How Many Google Ads Campaigns Should Start With?
In this tutorial Aaron Young of Define Digital Academy outlines a practical framework for determining the optimal number of Google Ads campaigns and ad groups in 2026. He argues that more campaigns do not automatically yield more conversions and that a simple structure—ideally one campaign with one ad group—should be the starting point. He then details specific business‑driven reasons to add extra ad groups (when ad copy or landing page relevance diverges) and extra campaigns (different profit margins, network types, location‑based budget control, or performance‑based portfolio needs). The video presents real‑world account examples (lead‑generation and e‑commerce) to illustrate how and why campaigns are broken out. Young also introduces a Keyword & Search Term Audit tool that runs a SWOT analysis to surface high‑conversion, low‑spend products that may merit a dedicated campaign. He stresses the importance of meeting Google’s data thresholds (e.g., ≥1 conversion/day for Maximize Conversions, ≥30‑50 conversions/month for Target CPA/ROAS) before leveraging smart bidding, and recommends starting with a consolidated structure, then expanding as conversion data accumulates. The tutorial concludes with a call‑to‑action for free access to the audit tool and a discount on Google Ads Mastery resources.
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How many campaigns should you be running in your Google Ads account? This is a question that we get time and time again here at Define Digital Academy. So what I wanted to do in this video is I wanted to lay out the very, very clear framework for how to answer that question of how many campaigns do you need for the best results for your business in Google Ads in 2026. Let's go. And the first thing you need to understand when it comes to choosing or planning the amount of campaigns that you need for your Google Ads account is that more campaigns does not automatically mean more conversions. In fact, many cases, less is more when it comes to the number of campaigns that you need inside of your Google Ads account, and also the number of ad groups that you need. Let me explain. A big common mistake when we go through and audit different Google Ads accounts is that we see that there is a very overly complex structure that just doesn't need to be there. And it's really, really common for us to have some accounts which are spending well over $100,000 a month running on 3 campaigns. And it could be something as simple as 1 search campaign, 1 demand gen campaign, and 1 Performance Max campaign. Whereas we do have other accounts where we've got a collection of, you know, sometimes 10 or 15 different types of campaigns. That's why it's really, really important is that you need to find out what works for you and your business. But the way that we frame this, because you do need to remember that every single campaign that you add adds a layer of complexity. And also as well, it does also increase the chances of you having some different areas inside of your account which are kind of fighting against each other. So what you want to do is you want to have the most simple account structure as possible that also allows your business to grow. And the way that we go through and really achieve this inside of Define Digital Academy is that we have this starting point, is that our perfect campaign structure is is one campaign and one ad group. Now, 99% of the time we can't do that, and we do need extra ad groups and extra campaigns. But the reason for why we start with that as our goal is it means that we have to justify really valid business reasons or Google Ads-based reasons for us to add in a layer of complexity, whether that be an extra ad group or whether that be an extra campaign. So let me now take you through the reasons for why you would add an extra ad group or an extra campaign. Firstly, for your ad group, the reason why you're adding an extra ad group is if the ad copy or the landing page is no longer relevant to the user's search inquiry. Now rewind 5, 6 years ago, you would have multiple ad groups targeting the same landing page or the same product page or service page, and it would be segmented out by different match types and slightly different keywords. Whereas now we know that that is not required because Google is now not targeting the syntax or the actual words in your keyword phrase. It's targeting the meaning of that phrase. So the only reason that you would break out an extra ad group is if that ad copy or landing page is no longer relevant to the meaning of that user's search inquiry. And let me just give you some real world simple examples. If you had a business that was running aircon installation and aircon maintenance, they could go to different landing pages, which would mean that you could have a different ad group or a different campaign. Or for example, if you've got one bedroom villas and two bedroom villas, where you've got one group of ads, which is talking to people traveling without kids, and another group of ads which is talking to people who could potentially be traveling with kids. Or if you're an e-commerce brand and you're selling running shoes and trail shoes, because there's enough variance there, you could have them out in different ad groups. Or if you're selling bikinis or one-piece swimsuits, once again, you could have an ad group segmentation there. And now when it comes to breaking out different campaigns, there's a different set of criteria that you really wanna be looking at. And the first one being is that if your products or services have vastly different profit margins. And this becomes especially important if you're dealing with a product or service which has a lower search volume, but a higher profit margin. Now, the problem can be is that if you group all of those products together with a high volume and a low volume, Google will generally in practice send more and more traffic to that higher volume product or service. And when it comes to Google Ads, you remember that your budget is set at the campaign level. So sometimes even if you segment out that lower volume, but higher profit value, higher profit margin product or service inside of its own ad group. But if it's in the same campaign with other searches or services or products that have a higher search volume, quite often it can just get lost and you're not getting enough money spent there. So that's why you can add in that campaign segmentation, remembering by adding that extra campaign you're controlling the budget at the campaign level. Another reason for adding another campaign is that you want to market on a different network. So for example, if you've only been running