Understand and create
ad groups

Use ad groups to define who sees your ads

Campaigns are made up of one or more ad groups. All ad groups contain location settings and ad creatives. Ad groups for the search results placement and the all placements option include keyword and negative keyword selections. Learn how to create a new ad group and find out which settings are offered in each ad placement.

How to create a new
ad group

  1. On the Ad Groups dashboard, click the Create Ad Group button.

  2. Choose the brand (if applicable) and campaign that the ad group will be created within. Remember that this ad group will use the ad placement selected at the campaign level.

  3. On the Create Ad Group page, enter a name for your new ad group.

  4. If you’re creating a Manage Bids ad group, set a default max CPT or CPM bid.

  5. Set a start date and time.

  6. Choose the business locations that you would like to feature in your ads. You can choose to promote all locations, which includes all of your locations including future locations your business may open, or to use location groups, which lets you create groups of locations that you want to promote together.

  7. If you’re creating an ad group that includes the search results placement:

    • Choose whether you’d like Search Match on or off. Search Match will automatically match your ad with people looking for what your business has to offer.
    • You have the option to add your own keywords, which can be categories or phrases that help match your ad with customers searching for certain terms or within certain categories that you’ve chosen.

  8. If you’re creating a search results placement only, choose to reach all eligible audiences or define your audience settings by geographic area. You can also set the ad to run on specific days of the week and times of the day.

  9. Select an ad creative to tailor this ad experience to specific customer groups.

  10. Click Create Ad Group.

How to activate or pause ad groups

  1. Start from the Ad Groups dashboard.
  2. Select all the ad groups you want to activate or pause.
  3. From the toolbar, choose Activate or Pause.

You can also click the On/Off toggle to quickly Activate or Pause an ad group.

How to remove ad groups

  1. Start from the Ad Groups dashboard.
  2. Select the enabled ad groups you want to remove.
  3. From the toolbar, choose Remove.

Removing an activated ad group will permanently stop its ads from running. You can view removed ad groups by selecting the campaign and toggling between Running, Removed, and All on your Ad Groups dashboard View option.

Historical reporting data for removed ad groups is still available, and you can view and download data for selected ad groups and keywords. Select the ad groups or keywords you want to download, and click the Download button on the toolbar.

Note that removing an ad group is a permanent action. Once removed, it cannot be restored or modified.