What is the short answer on account structure?

Fewer, broader campaigns usually beat many narrow ones, because Smart Bidding learns from pooled data. Google’s ABCs of Account Structure gives the rule of thumb: keywords that share a budget or target belong in the same campaign, and keywords that share a landing page or creative theme belong in the same ad group. It warns that “segmented traffic forces Smart Bidding to optimize for multiple targets separately.”

That gives you two questions for every proposed split:

  1. Does this group need a different budget or a different target? If yes, it is a separate campaign.
  2. Does it need different ads or a different landing page? If yes, it is a separate ad group.

If the answer to both is no, the split adds management work and removes data from bidding. Google’s account setup best practices put it directly: automated bidding does not require campaigns or ad groups broken out by match type, geography or device.

Structure also assumes the conversions are right. Smart Bidding needs conversion tracking enabled, and it optimizes toward whatever you mark as a conversion. Fix that first with our conversion tracking guide.

Which campaign types belong in a 2026 account?

Use each campaign type for one job. As of October 2026, these are the four that matter for most product, service and subscription businesses:

Campaign type Job in the account Inventory Main input
Search Capture people already searching: brand and non-brand Google Search (plus partners and Display if enabled) Keywords, ads, landing pages
Performance Max Find conversions across all Google inventory from one campaign YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, Maps Assets, feeds, audience signals, conversion goals
Shopping (Standard) Product listings with price and image, with control over priority Shopping tab, Search results, Images, partners Merchant Center product data
Demand Gen Create demand with image and video before people search YouTube (incl. Shorts), Discover, Gmail, Display, video partners Image and video assets

Sources: Performance Max, Shopping ads and Demand Gen.

A few points decide how they coexist:

  • Exact match Search wins over Performance Max. Google’s interaction rules say a Search keyword that exactly matches the query (or matches after spell correction) is preferred over Performance Max. Otherwise the campaign with the higher Ad Rank serves. Search themes in Performance Max carry the same priority as phrase and broad match.
  • AI Max is a Search setting, not a campaign type. AI Max for Search adds search term matching, text customization and Final URL expansion inside an existing Search campaign. Google notes it “won’t be effective if campaigns are limited by budget.”
  • Standard Shopping has its own priority setting. When the same product sits in several Standard Shopping campaigns, campaign priority (Low, Medium, High) decides which one bids.
  • Demand Gen needs volume. Google’s performance guide asks for a consolidated structure, at least 50 conversions before major changes, and a daily budget of at least 10 times your target CPA.

How do broad match and Smart Bidding change the structure?

They remove the reason for most old splits. Broad match is the default match type and can serve on related searches that do not contain your keyword, using signals such as the landing page and other keywords in the ad group. Google calls it “critical to use Smart Bidding with broad match,” because each query needs a bid based on its own context.

Google’s account structure page recommends three cleanups:

  1. Move single-keyword ad groups into themed ad groups.
  2. Move all match types of a themed ad group into one ad group, then use broad match. Duplicates across match types split the data Smart Bidding learns from.
  3. Remove device segmentation, since Smart Bidding already accounts for device.

The Smart Bidding page adds that you should judge results over periods with at least 30 conversions (50 for Target ROAS), and that Smart Bidding can draw on data from your other campaigns. It also notes a naming change from June 2026: “Maximize conversions with a Target CPA” is now “Target CPA”, and the value equivalent is “Target ROAS”, with no change in behavior.

Broad match is only as good as your negatives and your conversion values. If you bid on value, read our value-based bidding guide before you consolidate.

How should you handle brand and negative keywords?

Keep brand in its own exact match Search campaign with a budget that does not run out. Google says Performance Max may filter out brand and navigational queries and recommends brand Search campaigns with “sufficient budget and high-quality, eligible ads.” Then fence the other campaigns:

Do not add your brand as an account-level negative: it would also block your brand campaign. Our Performance Max guardrails guide walks through the full setup.

How should budgets be set?

Set budgets so priority campaigns are not limited. Google’s setup guidance says to avoid campaigns constrained by budget, and suggests expanding reach when impression share is above 80%. Three budget tools affect structure:

Tool What it does Limits
Shared budget One daily budget across several campaigns; unused budget moves to capped campaigns Search, Shopping, Display and Video only; not Performance Max; best paired with portfolio bidding
Campaign total budget One budget for a fixed flight Up to 90 days for Search, Standard Shopping and Performance Max; up to one year for Demand Gen and YouTube
Channel prioritization High or Low priority per channel, with optional allocation caps for Low Rolling out from October 15, 2026; Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen

Never share a budget between brand and non-brand. Brand will use what it can, and the non-brand campaign is the one that finds new customers.

When should you split by margin or geography?

Split when the business target differs, not when the report would look tidier. Google says automated bidding works without geographic splits, because location is a bidding signal. The same logic applies to products: one target across everything is fine if margins are similar.

Split when:

  • Margins differ enough to need different targets. A 70% margin line and a 20% margin line cannot share one Target ROAS without one of them being wrong. Separate campaigns, or conversion values that reflect margin, fix this.
  • A market has its own budget, price, language or legal requirement. That is a different objective, so it is a different campaign.
  • A product group needs guaranteed spend, such as a launch or seasonal line.

Before any split, check that each new campaign will still collect enough conversions for Smart Bidding to learn. A split that leaves a campaign with a handful of conversions a month usually performs worse than the combined campaign it came from.

How MSG approaches this

At MSG, conversion definitions come before structure, and structure comes before scaling. We start from the business: which products, markets and margins need their own target and budget. Everything else stays consolidated. Brand is separated and reported on its own from day one. Any restructure runs as a test with a written hypothesis, a budget and a decision date, and every read ends in keep, change, scale or stop. The work happens inside your own ad account. Our Google Ads management and measurement services cover this.

Sources

  1. Google Ads Help: The ABCs of Account Structure
  2. Google Ads Help: Account setup best practices
  3. Google Ads Help: About Smart Bidding
  4. Google Ads Help: About broad match
  5. Google Ads Help: About Performance Max campaigns
  6. Google Ads Help: How Performance Max interacts with other campaigns in your account
  7. Google Ads Help: How AI Max for Search campaigns works
  8. Google Ads Help: About Demand Gen campaigns
  9. Google Ads Help: Demand Gen campaign performance guide
  10. Google Ads Help: About Shopping ads
  11. Google Ads Help: Use campaign priority for Standard Shopping campaigns
  12. Google Ads Help: About negative keywords
  13. Google Ads Help: Add negative keywords to campaigns
  14. Google Ads Help: Apply brand exclusions to Performance Max or Search campaigns
  15. Google Ads Help: Apply brand inclusions to Search campaigns
  16. Google Ads Help: About shared budgets
  17. Google Ads Help: Campaign total budgets FAQs
  18. Google Ads Help: About channel prioritization and budget allocation

Platform features and policies change. This guide reflects the sources above as of October 28, 2026.