Google Ads account structure: accounts, campaigns, ad groups

This guide is built from Google Ads Help: About your account organization, Organize your account with ad groups, About campaign settings, About ad group and asset group prioritization and About your Google Ads account limits. How the auction, keywords and budgets work is in our Google Ads basics guide; this page is about how to lay the account out.

The three layers

Google describes the account as three layers: "account, campaigns, and ad groups." The account holds the sign-in, the people who have access and the billing information. Campaigns "have their own budget and settings that determine where your ads appear." Each ad group contains "a set of similar ads and keywords." Ads and keywords therefore sit at the bottom, inside ad groups.

Performance Max uses asset groups in place of ad groups. Google calls an asset group a collection of creative assets "centered on a specific theme or target audience", which Google AI mixes into ads across its inventory. Video campaigns keep ad groups, but Google notes that a video ad group holds ads that share targeting and bids, and only one video ad format per ad group.

Which settings live where

Most structure decisions come down to this question: at which level is the setting you need to change? The table follows Google's account organization and campaign settings articles.

Some of these can be overridden one level down. Audience targeting, for example, can be added to an ad group or a campaign, and portfolio bid strategies and shared budgets let several campaigns use one strategy or one budget.

Conversion goals are worth a moment here. Google's conversion goals article lets you mark standard goals as "account-default conversion goals". When you create a campaign, all of them are selected for optimization by default, and Google recommends optimizing all campaigns toward the same set of goals so that bidding learns across the account. A campaign can still use its own goals when it really has a different job. Our conversion tracking guide covers how the actions behind those goals are set up.

When to split a campaign

Google's rule is practical: "When you need to use a different set of campaigns settings (ex: budget or location targeting), create a separate campaign." Its example is a clothing shop that wants one budget for shirts and another for pants, so it runs two campaigns. The other side of the rule matters as much: "If you want all your ads to share a budget and you want to target the same set of locations, then you can just use one campaign."

Reasons that usually justify a separate campaign, in our experience, all trace back to a campaign-level setting:

• A different budget you want to protect, such as brand searches versus everything else.
• A different location or language, such as two countries or two service areas.
• A different bid strategy or target, such as a Target CPA for leads and a Target ROAS for online sales.
• A different campaign type: Search, Performance Max, Shopping, Video and so on.
• A different ad schedule, network or device setup.

If none of these differ, a second campaign mostly splits the data that bidding learns from and adds reporting work. Name campaigns so the reason for the split is visible; Google recommends "a name that clearly describes the theme of the campaign." Our labels guide covers tagging campaigns and ad groups for reports when names are not enough.

Building ad groups

Google's advice for ad groups is to "pick a narrow theme" and use keywords related to that theme, so related ads show to people searching for similar things. Its electronics shop example has a Televisions campaign with Flat Screen TVs and Plasma TVs ad groups, and a Cameras campaign with Digital Cameras and Compact Cameras ad groups.

A useful starting point, according to Google, is your website: "For many businesses, the way your website is structured is a good place to start, where each ad group representing a different page or category on your site." That also keeps the landing page close to the keyword, which matters for the overlap rules below.

Inside each ad group, Google recommends:

• Keywords closely linked to the ad text, and ads that mention at least one of the keywords in a headline.
• At least 3 ads with optimized ad rotation, since "You never know what message might resonate best with potential customers."

Note the account limit of 3 enabled responsive search ads per ad group, so "at least 3 ads" in a Search ad group in practice means up to three responsive search ads.

Google also warns against reorganizing later: doing it "after you've created several campaigns and ad groups wipes out all the valuable data you've accumulated, possibly affecting how your ads perform." Plan the structure before launch, and when a rebuild is needed, test it with an experiment where possible.

What happens when ad groups overlap

Several of your keywords can match the same search. Google says they "don't compete with each other in the auction": only one can trigger an ad. It picks that one in this order:

1. An exact match keyword identical to the search term.
2. A phrase or broad match keyword (including AI Max) or a Performance Max search theme identical to the search term.
3. Relevance: AI-based prioritization keeps only the most relevant ad and asset groups, judged on "the meaning and context of the search term, all the keywords in an ad group, and landing pages within the ad group."
4. Ad Rank, when several candidates are still equal.

"Identical" includes spell-corrected searches but not plurals or synonyms. Google's conclusion from this is a structure rule in its own words: "Structure your ad groups thematically to clarify which ad group should match for a given search." Clear themes with matching landing pages make step 3 predictable.

