Ad Groups
How Ad Groups Works?
An ad group contains one or more ads that share similar targets. You set a bid, or price, to be used when an ad group's keywords trigger an ad to appear. This is called a cost-per-click (CPC) bid. You can also set prices for individual keywords within the ad group. Use ad groups to organize your ads by a common theme, such as the types of products or services you want to advertise.
Many advertisers find it helpful to base their ad groups on the sections or categories that appear on their website. For example, let's say you sell desserts, beverages, and snacks on your website.
For example, in the table below, each ad group contains a keyword list focusing on a product you'd sell. The keyword list in each ad group tells our system to show ads for these products only on websites related to them.
Ad group: desserts | Ad group: beverages | Ad group: snacks |
cupcakes | soda | potato chips |
pumpkin pies | coffee | pita chips |
apple pie | iced coffee | beef jerky |
chocolate cake | iced tea | salted peanuts |
ice cream | sparkling water | mixed nuts |
cookies | orange juice | rice crackers |
1. Manage bidding for ad groups:
Within a Google Ads campaign, an ad group lets you organize and target your ads. You can place bids and organize keywords at the ad group level. This article describes how to create or edit an ad group. This video also provides a quick overview:
Watch: Create multiple ad groups and ads in Google Ads
Set your ad group default bid: An ad group is a collection of ads that are all triggered by a shared set of keywords. When you create a new ad group, we'll prompt you to create an initial ad and its keyword list, and to enter a default ad group bid (Max CPC). This default bid is a convenient way to manage the bids for all of the keywords in your ad group. You can override the default ad group bid for individual keywords by raising or lowering their Max CPC on the Keywords page.
Keyword-level bids override your ad group's default bid: If you set individual keyword or placement bids, the individual bids override the ad group default bid. For example, if your default ad group bid is $0.50, but you increase one keyword's bid to $0.60, the keyword bid applies any time that one keyword triggers your ad.
Set bid adjustments for your campaign: You can set bid adjustments that increase or decrease your bids when your ad is competing to appear on mobile devices, in specific locations, and at particular days and times. You can also set ad group-level bid adjustments for targeting methods like topics or placements if your campaign is running on the Display Network. Bid adjustments can give you more control over when and where your ad appears.
With automated bidding, set the default bids for you: If you've chosen manual bidding for your campaign, you can edit your default bids at any time. If you’re more of a hands-off account manager, then an automated bid strategy may be right for you. Automated bidding takes the heavy lifting and guesswork out of setting bids to help meet your performance goals. Each type of automated bid strategy is designed to help you achieve a specific goal for your business, such as maximizing clicks, conversions, or conversion value.
Watch the video to understand the different bidding strategies available on Google Ads:
2. Ad group structure
Campaign 1 | Campaign 2 | ||
Ad Group 1 | Ad Group 2 | Ad Group 3 | Ad Group 4 |
Ads Keywords | Ads Keywords | Ads Keywords | Ads Keywords |
This structure means that status changes at the campaign level will affect the statuses of the ad groups, ads, and keywords within it. A status change at the ad group level will affect the ads and keywords contained within it, and so on.
For example, if you pause your campaign, the ad groups within that campaign will inherit the same paused status (as will the ads and keywords). However, if you pause an individual ad group in a campaign containing multiple ad groups, that one ad group will be paused (along with the ads and keywords it contains), while the remaining ad groups, ads, and keywords in the campaign will stay enabled. Some common reasons for ads not running -
You’ve deactivated an ad group or its “parent” campaign by pausing or removing it
You’ve run out of funds
You haven’t scheduled your ads to run
3. Ad group status
Your ad group status lets you know whether your ad group is active or not. Ad group status is different from the statuses for campaigns, ads, and keywords, though the statuses can affect each other. Ad groups are contained within a campaign, and each campaign can have one or more ad groups. Within each ad group are ads and keywords. Ad groups can also include Targeting methods other than keywords, like using demographics or remarketing lists. For this article, we’ll focus on ad groups that use keyword targeting.
Check your ad group status: The "Status" column of your Ad groups lets you know if your ad group is active. Based on your ad group's status, you can find out:
Which of your ad groups are paused, enabled, or other states
What changes you need to make to an ad group or its campaign
Whether or not an ad group has been approved based on Google Ads policies
How to check your ad group's status:
Sign in to your Google Ads account.
Click Ad groups.
Look at the "Status" column to see an ad group’s status.
You can click the “Status” column heading to reorder your ad groups and sort by status.
What your ad group status means:
Ad group status | What it means |
Eligible | This ad group’s set to run. It’s a good idea to check the Ads tab to see if policy violations are keeping individual ads from running. |
Paused | You’ve temporarily stopped this ad group from showing ads. Its ads aren’t running. You can resume the paused ad group to start ads again. |
Removed | You’ve removed this ad group. Its ads aren’t running. |
Incomplete | You haven’t set up necessary parts of this ad group (like keywords or ads). Its ads aren’t running. |
Not Eligible |
|
Last updated