Marketing budgets are often managed in static spreadsheets, while the actual spend happens across many channels. This disconnection can lead to:
End-of-month surprises: you discover you overspent after the invoice period has closed.
Unused budget: you hold back budget because you can't see what's left, and miss your performance goals.
Budgets & targets in Funnel calculates pacing for you. You define how much you plan to spend, and on which segments, and Funnel compares the plan with your actual data every day. You can also set targets for other metrics, such as conversions or ROAS, in the same budget. Your marketing and finance teams see the spending speed in real time, without exporting the data to other tools.
Tip: You can also ask Funnel AI, or an AI client connected to Funnel MCP, to rename, archive or restore a budget. Neither can create a budget.
Key concepts
The budget definition
A budget in Funnel holds your financial plan and any other targets. It is defined by these properties:
Date range: the period the budget covers.
Cadence: the periods you allocate amounts to, such as weekly, monthly or quarterly.
Comparison metric: the metric in your data that Funnel compares against the budget, most often Cost.
Currency: the currency of the budget amounts.
Breakdowns
You can set one budget for everything, for example a global marketing budget, or split it with breakdowns.
When you add dimensions such as Traffic Source, Country or Campaign Type, you allocate amounts to each segment. Each team member can then follow the part of the budget they are responsible for, not only the total.
Targets
The first target in every budget is the budget itself, compared against a monetary metric such as Cost. You can add up to nine more targets for other metrics, such as Impressions, Conversions or ROAS. Each target gets its own generated metric, for example Target Conversions, and uses the same date range, cadence and breakdowns as the budget.
Each target uses one of these distribution methods:
Even: the target value is split equally across each day. Use it for metrics you add up, such as cost or conversions.
Fixed: the target value repeats every day. Use it for ratios such as ROAS or CPC.
You can choose the distribution method only for metrics that are calculated with a formula. Other metrics use Even.
Visualization and pacing
After you create a budget, you can create a dashboard for it that already includes the key pacing metrics. Your stakeholders can follow progress there without opening the budget setup.
Key metrics available for a budget include:
Budget: the total amount set for the period.
The comparison metric, for example Cost: the actual spend from your data sources.
Budget pacing: the comparison metric divided by the budget for the dates you view, as a percentage. To check your pace, view dates that have complete actual data, for example from the start of the month until yesterday. Around 100% then means you are on track. Above 100% means you are overspending, and below 100% means you are underspending. If the dates include future days, the percentage shows how much of that period's budget you have used so far. For example, if you spend 1,500 halfway through a month with an even budget of 3,000, the full month shows 50%, even though you are on pace.
Common use cases
High-level monitoring: stakeholders view a visual summary of the total budget to check the department stays within it.
Regional or channel management: with dashboard filters for dimensions like Traffic Source, teams see the performance for their own region or channel.
Proactive adjustments: performance marketers use the pacing metric to adjust bids and daily spend limits mid-month, before the period ends.
Performance goals: add targets for conversions or ROAS to follow results next to spend.
Automated monitoring: alerts notify key stakeholders when the budget trends towards overspending or underspending, so nobody has to check every day.
Before you begin
Connect at least one data source that contains spend or cost data, for example Google Ads or Facebook Ads.
Make sure the metric you want to compare against exists as a custom metric in your workspace. Funnel usually maps standard spend to Cost. If you want to budget against your own calculated metric, create it before you set up the budget.
Make sure the dimensions you want to use as breakdowns exist and are populated. For example, create rules that group Facebook and Instagram under Social. If you budget at campaign level, keep your campaign naming conventions consistent. If a dimension is missing values, Funnel can't match the spend to your budget.
Create a budget
The setup has five steps: Setup, Breakdown, Target, Import and Allocate. You can go Back to an earlier step at any time.
Step 1: Enter the basic information
In the left menu, go to Data > Plan & govern > Budgets & targets.
Click New budget.
If you don't have a budget yet, click Create budget.
In the Basic information pane, enter the following:
Budget Name: use a clear and consistent name, for example Marketing budget 2026.
(Optional) Description: add details such as the owner or the purpose of the budget.
Date: select the period the budget covers. You can choose a preset, such as This Month or Next Quarter, or a custom range.
Currency: select the currency of your budget amounts. The default is USD.
(Optional) Expand Supportive dimensions and metrics to see the fields Funnel creates for the budget:
Metrics: Budget, Budget total days, Budget days passed, Budget days remaining, Budget pacing and Budget remaining
Dimensions: Budget period name, Budget period start date and Budget period end date
Funnel creates these fields with your first budget. All your budgets reuse them.
Click Continue.
Step 2: (Optional) Add breakdowns
Break the budget down by up to three dimensions to track performance at a more detailed level.
Click Add Breakdown.
Select a dimension, for example Traffic Source.
Select the values you want in the budget, for example Facebook and Google.
The list shows values from your data for the period next to Showing data from. Change the period to find values that are not in recent data. To add a value that is not in your data yet, click Add custom value. You can select up to 200 values for each dimension.
(Optional) Repeat steps 1 to 3 to add a second or third breakdown level.
Click Continue.
