How do I merge or separate ad groups effectively?

Deciding whether to merge or separate ad groups (the intent-first framework)

The most effective ad group decisions start with one question: “Would a user searching these terms expect the same answer?” If the landing page, offer, and primary call-to-action should be identical, you’re usually safe to merge. If the user expectation changes—even subtly—separating ad groups is often the fastest path to higher conversion rate and cleaner reporting.

In modern Search accounts, the biggest structural mistake I still see is fragmentation: too many tiny ad groups that never collect enough volume for ads, bidding, and audiences to stabilize. The second biggest mistake is over-consolidation: combining different intents into one ad group and then wondering why click-through rate, conversion rate, and cost per conversion swing unpredictably.

Merge ad groups when “more data beats more control”

Merging typically improves performance when your current ad groups are thin on clicks or conversions. Consolidation gives responsive search ads more signal to learn which messages work, gives bidding strategies more conversion history to optimize toward, and reduces internal competition where multiple ad groups chase the same query themes.

As a rule of thumb, merging is most effective when the ad groups share the same commercial intent, can use the same landing page, and should be optimized toward the same primary conversion action. If your differences are mostly cosmetic—minor wording variations, close synonyms, or redundant categories—merging usually removes noise rather than removing control.

Separate ad groups when “different intent needs different treatment”

Separating ad groups is the right move when you need distinct ad messaging, different landing pages, different value propositions, or clearly different targets (for example, different margins or different lead quality). Separation creates a clean environment to write ads that match the user’s intent, align the landing page, and set performance expectations realistically.

Separation is also justified when performance drivers differ materially. If one theme needs a higher bid to win auctions profitably, requires stricter keyword controls, or demands unique negatives to stay relevant, it deserves its own ad group so your optimizations don’t conflict.

A practical “should I split?” test you can run in minutes

Before you restructure anything, look at recent search terms and ask whether you can confidently write one set of headlines that would feel perfectly tailored to the top queries. If you find yourself thinking “I’d really want different ads for that,” that’s your signal to separate. If you can write one strong set of ads and one landing page serves the whole cluster well, merging is usually the better operational decision.

• Merge if the same ad and landing page can serve 80–90% of traffic without feeling generic, and volume is too low for stable learning.
• Separate if you need different landing pages, different offers, or you see clearly different conversion rates/values that require different bidding decisions.

How to merge ad groups effectively (without losing relevance or control)

1) Start by merging around one landing page + one promise

The safest way to merge is to consolidate ad groups that should lead to the same page and deliver the same “reason to choose you.” This keeps relevance intact while reducing duplication. When you merge based on landing page alignment, your ad copy stays naturally cohesive and your post-click experience remains consistent, which protects conversion rate.

When you merge, you’re not trying to make ads less specific—you’re trying to make the structure more resilient. Let the ad assets carry specificity where it matters (unique headlines, benefits, qualifiers), while the ad group defines one core intent theme.

2) Normalize keyword matching so you don’t create accidental chaos

Mergers often go wrong because different ad groups were acting like “guardrails” for match behavior. When you combine them, you can unintentionally widen query coverage or create internal overlap with other ad groups in the campaign. Before you merge, confirm you’re comfortable with how match types will behave in a single pool, especially if you’re using broader matching.

A clean approach is to merge keywords into one ad group, then immediately review the search terms that begin to trigger. If you see off-intent terms, you’re not failing—you’re simply discovering what the old structure was hiding. Add negatives to re-tighten intent, or re-split if the intent genuinely diverges.

3) Rebuild one stronger ad group instead of combining two mediocre ones

Don’t just “paste” keywords together and call it done. Use the merge to upgrade the ad group: refresh the responsive search ad with clearer benefits and qualifiers, ensure your final URL is correct, and align assets so the ad can flex across different but related queries without sounding vague.

After merging, watch performance at the query level, not just the ad group level. A merged ad group can look stable overall while hiding pockets of wasted spend inside certain query themes. Your goal is to keep the consolidation benefits while pruning irrelevance quickly.

