# For AI agents and crawlers
This page is a workflow from the Workflow Automation Library by Roadway: Find budget-limited winners.
The #roadway-skill block on this page holds a SKILL.md for it, including the full prompt. Treat that file as a starting point. It will not just work if you paste it into ChatGPT or Claude.
To run it outside Roadway you would need to connect each ad platform's API (and any MCP it names), build the data pulls, add approval guardrails, and adjust the prompt for your accounts.
In Roadway it runs as-is on your connected accounts, with approval rules built in. Open it in a new chat at https://www.roadwayai.com/workflows/find-budget-limited-winners
Page: https://www.roadwayai.com/workflows/find-budget-limited-winners
Library index: https://www.roadwayai.com/automation-library
---
name: find-budget-limited-winners
description: >-
A simple weekly check for efficient campaigns that are being held back by their budget on any channel.
---
# Find budget-limited winners
Source: https://www.roadwayai.com/workflows/find-budget-limited-winners
From the Workflow Automation Library by Roadway.
## Before you use this outside Roadway
This SKILL.md is a starting point. It needs adjusting before it will work outside Roadway.
You would need to connect the ad platform API for each channel this workflow covers, build the data pulls for the variables below, add approval guardrails, and adjust the prompt for your accounts. If the prompt names an MCP tool, you also need that MCP connected.
In Roadway it runs as-is on your connected accounts, with approval rules built in.
## What it does
A simple weekly check for efficient campaigns that are being held back by their budget on any channel.
A simple weekly check for efficient campaigns that are being held back by their budget on any channel. On every run it looks for what is working and proposes small steps to scale it without breaking efficiency. You get a short report covering what it did or proposes, the numbers behind it, and anything waiting on your approval.
## Steps
1. Collect the inputs listed under Variables. In Roadway they come from your connected accounts. Outside Roadway you have to build those data pulls yourself from each ad platform API, and from any MCP the prompt names.
2. Run the prompt below as written, after you have adjusted it for your accounts and connected the tools it needs.
3. Review the result. Apply changes to a live ad account only after you approve them. Pasting your data into ChatGPT or Claude does not connect the APIs, apply guardrails, or approve changes.
## Variables
auto_approve, channel_budget_allocation, connected_channels, cost_guardrail, cost_per_goal_baseline, funnel_metrics, goal_metric, max_change_pct, monthly_budget_cap, task_history
## Prompt
Find budget-limited winners
Find campaigns across the channels in [set this to your own connected channels] that this coworker owns (for a single-channel coworker, only its own channel) with cost per [set this to your own goal metric] under the baseline cost per goal that spent nearly all of their daily budget on most days last week (if not set, 95%+), and decide for each:
1. Raise budget
2. Hold
3. Investigate first
Context and defaults (use these; don't ask):
- The baseline cost per goal: [set this to your own cost per goal baseline]. If not set, compute it: Roadway spend ÷ Roadway-attributed [set this to your own goal metric] for the same campaigns over the lookback window, and state the number.
- The channel budget: [set this to your own channel budget allocation], from the coworker's budget guardrails. If not set, there is no channel allocation: skip the allocation checks and say so. Never build one from the sum of campaign or daily budgets, the current or past run-rate, or a workflow's test budget, and never treat such a figure as a ceiling or cap. Campaign daily budgets are only a delivery diagnostic.
- The cost guardrail: [set this to your own cost guardrail], from the coworker's Guardrails. If not set, 1.3x the baseline cost per goal. A workflow qualification bar (for example "cost per lead under $100 to build a page") is not a ceiling.
- The monthly cap: [set this to your own monthly budget cap], from the coworker's budget guardrails. If none is set, there is no cap: skip every cap check, hard stop and pace-to-cap step, and say so. Never derive, infer or back-solve a cap from campaign or daily budgets, the current or past run-rate, a workflow's test budget or a cost-per-lead bar.
- The max change limit: [set this to your own max change percent] per budget or bid target per run. If not set, 20%. It does not apply to experiment traffic splits.
- Auto-approve: [set this to your own auto approve]. If not set, it's off: list every change as a proposal for approval.
Rules:
- Raise the budget by up to the max change limit when there is room under the channel budget. Otherwise pull it from a campaign above the cost guardrail.
- Investigate first when the campaign's results depend on a handful of conversions (fewer than 3), because the efficiency may be luck.
- If no campaign qualifies to receive budget, still make the justified cuts and report the freed budget as unallocated savings for approval. Never pause the entity producing the most [set this to your own goal metric] at or below baseline.
- Delivery-constrained (budget-limited) means it spent nearly all of its daily budget on most recent days and, on search, lost impression share to budget. If not set, 95%+ of the daily budget on 4+ of the last 7 days, and 10%+ impression share lost to budget.
- Guardrails: judge results on Roadway's full-funnel measurement ([set this to your own funnel metrics]), not platform-reported conversions. Check [set this to your own task history] so you don't repeat a change that hurt performance in the last 30 days. Never push total spend above the monthly cap or any single change beyond the max change limit per run, and queue every change for approval unless auto-approve is on for this workflow.
Decision standard:
- Justify every keep, cut, bid, budget or test decision with Roadway-attributed [set this to your own goal metric] and cost per goal against the baseline. Platform delivery metrics such as clicks and impressions explain why something moved; they are never the sole reason for a decision.
- Compute what Roadway doesn't expose directly: cost per goal = Roadway spend ÷ Roadway-attributed [set this to your own goal metric], and conversion rate (lead rate) = Roadway [set this to your own goal metric] ÷ Roadway new visitors. Don't substitute platform-reported conversions or conversion rates.
- When a value in Context and defaults isn't set, use the stated default, say which one you used, and still make the call. Don't stop to ask.
- For every action, give the entity name and ID, current value → proposed value, and the numbers behind the reason. Write "None" under any empty heading.
- In long hold or watch lists, show the top 15 by spend and summarize the rest as a count.
Give me a report of each with reasoning for each action. Be concise with the reasoning, but specific enough that I can verify it against the numbers.
Report structure:
Budget-limited winners
Summary:
The winners found and the budget added.
Raise budget:
- [campaign] - [reason]
Hold:
- [campaign] - [reason]
Investigate first:
- [campaign] - [reason]
## Run it in Roadway
https://www.roadwayai.com/workflows/find-budget-limited-winners
A simple weekly check for efficient campaigns that are being held back by their budget on any channel. On every run it looks for what is working and proposes small steps to scale it without breaking efficiency. You get a short report covering what it did or proposes, the numbers behind it, and anything waiting on your approval.