What’s the best structure for Google Ads in 2025?

The world of Google Ads is in constant flux, and as we look towards 2025, the winds of change are blowing stronger than ever, largely propelled by Artificial Intelligence. For businesses and marketers leveraging this powerful platform, a critical question emerges: What’s the best Google Ads structure for 2025?

At Creatif.Agency, we understand that a well-organized Google Ads account is the bedrock of successful campaigns. It’s not just about keeping things tidy; it’s about maximizing your ROI, gaining clear insights, and future-proofing your advertising efforts. This article will guide you through crafting an optimal Google Ads structure for 2025, ensuring your campaigns are not only effective for users but also primed for visibility in evolving search experiences like Google’s AI Overviews.

Why Structure Still Reigns Supreme in an AI-Driven Era

With Google’s increasing emphasis on AI and automation through tools like Performance Max (PMax), Smart Bidding, and Broad Match, some might wonder if meticulous structuring is becoming obsolete. The answer is a resounding no.

While AI takes on more heavy lifting, a sound structure provides the necessary framework for AI to perform optimally. Here’s why it’s crucial:

• Clear Goal Alignment: A good structure allows you to align campaigns directly with specific business objectives (e.g., lead generation, e-commerce sales, brand awareness).
• Budgetary Control & Efficiency: Proper segmentation ensures your budget is allocated effectively to the areas that drive the best results.
• Enhanced Relevance & Quality Score: Grouping keywords, ads, and landing pages thematically ensures higher relevance, which positively impacts your Quality Score and ad auction performance.
• Meaningful Reporting & Insights: A logical structure makes it easier to analyze performance, identify what’s working (and what’s not), and make data-driven decisions.
• Guiding AI Effectively: Even the smartest AI needs direction. Your structure, audience signals, and asset quality provide the inputs that guide Google’s algorithms.

Core Principles for Your 2025 Google Ads Structure

As we step into 2025, several core principles should underpin your Google Ads account organization:

1. Embrace a Hybrid, AI-Integrated Approach: The most effective structure in 2025 will likely be a hybrid model. This involves strategically combining AI-driven campaign types like Performance Max with more traditional (yet still essential) Search, Display, or Video campaigns where more granular control is desired.
2. Consolidate for Learning, Segment for Clarity: Gone are the days of hyper-granular Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) for most advertisers. Google’s AI thrives on data. Consolidating ad groups into tightly themed clusters (based on user intent, product categories, or services) provides more conversion data for Smart Bidding to learn and optimize effectively. However, segmentation is still key for different business goals, locations, or high-value product/service lines.
3. Leverage Broad Match with Smart Bidding: For Search campaigns, the combination of Broad Match keywords and Smart Bidding strategies (like Maximize Conversions or Target CPA/ROAS) is powerful. Broad Match allows for wider reach and captures diverse search queries, while Smart Bidding optimizes bids in real-time for your specific goals. Crucially, diligent use of negative keywords and regular review of the search terms report are essential to maintain relevance and control costs.
4. Audience-Centricity is Key: Define and utilize your audiences. Layer first-party data (customer lists, website visitors), Google’s in-market segments, affinity audiences, and custom audiences onto your campaigns. Structure some campaigns or ad groups around specific audience segments, especially for remarketing or targeting distinct customer personas.
5. High-Quality Creative Assets are Non-Negotiable: With Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) and Performance Max asset groups, providing a diverse range of high-quality headlines, descriptions, images, and videos is paramount. Your structure should facilitate the management and testing of these assets.
6. Prioritize Accurate Conversion Tracking: The success of Smart Bidding and AI-driven campaigns hinges on accurate and comprehensive conversion tracking. Ensure you’re tracking all valuable actions and, where possible, passing back conversion values. For lead generation, explore offline conversion tracking to feed Google Ads data on lead quality and sales.

Recommended Google Ads Structures for 2025

While the “perfect” structure is unique to each business, here are some widely applicable models for 2025:

1. The Hybrid Core Model (Most Recommended)

This is often the most balanced and effective approach for many businesses.

• Performance Max (PMax) Campaigns:
  • Scope: Use for broad reach across all Google channels, targeting specific conversion goals (e.g., online sales with a product feed, lead generation).
  • Structure: Create distinct PMax campaigns for significantly different business objectives, product categories (especially if margins or ROAS targets vary greatly), or geographical regions if they require unique messaging or budgets.
  • Asset Groups: Develop multiple, highly relevant asset groups within each PMax campaign, tailored to different themes or audience signals. Provide as many high-quality assets (text, images, videos) as possible.
  • Audience Signals: Provide strong audience signals (e.g., remarketing lists, customer match, custom segments, in-market audiences) to guide PMax’s targeting.
• Thematic Search Campaigns:
  • Scope: Target users actively searching for your products or services with specific intent.
  • Structure:
    • Brand Campaign: Always have a separate campaign for your brand terms to protect your brand and capture high-intent traffic at a lower cost.
    • Non-Brand Campaigns: Group these by:
      • Product/Service Categories: (e.g., “Men’s Running Shoes,” “Emergency Plumbing Services”)
      • User Intent: (e.g., “Problem/Awareness” keywords vs. “Solution/Comparison” keywords vs. “Purchase/High Intent” keywords)
      • Funnel Stage: (e.g., Top-of-funnel informational queries vs. bottom-of-funnel transactional queries)
  • Ad Groups: Within each Search campaign, create tightly themed ad groups (10-20 keywords per ad group is a reasonable guideline, but focus on thematic relevance). Each ad group should focus on a specific keyword theme or user intent. Use Broad Match with Smart Bidding.
  • Ads: Utilize Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) with a variety of headlines and descriptions. Ensure ad copy is closely aligned with the ad group’s themes.
• Supporting Campaigns (as needed):
  • Demand Gen Campaigns: (Successor to Discovery) For visually engaging ads on YouTube, Discover, and Gmail, excellent for driving consideration and reaching new audiences.
  • Video Campaigns: For specific branding goals or driving action on YouTube.
  • Standard Shopping Campaigns (for E-commerce): Can still be used alongside PMax for more granular control over specific product sets or for strategies where PMax isn’t the primary driver. Recent updates suggest PMax won’t always automatically override Standard Shopping.
  • Remarketing Campaigns (Search, Display, Video): Target past website visitors or customers with tailored messaging. Often managed by layering audiences onto existing campaigns or via dedicated campaigns.

