About Budget Allocation

Budget Allocation automatically distributes a budget across selected Apple Ads campaigns based on performance. You gather campaigns into a budget allocation group, choose a key performance indicator (KPI), and enter a daily budget. MobileAction then recalculates how that budget is divided across the campaigns once per day.

Campaigns can be grouped by country, campaign type, or another structure. Budget Allocation then shifts budget toward the better-performing campaigns within that group, reducing the need for daily manual rebalancing.

This article explains the main parts of Budget Allocation. To set one up, see Create a budget allocation.

How Budget Allocation works

A budget allocation group contains one or more campaigns from the same app and campaign group. All included campaigns share the configured daily budget.

Once per day, Budget Allocation recalculates the daily budget assigned to each campaign. The calculation begins with campaign spend and then:

Adjusts the distribution based on whether the campaigns spent less or more than the available budget.
Favors campaigns with better performance for the selected KPI.
Checks that each campaign’s daily budget meets its required bid minimum.

The configured daily budget acts as the allocation group’s overall spending guardrail. Budget Allocation normally keeps this total fixed while changing how it is divided across the included campaigns.

However, the final allocated or spent amount may sometimes be higher than the configured daily budget:

Apple Ads pacing can cause actual campaign spend to exceed the assigned budget during the day.
Bid safeguards can require a campaign to receive a higher minimum daily budget.

For the complete calculation process, see How Budget Allocation redistributes campaign budgets.

Choose a KPI

The Budget Allocation KPI determines which performance value is used when distributing budget.

KPI	Performance value	Goal	Requirement
CPA	Cost per install	Installs	A Mobile Measurement Partner connection is not required
CPI	Cost per attributed install	Attributed Installs	Requires a Mobile Measurement Partner connection
CPG	Cost per selected goal	A goal selected for the app	Requires a Mobile Measurement Partner connection

A Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP) provides the attributed install and goal data used by CPI and CPG allocation groups.

For CPI and CPG, additional attribution settings determine which installs or goals are included in the KPI calculation. For more information, see About Budget Allocation KPIs, goals, and attribution settings.

Choose a cap type

The cap type determines how the daily budget is applied.

Cap type	How it works
Daily cap	Daily ad spend aligns closely with the daily budget. To manage the budget, Budget Allocation may pause some campaigns and reactivate them the following day.
Monthly cap	Over the calendar month, average daily ad spend aligns closely with the daily budget.

Both cap types use the same budget redistribution process.

Budget Scheduler is available only for allocation groups that use a daily cap. If an allocation group uses a monthly cap, its Budget Schedule status is shown as N/A.

For more information, see About daily and monthly caps.

Requirements and limitations

Keep the following conditions in mind:

You can view Budget Allocation data for only one campaign group at a time.
Each allocation group must contain at least one campaign.
A campaign cannot be selected if it already belongs to another running or paused budget allocation group.
CPI and CPG are unavailable when the selected app does not have an MMP connection.
The daily budget must meet the minimum required for the selected campaigns.
Budget Scheduler cannot be used with monthly-cap allocation groups.
You cannot create a budget allocation group when the selected Apple Ads integration is read-only.
Campaigns in a budget allocation group can also have automation rules. However, automation rules with daily budget or pause actions do not take action while those campaigns are managed by Budget Allocation. If selected campaigns already have these automation rules, you are asked to confirm whether you want to continue before starting Budget Allocation.
Budget Allocation does not take action on campaigns that contain ad groups under an active CPP A/B Test.

Need more help?

If you have further questions on the process, contact your dedicated Customer Success Manager or contact the support team via live chat.