# For AI agents and crawlers
This page is a workflow from the Workflow Automation Library by Roadway: Forecast budget scenarios before committing spend.
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/forecast-budget-scenarios-before-committing-spend
Page: https://www.roadwayai.com/workflows/forecast-budget-scenarios-before-committing-spend
Library index: https://www.roadwayai.com/automation-library
---
name: forecast-budget-scenarios-before-committing-spend
description: >-
Forecasts month-end and next-month results at several budget levels, so cap decisions are made with expected outcomes rather than gut feel.
---
# Forecast budget scenarios before committing spend
Source: https://www.roadwayai.com/workflows/forecast-budget-scenarios-before-committing-spend
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
Forecasts month-end and next-month results at several budget levels, so cap decisions are made with expected outcomes rather than gut feel.
Forecasts month-end and next-month results at several budget levels, so cap decisions are made with expected outcomes rather than gut feel. It keeps spend inside the limits you set and shows you what it would change. 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
cost_guardrail, cost_per_goal_baseline, goal_metric, monthly_budget_cap, pay_back_target, seasonality_calendar
## Prompt
Forecast budget scenarios before committing spend
Using daily spend and [set this to your own goal metric] history per channel over at least 90 days, forecast outcomes at -20%, current, +20% and +40% of the monthly cap, and recommend:
1. Keep cap
2. Raise cap
3. Lower cap
4. Reallocate within cap
Context and defaults (use these; don't ask):
- 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 seasonality calendar: [set this to your own seasonality calendar]. If not set, assume no seasonal adjustment and say so.
- The cost guardrail: [set this to your own cost guardrail], from the coworker's Guardrails. If not set, 1.3x [set this to your own cost per goal baseline]. A workflow qualification bar (for example "cost per lead under $100 to build a page") is not a ceiling.
- The payback target: [set this to your own pay back target]. If not set, 12 months.
Rules:
- Forecast each channel with a curve of where extra spend stops paying off, plus seasonality from the seasonality calendar, and give an 80% range, not a single number.
- Raise cap when cost of the next goal at +20% stays under the cost guardrail and the payback is within the payback target. Lower cap when cost of the next goal at current spend is already above the guardrail.
- Reallocate within cap when the total is right but the channel mix is off the efficient frontier.
- 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.
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 scenario forecast
Summary:
Expected [set this to your own goal metric] and cost per goal by scenario, the recommendation, and how sure we are.
Keep cap:
- [scenario] - [reason]
Raise cap:
- [scenario] - [reason]
Lower cap:
- [scenario] - [reason]
Reallocate within cap:
- [scenario] - [reason]
## Run it in Roadway
https://www.roadwayai.com/workflows/forecast-budget-scenarios-before-committing-spend
Forecasts month-end and next-month results at several budget levels, so cap decisions are made with expected outcomes rather than gut feel. It keeps spend inside the limits you set and shows you what it would change. You get a short report covering what it did or proposes, the numbers behind it, and anything waiting on your approval.