2. Simplified Structure for Small Businesses / Limited Budgets

• Primary Focus: Performance Max:
  • Start with one well-structured PMax campaign if you have clear conversion goals and sufficient assets.
  • If e-commerce, ensure your Google Merchant Center feed is fully optimized.
  • Provide strong audience signals.
• Core Search Campaign:
  • One or two Search campaigns focusing on your highest-intent, most crucial brand and non-brand keywords.
  • Use Broad Match with Smart Bidding and closely monitor search terms.
• Focus: Maximize automation and learning within a constrained budget. Ensure conversion tracking is impeccable.

3. Advanced Structure for Large Accounts / E-commerce

• Granular PMax Segmentation:
  • Break down PMax campaigns by product category, brand, margin, or even by ROAS performance tiers (e.g., “High ROAS PMax,” “Low ROAS PMax,” “New Product PMax”). This allows for more tailored budget and ROAS target setting.
• Comprehensive Search Segmentation:
  • More granular Search campaigns, potentially separating by specific product lines, features, or solutions.
  • Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) campaigns to capture long-tail queries and ensure coverage, especially for sites with extensive inventory.
• Sophisticated Audience Layering: Extensive use of first-party data, custom audiences, and layered targeting across all campaign types.
• Experimentation Framework: Dedicated campaigns for A/B testing new strategies, bidding models, or landing pages.
• Shopping Strategy: May involve a mix of PMax and Standard Shopping campaigns, potentially using tools to manage product feed segmentation and bidding at a very granular level.

Key Elements Within Your Structure: Best Practices for 2025

Regardless of the overall model you choose, pay attention to these elements:

• Campaign Naming Conventions: Implement a clear, consistent naming convention from the outset. This is vital for organization, reporting, and efficient management, especially as your account grows or if multiple people are involved.
  • Example: PMax | US | Product_Category_A | Sales_Goal or Search_NB | UK | Service_X | Leads_HighIntent
• Ad Group Theming: Keep ad groups tightly focused around specific keyword themes or user intents. This ensures your RSAs are highly relevant to the searches they’re triggered by.
• Keyword Strategy:
  • Broad Match + Smart Bidding: The go-to for most Search campaigns.
  • Negative Keywords: Continuously update your negative keyword lists at the ad group, campaign, and account levels to filter out irrelevant traffic and improve ROI.
  • Brand Keywords: Always isolate in their own campaign.
• Ad Copy with RSAs: Provide Google’s AI with ample high-quality assets (headlines, descriptions). Pin assets sparingly, only when legally required or essential for core messaging. Regularly refresh and test ad copy.
• Landing Page Relevance: Ensure your landing pages are highly relevant to the ad copy and keywords in each ad group. A good user experience on your landing page is crucial for conversions and Quality Score.
• Conversion Tracking: Double-check that your conversion tracking is accurate, tracking all meaningful actions (purchases, leads, sign-ups, calls). Use enhanced conversions where possible.

Optimizing for Google’s AI Overviews

While you can’t directly “target” your ads to appear in Google’s AI Overviews, strong foundational Google Ads practices will make your ads eligible and more likely to perform well if shown in these new placements.

• Focus on Ad Rank and Quality Score: High-quality, relevant ads with good Ad Rank are more likely to be chosen.
• Utilize Smart Bidding: This allows Google to optimize bids for auctions that are more likely to lead to your desired outcome, regardless of where the ad appears.
• High-Quality Creatives: Compelling and relevant assets are key.
• For E-commerce: Keep your product feeds meticulously maintained and optimized.

For your blog content (like this article) to appear in AI Overviews, focus on providing clear, authoritative answers to common questions, using structured formatting (headings, lists), and ensuring your content is easily digestible by AI.

The Future is Flexible and Data-Driven

The best Google Ads structure in 2025 is not a rigid blueprint but a flexible framework that embraces AI while maintaining strategic control. It’s a structure that allows for clear measurement, iterative improvement, and adaptation to the evolving digital landscape.

Start with a logical foundation based on your business goals, leverage the power of Google’s AI tools, and commit to ongoing monitoring and optimization. By doing so, you’ll be well-positioned for Google Ads success in 2025 and beyond.

Need help structuring or optimizing your Google Ads campaigns for 2025? Contact Creatif.Agency today for a personalized consultation!