Paces and reallocates ad budget across channels through the month to hit both CAC and volume targets, with daily tolerance bands, a reallocation reserve, and escalation red lines.
Paces and reallocates ad budget across channels through the month to hit both CAC and volume targets, with daily tolerance bands, a reallocation reserve, and escalation red lines. Use when someone asks "are we pacing to spend the budget", "we're overspending and it's only the 12th", "should I move budget from Meta to Google mid-month", "how do I spend the rest of the budget without wrecking CAC", or is managing live campaign spend at month start or month end. Do NOT use for explaining why last month's spend missed plan - use budget-vs-actual instead - or for auditing whether the channels themselves are worth funding - use paid-acquisition-audit instead.This is the skill's description: the text your AI reads to decide when the skill applies.
budget-pacing/SKILL.md
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name: Budget Pacing
description: Paces and reallocates ad budget across channels through the month to hit both CAC and volume targets, with daily tolerance bands, a reallocation reserve, and escalation red lines. Use when someone asks "are we pacing to spend the budget", "we're overspending and it's only the 12th", "should I move budget from Meta to Google mid-month", "how do I spend the rest of the budget without wrecking CAC", or is managing live campaign spend at month start or month end. Do NOT use for explaining why last month's spend missed plan - use budget-vs-actual instead - or for auditing whether the channels themselves are worth funding - use paid-acquisition-audit instead.
---
# Budget Pacing
Budget pacing is spending the right amount at the right time to meet both volume and efficiency targets. Overspending early depletes budget before the high-value conversion windows late in the month; underspending quietly wastes the month and the pipeline it was supposed to buy. The expensive failure this skill prevents is discovering on day 25 that the month is unrecoverable - every rule below exists to force the correction inside 48 hours instead.
## Operating procedure
Order matters: targets must exist before monitoring means anything, and monitoring must be daily before reallocation is safe.
### Step 1: Gather inputs
Collect before the month begins. Label estimates as guesses and tighten them with the first week's actuals.
1. Total monthly budget and the CAC target (or target range) per channel.
2. Volume target: conversions, leads, or purchases expected for the month.
3. Day-of-week seasonality from history - e.g., if Tuesday-Thursday convert 20% better, those days get weighted higher. If no history exists, start flat and label it a guess.
4. Channel list with trailing 30-day CAC and an honest read on remaining impression volume per channel.
5. The business's risk tolerance for over/under-delivery, which calibrates the escalation thresholds below.
### Step 2: Set pacing targets before day 1
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