What Happened When I Consolidated 6 Ad Groups into One

Sometimes, we inherit a Google Ads account that’s been meticulously divided into neat little ad groups, each with a hyper-specific theme and matching ad copy. On paper, it sounds like a dream. In practice? It was a hot mess.

I took over a campaign with six tightly themed ad groups, each stuffed with a handful of keywords. Sounds organized, right? Except the budget was stretched thin, performance was inconsistent, and the algorithm didn’t have enough data to do its thing.

I’ll fully admit that the client was a little taken back by my recommendation but I’ll give you the same advice I gave him: “Hear me out…”

“Let’s consolidate everything.”

All these ad groups were inefficient. Sure they had really great keywords, really great quality scores with sharply written ad copy. Budget was being divided across too many small pockets, which meant slower learning, limited insights, and uneven delivery. The ads were solid, but the structure was holding the whole campaign back.

The goal of the campaign was simple: drive more qualified leads without blowing the budget. But the return just wasn’t there. Costs were high, and conversions were slow.

So why consolidate?

At the end of the day, the intent behind all of our search terms were very similar. People searching for “drain clearing near me” and “plumber near me” where ultimately looking for the same thing. Why separate them into different ad groups? My hypothesis? By consolidating everything into one focused ad group, we could increase data volume, improve optimization, and give Google a better chance at finding conversions efficiently.

The best part of this update is that we already had all the pieces that we needed to make this update. We downloaded all the ad copy from the existing campaigns, pulled out copy that was universal and could be used more broadly, and grabbed all the keywords and dumped them into a single ad group.

This wasn’t a set-it-and-forget-it situation. I wanted to keep eyes on it closely in the first few days and the goal was to slowly pause keywords that weren’t meeting our average click-through-rate standard or our cost-per-conversion standard. 

The results?

22% decrease in cost-per-conversion
18% increase in conversions
13% decrease in click-through-rate

In just the first two weeks. Oh and spend was flat. The campaign wasn’t just working better, it was working smarter. Fewer moving parts meant faster decisions, easier insights, and it made scaling spend after noticing all these improvements. 

With a clearer structure and stronger signals, performance turned around fast. The loss in click-through-rate was unfortunate but given how specific ad copy was before the consolidating, it wasn’t surprising.

This approach won’t work for every account. But when budgets are limited and themes overlap, consolidation can bring the focus you need to see real results.

Let’s Fix Your Chaos

If your campaigns feel like they’re stuck in the mud, it might be time for a fresh perspective. I specialize in making sense of messy accounts and turning wasted spend into performance gold. Let’s get to work.