Step 3: Set your targets
In the Targets pane, select the Comparison metric for your budget.
The first row is always the budget. Its comparison metric must be a monetary metric. The default is Cost.
(Optional) Click Add target and select a comparison metric, for example Conversions.
Funnel shows the generated metric in the Target metric column, for example Target Conversions.
(Optional) For a metric that is calculated with a formula, such as ROAS, select a Distribution method: Even or Fixed.
(Optional) Repeat steps 2 and 3 to add more targets. A budget can have up to 10 targets, including the budget itself.
Click Continue.
Step 4: (Optional) Import amounts from a CSV file
If you already plan your budget in a spreadsheet, import it instead of entering the amounts by hand.
In the Import from CSV pane, check the columns your file must include:
Date, for example 2026 January or 2026-01-01
Budget, with the budget amount for each period
A column for each breakdown, with values that match your breakdowns
A column for each target, with the target values for each period
Drag and drop your CSV file into the upload area, or click the area to browse for the file.
Check how Funnel maps your columns, and adjust the mapping if needed.
If your file has a different layout, click Reformat with AI to let Funnel restructure it.
Click Import and continue.
To enter the amounts yourself, click Skip.
Note: This step isn't available if your workspace has opted out of Funnel AI features.
Step 5: Allocate the amounts
Set an amount for each period, breakdown value and target.
Select a cadence: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly or Custom.
With Custom, click Edit periods to define your own periods. You can add up to 60 periods.
Note: If you change the cadence or the breakdowns after you enter amounts, Funnel clears all the amounts.
Fill in the amounts in one of these ways:
Enter an amount in each cell.
Paste rows or columns from a spreadsheet to fill several cells at once.
Select the checkboxes of the rows you want to fill, and click one of these actions:
Copy Previous Period: copies the values from the previous period to the selected rows.
Distribute Amount: splits an amount across the selected rows and the periods you choose.
Change %: raises or lowers the selected amounts by a percentage.
Exclude dates: removes the budget from a Repeating weekday, Specific dates or a Date range. Excluded days get no budget.
To find a row, enter a breakdown value in Filter breakdowns.
(Optional) Preview the allocation on the right. You can switch between Daily and your cadence.
Click Create budget.
What to expect
Funnel opens the budget. The Budget Details section shows the date range, description, Total and Daily Average of the budget, and the comparison metric. Each extra target gets its own Daily Average card.
From the side pane, you can:
Create a dashboard for the budget.
Open the budget data in Explore.
Check the custom metrics, data source and breakdowns that the budget uses.
See Version history. Funnel saves a version every time you change the budget. Select an earlier version to view it, and click Restore to go back to it.
To change the budget, click Edit, update the steps and click Save budget. To remove it, click Delete and confirm with Remove budget. To get a removed budget back, ask Funnel AI or Funnel MCP to restore it.
On the Budgets & targets page, you can view your budgets as a list, as cards or on a timeline. The timeline shows all budgets over time. You can filter it by Breakdowns, Targets and Comparison Metrics, or hide past budgets.
Visualize the budget in a dashboard
On the budget page, click Create dashboard in the side pane.
Enter a Dashboard title and click Create dashboard.
Edit the dashboard if needed.
For more ways to build and edit dashboards, browse the Dashboards collection.
To compare a Pivot, Scoreboard or Line chart card with a budget, open the card settings and select the budget in Compare to budget. Depending on the card, you can then show a pacing bar, the percent of target, the days remaining, the recommended daily pace and the remaining value.
Set up budget alerts
Alerts notify your team by email or in Funnel when your spend moves away from the plan. You can react quickly to overspending or underspending without checking the dashboard every day.
On the budget page, click Alerts.
The Manage Alerts dialog opens.
Click Add Alert.
Set the alert conditions:
Enter an alert name.
When: select the metric to check. The default is the budget's comparison metric, for example Cost. You can also select Budget, Budget pacing, Budget remaining or the comparison metric of a target.
Is less than: enter the lower limit. You get an alert if the value drops below it.
or more than: enter the upper limit. You get an alert if the value goes above it.
Click Create Alert.
The alert appears in the Manage Alerts dialog. Repeat steps 2 to 4 to add more alerts.
(Optional) To send the alerts by email, click Manage email notifications, and on the Notifications page, add the recipients:
In the Metric alerts section, click Add recipient.
Select an existing user, or enter the email address of an external recipient and select it in the list.
Click Add recipient(s).
The alert checks the total value for the whole budget. Alerts run daily and use the previous day's data.
Best practices
Use breakdowns for actionable insights: break the budget down by Country, Campaign Type or Channel, so each team member sees the budget they are responsible for.
Create a dashboard for each budget: it gives a visual summary without opening the budget setup.
Add dashboard filters: add a filter for Traffic Source, or the breakdown you used, so your teammates can see the performance for their region or area.
Track results next to spend: add targets for metrics such as conversions or ROAS, so you see whether the spend delivers.
Monitor budget pacing: Budget pacing tells you if you are on track, overspending or underspending relative to the time that has passed. Set up an alert for it, so you can adjust bids before the period ends.