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Google Search Partners and Display: the new channel controls explained

By Abhishek Thakral · abhi.performs, Dubai · Updated October 2026 · 8 min read

For years the Google Search Partners decision was a checkbox. Leave it ticked and some of your budget went to sites you could not see. Untick it and you lost whatever good traffic it was sending. Most advice online still treats it that way. On 14 October Google announced a middle option, and it changes how I would set up every new Search campaign.

This guide covers what changed, which campaigns it touches, how the spending cap actually behaves, the Display Network deadline in February 2027, and the settings I would use in a lead-gen account today.

What changed on 14 October

Google introduced two optional controls in a post on its Ads and Commerce blog by Tal Akabas, Director of Product Management for Google Ads (Google, 14 Oct 2026):

• Channel prioritization. You tag each channel as High or Low priority. High-priority channels are funded first, within your Target CPA or Target ROAS. Whatever budget is left then goes to the low-priority channels.
• Budget allocation. For a low-priority channel you can set a maximum percentage of the daily budget it may use.

In a Search campaign, Google Search, Search partners and the Google Display Network can each get their own priority. In Performance Max and Demand Gen, Google's own surfaces (Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail, Discover) are grouped together as "Google channels". The settings work at account level, campaign level and on shared budgets, so you can set a default once and override it where a campaign needs something different.

An early version was spotted in an alpha test in August, according to Search Engine Roundtable. Google says the controls roll out over the coming months, so do not panic if the card is not in your account yet.

Who it affects

The controls are coming to four campaign types: Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen. Search Engine Roundtable reports that Search, Shopping and Performance Max get it first, with Demand Gen following.

If you run Search campaigns with Search partners ticked, which Google does by default for new Search Network campaigns (Google Ads Help), this is for you. If you have ever turned on the Display Network inside a Search campaign, the February 2027 change below matters even more.

Google Search Partners: on, off, or low priority?

Google Search Partners are sites and apps in the Search Network that show your ads near their own search results. Google does not show you which partner sites your Search ads appeared on (Performance Max is the exception), and partner click-through rate does not affect your Quality Score on Google. Those two facts explain why so many accounts simply switched partners off: you could not see the placements, so you could not judge them.

The new setting gives you a third choice. Here is how I think about the three options in a lead-gen account:

• On, normal priority. Partners compete for budget on equal terms with Google Search. Fine if partner leads already close at a similar rate in your CRM. Risky if you have never checked.
• Off. Safe, but you give up any partner traffic that would have converted. On small budgets that can be the right trade.
• Low priority with a cap. Google Search gets funded first. Partners only get what is left, and never more than the percentage you set. This is the option I would start most accounts on.

The same logic applies to the Google Display Network inside a Search campaign. Display clicks behave very differently from search clicks, so it almost always belongs in the low tier with a tight cap, or off.

How budget allocation actually works

The cap is softer than it sounds, so read the small print before you rely on it:

• It is best-effort. Google says its tools will aim to keep spend within the limit. Some days it will go over.
• It is a share of average daily budget, not of spend. A 10% cap on an AED 1,000 daily budget means roughly AED 100 a day, whether or not the campaign spends the full budget.
• It resets daily. Unspent or overspent amounts do not carry over to the next day.
• 0% means no spend on that channel, which is the new way to switch it off without losing the setting.

One detail most people will miss: Google notes that prioritization on its own usually has little effect on Target CPA or Target ROAS campaigns that are not limited by budget. If your campaign is not capped by budget, the percentage limit is the lever that does the work. If it is limited by budget, priority alone already pushes money toward Google Search first.

The February 2027 Display Network deadline

This is the part with a date attached. From February 2027, Google will remove the current spend allocation setup for Search campaigns that have the Display Network turned on, and spending on those channels may shift. Google's own advice for keeping today's behaviour is to set the Display Network to Low priority with a 50% budget allocation.

I would not copy that 50% blindly. It preserves the old setup, but the old setup was rarely what a lead-gen advertiser wanted. Use the deadline as a reason to look at what Display inside Search is actually producing, then pick a cap you would sign off on deliberately.

What to do now

1. Find the card. Search Engine Roundtable describes the path as Account settings, then the "Channel Prioritization" card, then the campaign type. If it is not there yet, set a reminder and check weekly.
2. Pull a network report first. Segment your Search campaigns by network for the last 90 days and compare Google Search with Search partners on cost per lead, and on leads that became customers.
3. Set an account default. Google Search high priority. Search partners and Display low priority. This becomes the default for every eligible campaign unless you override it.
4. Add a cap to the low tier. Start small on partners (a single-digit or low double-digit percentage) and put Display at 0% unless you have proof it works for you.
5. Override per campaign where the data says so. A brand campaign and a cold prospecting campaign rarely deserve the same partner rules.
6. Review after 30 days on qualified leads, not clicks or form-fills. Change one setting at a time and give each one time, as I explain in my guide to the Google Ads learning period.

What I'd watch in UAE lead-gen accounts

Most of the accounts I run are lead generation with an offline sale: aesthetic clinics booking consultations, property brokers chasing off-plan buyers, business setup firms. In those accounts the question is never "are partner leads cheaper?". It is "do partner leads book, answer WhatsApp and buy?". That only works if your conversions reflect real outcomes, which is why I always fix your tracking first before judging any network. Once that is in place, it is also worth checking whether you can serve your Google tag from your own domain.

Two more things to keep an eye on. First, partner and Display traffic can bring in more junk form-fills, so watch lead quality by network in your CRM, not just volume in Google Ads. Second, if you also run Performance Max for e-commerce, remember these controls group Google's surfaces together there, so you are steering "Google channels" versus the rest rather than individual placements.

If you would rather have someone set this up and own the decision, that is exactly what our Google Ads management covers, from AED 5,000 a month.

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