search ads and you want to start breaking out into some YouTube ads or into some local map ads or into display ads, you would start different campaigns. Or if you're an e-commerce brand, a great starting point is a search campaign and a shopping campaign. So you've got your ads showing not only in the search network results, but also the shopping network results. Another really valid reason for breaking out different campaigns is if you want to be able to control the spending by locations. Let's just say you're doing ads across Europe and the US markets and you want to separate out that spending. You would have them in different campaigns. Or you may even need to do this on a smaller location. So let's just say you may only be operating in one city or even in one state. You need to separate out those different zip codes or locations because you may have some different franchises or some store models where you need to separate out the spending. And then the final reason for having, for breaking out different campaigns is because of the actual results by your products or your locations. And this is where you may break out a different campaign to really supercharge some spending around some services or products or different locations. Once again, coming back to that principle of remembering that your budgets or your spending is set at the campaign level. So by breaking it out into a separate campaign, you're forcing Google to spend money in that area. Now to make this even clearer, let's jump into a screen share so I can show you some real life examples of accounts where we're running multiple campaigns. All right, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna show you 3 different examples right now of some different account structures. So I can really walk you through our rationale for why we've broken out some extra campaigns. Before we did get there, I did want to show you a tool which will really help you with that last point, which is if you want to break out some extra campaigns due to different spending around product areas or service areas. And inside of Define Digital Academy, we've actually created what we call our Keyword and Search Term Audits tool, which this will actually run a SWOT analysis on your account. Now the way that this works is if you download all of your keywords and your search terms or even your products, it It will then go through and run an analysis and, and give you some recommendations for any opportunities. And what those opportunities are exactly what I was speaking about before. Any products or services which are getting a high level of conversions but not much spend. And it's going to clearly present it to you so then you can make that strategic decision as to whether you should go through and enact that change and whether it's worthwhile breaking out those products or services into their own campaign. If you wanted to get free access to that keyword and search term tool, all you need to do is to follow that link in the description below. And when you follow that link, you'll also get some extra information about Google Ads Mastery, which gives you access to 5 tools in total, which also goes through things like an ad copywriter and a landing page expert. So if you wanna get that full keyword and search terms audit tool, just follow that link in the description below. But right now, let's go into these 3 examples. Now the first one is a lead generation business, and I want to show you in through here, even in the amount that they're spending and the amount they're scaling at the moment, is that up until last week they were only running 3 campaigns. They've got a search campaign which has 2 ad groups in it based around one of their services, and then they've got a Performance Max campaign and then a remarketing, uh, demand gen campaign which purely focused on the Display Network. And it's only been in the last, literally the last 7 days, that we've started a secondary search campaign. And that was because they had a secondary service which they are now starting to market. But even at that spend level, so at the moment they're spending over $2,000, just under $2,700 a day, they've only got 4 campaigns. So that's what I'm saying, don't feel like you've got to have an overly complicated account structure. Let me now move you to another example, and this one is an e-commerce example. And at the moment they are spending about $900 a day. And what they've got through here is they've got 2 Performance Max campaigns and then they've also got a collection of 3 different search campaigns. They've also got a 4th brand campaign, but I don't really count that because obviously we're counting, we're pulling out that branded spend. But when it comes to their non-branded spend, they've got over 10 different product categories. But the reason for why we've broken out this one is that we have a Performance Max campaign which has 3 asset groups, which is focused on their 3 core categories. And then they've got a search campaign for each of those categories. And then they've got another Performance Max campaign which targets those other 7 categories. So the reason why we've only broken out those, those top 3 categories, and it really comes down to the core drivers of their business, uh, the reason for why they needed search campaigns as well to support is because for each of those product categories are those search campaigns are more targeting their business-to-business part of the business, whereas the Performance Max campaign is doing a really, really good job in their B2C market. So that's why we've created that campaign structure that way. And then let me show you one other example, and this is again a lead generation business. Now they have one Performance Max campaign which goes for all of Australia, and that also goes for all of their services. Now the way that we've designed that one is is that as you can see through here, is that this one is really targeting more of their middle of their funnel and looking for new customers only. So there's no brand in there at all. You can see the, the reason why we've done this is that with the cost per click, it is much lower. This bottom one is a brand campaign, but the other search campaigns, as you can see, they're dealing with cost per click of about $3.50 as opposed to $9, $7, $8, or $9. Now that campaign has been really, really effective in getting them some more traffic at a cheaper rate which is then allowing them to go through and target through later down through those search campaigns. With their search campaigns, there's actually only 3 core search campaigns, and once again, these are built around their core categories. And then we've got another 2 search campaigns, and what the