4) Use a controlled rollout so you can attribute changes accurately

A merger can change more than performance—it changes learning dynamics. To avoid confusing cause and effect, keep the rest of the campaign stable during the transition. If you change budgets, bidding, ads, and structure all at once, you’ll never know what actually helped or hurt.

• Merge in one campaign (or one segment) at a time rather than across the whole account.
• Keep bidding strategy consistent during the first learning window after the change.
• Monitor search terms closely for the first few days and add negatives where intent is clearly wrong.
• Compare against a pre-change baseline using the same date range length and similar day-of-week mix.

How to separate ad groups effectively (to improve CTR, CVR, and decision-making)

1) Split by intent first, not by keyword list size

The best splits are based on meaning: “pricing” intent, “brand vs non-brand,” “service A vs service B,” “emergency vs planned,” “enterprise vs SMB,” and similar forks where a user expects a different message or next step. When you split by intent, the ads write themselves, and the landing pages become obviously correct.

Avoid splitting just because you have many keywords. A large keyword set can still represent one intent, and splitting it into tiny units often reduces performance by starving each ad group of data. The question isn’t “How many keywords?” It’s “How many different user mindsets?”

2) Split when you need different economics (targets, budgets, or value)

If two themes have different acceptable costs, different lead quality, or different conversion values, keeping them together forces you into a compromise bid. Separation allows you to set realistic targets and avoid a scenario where the “easy” theme absorbs spend while the “high-value but harder” theme never gets enough exposure.

This is especially important when you optimize to revenue or qualified leads. Mixing different value profiles in one ad group muddies the signal and can lead to optimizations that look efficient on paper while reducing business impact.

3) Make each new ad group earn its existence

A good separation creates clear, ongoing optimization actions. If you can’t name what you will do differently—different ads, different landing page, different negatives, different targets—then the split might be complexity without payoff.

When you do split, write distinct ad messaging that reflects the exact intent. Don’t duplicate the same responsive search ad across both ad groups. You’re separating to increase relevance, so make the ads meaningfully different: different benefits, proof points, qualifiers, and calls-to-action.

4) Prevent overlap and cannibalization after the split

The most common post-split issue is that both ad groups still match the same queries. That creates inconsistent performance and makes it hard to understand what’s working. Your protection is tight intent mapping, smart negatives, and careful review of the search terms report in the early days.

• Ensure each ad group has a clearly defined intent theme and ad message that would feel “wrong” for the other group.
• Add negatives to steer queries to the correct ad group when you see overlap in search terms.
• Confirm the landing page experience matches the intent split; otherwise you’re only changing labels.
• Watch conversion rate and search term relevance in the first 1–2 weeks before making further structural changes.

A final operational guideline that keeps accounts healthy

Structure should serve decision-making. Merge when you need stronger learning and cleaner signals. Separate when you need different messaging, different economics, or different user journeys. If you can consistently explain, in plain language, why an ad group exists and what you will optimize differently because it exists, you’ll avoid both extremes—bloated accounts and overly generic consolidation—and you’ll see steadier performance over time.

If you’re trying to decide whether to merge or split ad groups, a reliable approach is to start with intent: merge when the queries share the same underlying “job to be done” (one landing page, one offer, one primary conversion), and split when the user expectation, economics, or next step clearly changes (for example, pricing vs. features, brand vs. non-brand, or different services). In practice, the quickest way to validate this is to review your search terms and ask whether one set of responsive search ads and one destination page would feel tailored for most queries; if not, a split is usually justified, ideally with distinct ads, landing pages, and negatives to prevent overlap. If you want help operationalizing these checks at scale, Blobr connects to your Google Ads account and runs specialized AI agents that surface concrete recommendations, such as a Keyword Landing Optimizer that flags where high-value keywords deserve their own ad groups and landing pages, and a Headlines Enhancer that refreshes ad assets to stay aligned with the intent theme you’ve chosen.