The order has exceptions. A keyword with low search volume, all ads or landing pages disapproved, targeting that excludes the searcher, or a budget-limited campaign can let another ad group serve instead. The rules also do not apply to Shopping ads, which can still show next to your exact match ad. To check which ad group was chosen and why, Google points to the Ad preview and diagnosis tool.

Structure with Smart Bidding, AI Max and Performance Max

Smart Bidding learns from conversion data. Google's Smart Bidding overview says it "can optimize based on data from all of your campaigns, so even new campaigns without data of their own may notice increased performance", and each strategy has its own conversion minimums. Splitting the same traffic across many small campaigns spreads that data thin; that is why we keep campaigns to the splits listed above. Our Target CPA guide covers the data each strategy wants.

With broad match and AI Max, an ad group's keywords and landing page say more about its theme than the exact wording of each keyword, because of the relevance step above. Google's AI Max article lists ad group level controls, such as locations of interest and brand inclusions, alongside campaign-level ones such as brand exclusions. Google also notes that when you turn off the broad match campaign setting or move to AI Max, broad keywords are not treated as exact match keywords for prioritization; to keep that priority, it advises adding copies of the exact match keywords to the new AI Max campaign. Our broad match and AI Max guides go further.

For Performance Max running beside Search, Google's Performance Max overview states that "Search campaigns containing an exact match keyword are prioritized to serve over Performance Max when a query hits an exact match keyword", while search themes carry the same priority as phrase and broad keywords. Inside Performance Max, Google suggests "multiple asset groups for different products, services, or themes." More is in our Performance Max guide.

Limits and housekeeping

Most accounts never reach Google's account limits, but a few shape structure:

• 10,000 campaigns per account, active and paused counted together.
• 20,000 ad groups per campaign (100 for Local and App campaigns).
• 100 Performance Max campaigns per account.
• 3 enabled responsive search ads per ad group.
• 10,000 negative keywords per campaign, and 5,000 keywords per negative keyword list.

Experiments duplicate the base campaign's ad groups, ads, keywords and targets, and those copies count toward the limits. Google also warns that "Generating a large number of ad groups or campaigns with few creatives or keywords in each" can undermine the stability of its systems, and that it may then throttle or exclude those items.

Unused ad groups are cleaned up automatically. Google pauses ad groups created more than 13 months ago with 0 impressions in the past 13 months. You can turn them back on, but one that gets no impressions for 3 months is paused again. Their status shows as "Paused (due to low activity)".

More than one account

In our view one business normally needs one Google Ads account; campaigns and ad groups do the splitting. Separate accounts make sense when billing or ownership has to be separate, for example different legal entities or different currencies. An agency or a group with several accounts links them under a manager account to manage them from one place. Google's limits allow a manager account up to 20 negative keyword lists, and each child account up to 20 of its own.

Our structure checklist

This is how we set up accounts; it is our practice, not a Google rule.

• Write down every campaign split and the setting that forces it. No setting, no split.
• Base ad groups on the pages and categories of the website, one clear theme each, with a matching landing page.
• Agree account-default conversion goals before the first campaign and only override them per campaign for a stated reason.
• Use names that read in reports: type, theme, location (for example "Search | Repairs | London").
• Keep brand searches in their own campaign when brand spend needs its own budget.
• Check the search terms report and Ad preview and diagnosis tool after launch to see that the intended ad groups serve.

If you would like us to plan or review an account, our website team can help.

Frequently asked questions

What is the structure of a Google Ads account?

Google Ads has three layers: the account (sign-in, access and billing), campaigns (budget and settings such as locations and networks) and ad groups (related ads and keywords). Performance Max uses asset groups instead of ad groups.

When should I create a new campaign instead of a new ad group?

Google says to create a separate campaign when you need a different set of campaign settings, such as a different budget or location targeting. If ads can share a budget and target the same locations, one campaign with several ad groups is enough.

How many ads should an ad group have?

Google recommends at least 3 ads per ad group with optimized ad rotation. For Search, an ad group can have at most 3 enabled responsive search ads.

Do my own keywords compete against each other?

No. When several of your keywords match the same search, only one can trigger an ad. Google prefers an identical exact match keyword, then identical phrase or broad keywords and search themes, then the most relevant ad group, then the highest Ad Rank.

Can I restructure an existing account?

Yes, but Google warns that reorganizing after campaigns and ad groups have run wipes out the data you have built up and may affect performance. Plan the change, keep the old structure until the new one is ready, and test it where you can.

For more on Google Ads, see our guides to Google Ads basics, search terms and negative keywords, Google Ads Editor and budgets and bidding.