap.

📋 When to use

• You want to see this month’s ad spend consumption
• You want to check campaigns that have crossed the alert threshold
• You want the remaining budget and recommended daily budget

📝 Prompt

Show ad spend consumption for {{MONTH}} compared against the registered monthly budget cap.
Include utilization rate, remaining budget, and recommended daily budget.

Placeholders:

Placeholder	Description	Default source
{{MONTH}}	Target month (e.g. 2026-05; current month if omitted)	Default: current month

⚙️ What the AI does

1. Aggregate month-to-date spend — Pull total ad spend from the start of the month through today
   • Why through today: Today’s data includes preliminary (unfinalized) figures, so the report notes “preliminary”
2. Compare against cap — Compare to the registered monthly budget cap and compute utilization rate
3. Calculate remaining budget and days — Remaining budget = cap - actual, Days remaining = month-end - today + 1
4. Recommended daily budget — Compute remaining budget ÷ days remaining as a pace-correcting daily budget
   • Why this formula: A simple pacemaker that distributes the remaining period evenly. Skewed allocation for sales periods can be specified separately in a prompt.
5. Alert check — If utilization rate exceeds the alert threshold, include a warning

📊 Example Output

May 2026 ad spend utilization status (as of 2026-05-18, today’s figures preliminary)

Item	Value
Monthly budget cap	¥1,000,000
Month-to-date actual	¥620,000
Utilization rate	62.0%
Remaining budget	¥380,000
Days remaining	14 days
Recommended daily budget (even distribution)	¥27,142

Alert threshold (80%) not yet reached. At current pace, month-end is projected at roughly ¥980,000 (98%).

Recommended for routine monitoring

Save this prompt as a Saved Prompt in your AI agent environment and run it every morning to catch budget pressure early. From Phase 2 onward, scheduled Slack delivery is also planned.

🔒 Safety controls

• This prompt is read-only and does not modify any budget
• Months without a registered monthly budget cap show “Cap not registered” instead of the recommended daily budget (register first via Prompt 2)
• Today’s figures are preliminary (unfinalized), and this is noted explicitly

🚦 Execution modes

Phase	State	Conditions
Phase 1 (now)	One-shot	Available with Picaro connection only
Phase 2 (Q3 2026)	Daily execution	Saved as “Saved Prompt”, routinized as morning check
Phase 3 (Q4 2026)	Daily auto (Slack delivery)	Auto-posted to Slack at 8 AM daily
Phase 4 (2027)	Auto + overage alerts	Slack notification when alert threshold is exceeded, with recommended actions

👉 Next steps

• Daily budget optimization — If pace is too fast, look at adjusting daily budgets
• Register monthly budget cap — Register the cap first if it’s missing
• Adjust bids — If pace is too slow, also consider raising bids

❓ FAQ

Q: Is the recommended daily budget the total across all campaigns? A: Yes — it’s the account-wide total across all campaigns. Per-campaign allocation is computed by Prompt 1 using utilization rate and acos.

Q: What if I want to front-load budget for a sale period? A: The current recommendation is to use the even-distribution recommended daily budget as a baseline and manually raise daily budgets during the sale. Phase 4 plans automatic front-loading for sale periods.

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Prompt 4: List / delete budget caps

🎯 Goal

List registered monthly budget caps so you can clean up past months or remove mistaken registrations.

📋 When to use

• You want to check the registered budget caps
• You want to delete a past month’s budget cap
• You want to confirm there are no disabled caps lingering

📝 Prompt

Show me the list of registered monthly budget caps.
(To delete, specify month={{MONTH}} with remove.)

Placeholders:

Placeholder	Description	Default source
{{MONTH}}	Month to delete (e.g. 2025-12; only when deleting)	User input

⚙️ What the AI does

1. List mode — Display all monthly budget caps registered under the account in 5 columns: Month, Amount, Currency, Alert threshold, Registered at
2. Delete mode — If month=YYYY-MM is specified, confirm before deleting the cap for that month
   • Why a confirmation step: Monthly budget caps are the basis for monitoring and decisions, so accidental deletion must be prevented
3. Operation log — Deletion is saved in the operation log

📊 Example Output

Registered monthly budget caps

Target month	Cap	Currency	Alert threshold	Registered at
May 2026	¥1,000,000	JPY	80%	2026-05-01 09:00
April 2026	¥950,000	JPY	80%	2026-04-01 09:00
March 2026	¥900,000	JPY	80%	2026-03-01 09:00

To delete, say something like “Delete the cap for 2026-03”.

🔒 Safety controls

• Deletion requires an explicit target month and a confirmation response
• Recovery after deletion requires manual re-registration (refer to Prompt 2 for prior amounts)
• List display is read-only

🚦 Execution modes

Phase	State	Conditions
Phase 1 (now)	One-shot	Available with Picaro connection only
Phase 2 (Q3 2026)	Remains one-shot	List checks are one-shot by nature
Phase 3 (Q4 2026)	Remains one-shot	Operated alongside a list UI
Phase 4 (2027)	Remains one-shot	Deletion stays one-shot for auditability

👉 Next steps

• Register monthly budget cap — Register a cap for a new month
• Check monthly budget utilization status — Reconcile the listed months against actuals

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Prompt quick reference

What you want	Prompt
Auto-adjust daily budgets by utilization rate x acos	Prompt 1
Register / update a monthly budget cap	Prompt 2
Check monthly budget utilization status	Prompt 3
List / delete registered budget caps	Prompt 4

Related categories

• Adjust bids — Dial in bids before revisiting budgets — that’s the standard order
• Set monthly KPI targets — Pre-register target acos to skip specifying it every time
• Why acos alone isn’t enough — The thinking behind budget allocation combined with tacos