difference is there is that these are targeting some regional areas inside of Australia— regional New South Wales, regional Queensland. And the reason for why we've brought them out really comes to a business strategic reasons. In those regional areas, there's not many, or there's not much competition for their services, but there's a real high demand. But because they're in a lower populated area, we just weren't getting any spend there because Google was spending around the larger city bases in Australia, which is Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. So by breaking out those local campaigns, what that allowed us to do is to target some more spending into some really local rural areas that were getting high conversions but low spend. Now, as I showed you each of those examples, what I really hope that you took away from those examples is I don't want you to go through and copy those exact structures. What I wanted you to see is that this core concept that every campaign inside of your Google Ads account needs to have a reason to exist. And remember, as we spoke about before, those core reasons are around you wanting to control budget or you wanting to control the spending around different locations or profit margins. So you really need to, really take a step back and think about, do we really need this extra campaign? And as long as you can go through and really, really articulate why each campaign exists, you're gonna be in a well-placed position for success with Google Ads. But before you go, there are two other quick important thing— factors that you really need to think about when you're looking at the amount of campaigns that you're running inside of your Google Ads account. And the first thing is, is that you really need to remember the data thresholds. A big common mistake that I see a lot of new businesses or a lot of smaller businesses inside of Google Ads is they'll run multiple campaigns, sometimes 2, 3, 4, or 5 different campaigns, and all of them will only have like $5 or $10 budget a day. And to be clear, that's just not enough data running through those campaigns. The harsh reality of Google Ads right now is that it's actually harder to start Google Ads, but it's much easier to scale. And the reason for that is because once you have enough conversion data inside of your account where you can start switching on smart bidding features like Target ROAS or Target CPA, you've got a lot more control over the level of spending. So you can increase your budget with some guardrails there that you're telling Google, this is what we want to achieve for our business. The problem is though, in order to be able to use those tools effectively, you need to be hitting these data points. Before you move to Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value, you need to really be hitting at least 1 conversion a day, 30 conversions a month. And before you even start thinking about engaging Target CPA or Target ROAS, Ideally, you need 50 conversions a month. Now, those numbers actually come from Google's internal documentation, but it's also backed up by the real life data that we're seeing inside of Google Ads accounts even right now in 2026. And this then becomes the problem if you're a small business running multiple campaigns. And I understand the thought process. They go, well, if we just base 4 or 5 different campaigns around our 4 products or 4 different services, we'll then just focus on the one that works the best. The problem is though, is that if you're not hitting those spending metrics, you're never going to be able to cross that bridge over to maximize conversions or target ROAS or target CPA. And just think about these numbers. If you've only got a 1% conversion rate, you're going to need about 100 clicks a day, which means if your CPC is $1, you need a budget of $100 a day. And if your conversion rate is 3%, you still need about 30 clicks a day. So you need a 30 multiplier. So if your average CPC is, say for example, at $2, that means you need a budget of $60 a day. And even if your conversion rate is at 5%, you're still needing a multiplier of 20 clicks a day. So you— whatever your CPC is, you need to times that by 20. So that's why a consolidated approach is much better when you're starting with Google Ads. Then you can build up that conversion data, and then you can start to break out those different campaigns. Remembering that first example that I gave you is that there's businesses that we're working with, they're spending over $150,000 a month and they're only running one search campaign. Uh, they do have a Performance Max which they laid on, on top, and they do have some display, but their core driver is that search campaign, which is one campaign with two ad groups. And this leads me to the third point, is that what I'd really recommend when you're looking at your account structure, start small and then build out. So where possible, start with the least amount of campaigns and then slowly start to build them out as the need arises. And the main examples being if If you start to see one product or service is just not getting the same amount of spend, you can then break that out into a different campaign. The benefit being is that if you are already using Smart Bidding in your account, you can start that secondary campaign straight away on Maximize Conversions or Maximize Conversion Value. Another reason why you might want to break it out is that, like that example I gave where there was some small regional campaigns, you can break out by locations to target those areas where your bigger campaigns are not spending the money inside of Google Ads. So, so that answers the question on how many campaigns that you need inside of Google Ads. And there's no right or wrong answer. It really comes down to that process that I gave you. Think about the goals. Ideally, you want one campaign and one ad group. You need to justify why you're adding in different ad groups or different campaigns so that every campaign has a, has a reason to exist inside of your Google Ads account. Thank you so much for joining me. My name is Aaron Young from Define Digital Academy. And remember, if you want to get free access to our keyword and search SWOT analysis tool. Just follow that link in the description below. And remember, you can also find out more information about Google Ads Mastery. And just watching this video, if you use the code YOUTUBE, you'll also get a 20% lifetime discount. And if you'd like to stay— or if you'd like to stay on YouTube and find out more right now about how you can scale your Google Ads accounts and your campaigns, I want you to go through and watch this video right here. Thanks for joining me. See you next time.
