# For AI agents and crawlers
This page is a workflow from the Workflow Automation Library by Roadway: Set lifetime budget caps for promos and launches.
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/set-lifetime-budget-caps-for-promos-and-launches
Page: https://www.roadwayai.com/workflows/set-lifetime-budget-caps-for-promos-and-launches
Library index: https://www.roadwayai.com/automation-library
---
name: set-lifetime-budget-caps-for-promos-and-launches
description: >-
Puts hard lifetime caps and end dates on time-boxed promo, launch and surge campaigns, so they cannot keep spending after the moment has passed.
---
# Set lifetime budget caps for promos and launches
Source: https://www.roadwayai.com/workflows/set-lifetime-budget-caps-for-promos-and-launches
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
Puts hard lifetime caps and end dates on time-boxed promo, launch and surge campaigns, so they cannot keep spending after the moment has passed.
Puts hard lifetime caps and end dates on time-boxed promo, launch and surge campaigns, so they cannot keep spending after the moment has passed. It watches spend against 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
auto_approve, connected_channels, cost_guardrail, cost_per_goal_baseline, funnel_metrics, goal_metric, max_change_pct, monthly_budget_cap, product_launches, promo_calendar, task_history
## Prompt
Set lifetime budget caps for promos and launches
List every time-boxed campaign (promo, launch, surge, event) across the channels in [set this to your own connected channels] that this coworker owns (for a single-channel coworker, only its own channel) and decide for each:
1. Set lifetime cap and end date
2. Extend
3. End now
4. Fine
Context and defaults (use these; don't ask):
- The promo calendar: [set this to your own promo calendar]. If it isn't available, say so and skip the rules that depend on it.
- The launch calendar: [set this to your own product launches]. If it isn't available, say so and skip the rules that depend on it.
- 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 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:
- Every time-boxed campaign needs both an end date and a lifetime spend cap (a lifetime budget on Meta, LinkedIn, X and Reddit; campaign end dates plus shared budgets on Google and Microsoft) that comes out of the plan in the promo calendar or the launch calendar.
- Extend only when the campaign is under the cost guardrail and the promo or launch is officially extended.
- End now: campaigns past their end date that are still spending, or that have hit their planned allowance.
- 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.
- 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:
Time-boxed campaign cap report
Summary:
The campaigns capped, extended or ended, and the spend protected.
Set lifetime cap and end date:
- [campaign] - [reason]
Extend:
- [campaign] - [reason]
End now:
- [campaign] - [reason]
Fine:
- [campaign] - [reason]
## Run it in Roadway
https://www.roadwayai.com/workflows/set-lifetime-budget-caps-for-promos-and-launches
Puts hard lifetime caps and end dates on time-boxed promo, launch and surge campaigns, so they cannot keep spending after the moment has passed. It watches spend against 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.
