Short answer: A good Google Ads account structure groups campaigns by budget and business goal, and groups ad groups by tightly related search intent. Campaigns hold settings like budget, locations and bidding, so split them only when those settings need to differ. Ad groups hold keywords and ads, so keep each one focused on a single theme. Then make Performance Max and Search work together instead of competing, and name everything so anyone can read the account at a glance.
Structure is the part of Google Ads that nobody sees in a report, yet it shapes everything: which ad shows for which search, how budgets are shared and how much data each bid strategy gets to learn from. This guide shows how I plan a Google Ads account structure from scratch, and what I look for when I inherit a messy one.
The three levels of a Google Ads account
Google describes the account in three layers (Google Ads Help: Organize your account with ad groups):
- Account: billing, user access and account-wide settings such as conversion goals and account-level negative keywords.
- Campaigns: budget, bid strategy, networks, locations, languages and schedule. Everything inside a campaign shares these.
- Ad groups: a set of related keywords and the ads that answer them. In Performance Max, the equivalent is the asset group.
The practical rule follows from this: create a new campaign only when you need a different budget, location, bid strategy or goal. Create a new ad group when a group of searches needs different ad copy or a different landing page. Google also warns that reorganising later wipes out the data you have built up, which is a good reason to plan before launch.
How to split campaigns
Most accounts I build use a small number of campaigns, split along lines that matter to the business:
- Brand vs non-brand. People searching your name convert very differently from people searching a generic service. Mixing them hides the true cost of new customers.
- Product or service lines with different economics. If one service is worth five times more than another, it needs its own budget and its own target.
- Locations with different budgets or offers. A UK and an Australian campaign may need different budgets, schedules and ad copy.
- Campaign type. Search, Performance Max, Shopping, Demand Gen and Video each behave differently, so they sit in separate campaigns by design.
What I avoid is splitting for the sake of tidiness. Smart Bidding learns from conversions, and every extra campaign divides that data. Google’s own guidance on Target ROAS says performance tends to improve with fewer, larger campaigns that get more conversions (Google Ads Help: About Target ROAS bidding). If you want the detail on how each strategy uses that data, see my guide to Google Ads bidding strategies.
How to build ad groups
An ad group should answer one kind of search. Google’s example is an electronics store with a Cameras campaign split into ad groups like digital cameras and compact cameras. Ads perform better when they reflect the keywords in their group, because searchers see them as more relevant, and Google recommends having several ads per ad group so messages can be tested.
Older accounts often used single keyword ad groups, with one keyword per ad group. With today’s broader matching and responsive search ads, that approach usually creates hundreds of thin ad groups with too little data. I prefer ad groups built around a theme, with a handful of close keywords that share one landing page. That keeps relevance high, which supports the ad relevance and landing page parts of Quality Score, without starving the account of data.
Google Ads account structure with Performance Max and AI Max
Modern accounts rarely run Search alone, so structure has to cover how campaign types share traffic.
- Performance Max can serve across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one campaign, organised into asset groups by theme. Google gives priority to a Search campaign when a query matches one of its exact match keywords, while search themes in Performance Max are treated like phrase and broad match (Google Ads Help: About Performance Max campaigns).
- Brand exclusions stop Performance Max or Search from serving on searches for a brand, including misspellings, and Google describes them as the most effective way to control brand traffic (Google Ads Help: About brand exclusions). I use them when brand search runs in its own campaign.
- AI Max for Search is a set of features inside a Search campaign: broader search term matching, text customisation and final URL expansion, with brand and location controls (Google Ads Help: About AI Max for Search campaigns). It does not need a separate structure, but it does make clean ad group themes and good landing pages more important, because the system uses them as signals.
For online stores, the product feed adds another layer. Shopping and Performance Max listing groups should follow margins and best sellers, which is a big part of Google Shopping management.
A step-by-step structure plan
When I plan a new account, I work through these steps in order:
- List what you sell and what each is worth. Group offers with similar value and margin.
- Decide the goals. Leads, sales or calls, and the conversion actions that represent them.
- Set the campaign split. Brand, then non-brand by service line or product category, then any location splits that truly need separate budgets.
- Group keywords by intent. Each ad group maps to one theme and one landing page.
- Add negative keywords and brand controls. Use shared negative lists and brand exclusions so campaigns do not overlap.
- Write ads per ad group. Headlines should echo the theme and the landing page offer.
- Apply a naming convention. For example: Country, campaign type, brand or non-brand, theme. Clear names make reports readable and mistakes easy to spot.
Signs your account structure needs fixing
- The same search term triggers ads from several campaigns.
- Many campaigns have only a few conversions a month each.
- Brand and non-brand results are mixed, so the real cost of a new customer is unclear.
- Ad groups contain dozens of loosely related keywords sending traffic to the home page.
- Campaign names are vague, like Campaign 1 or Test New, and nobody remembers why they exist.
If you see two or more of these, restructuring is usually worth it, but do it in stages. Launch the new campaigns, move budget across gradually and pause the old ones once the new ones are stable. That way you do not lose all the learning at once.
What I recommend
Keep the account as simple as your business allows. Split campaigns where budgets, goals or locations really differ, keep ad groups tight around intent, and use brand exclusions and negatives to keep campaign types in their lanes. A Google Ads specialist should be able to explain why every campaign exists in one sentence. If they cannot, the structure is probably doing less than it could.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Google Ads account structure for a small business?
How many keywords should an ad group have?
Should brand keywords have their own campaign?
Will Performance Max steal traffic from my Search campaigns?
Can someone rebuild my account structure remotely?
Need help structuring your Google Ads account?
If your campaigns overlap or your data is spread too thin, I can help you rebuild without losing what works. Take a look at my Google Ads management service, or request a free ads audit and I will map your current structure and show where it is costing you.