Separate campaigns. Budget is the only control that cannot be reallocated by the bidder, so one campaign per location is the only way to guarantee each market gets funded.

On this page

• How does this actually work?
• What does separating campaigns by location give me?
• What is the cost of splitting campaigns per location?
• Should every location share the same target?
• Should brand campaigns be split by location too?
• Is somebody else changing my multi-location account?

How does this actually work?

Inside a single campaign, the bidder allocates toward whatever converts cheapest. Locations with low lead costs absorb the budget; locations with higher tickets and higher costs get starved even when their economics are better.

You cannot fix that with location bid adjustments, which do very little under Smart Bidding.

What does separating campaigns by location give me?

• Guaranteed funding per market.
• Per-location targets set against real economics rather than a network blend.
• Clean reads. You can tell what happened in one market without a network average hiding it.

What is the cost of splitting campaigns per location?

Thinner data per campaign. Splitting a network into a dozen campaigns can push each below the volume Smart Bidding needs to steer — roughly 15 conversions a month.

If that happens, group the smallest markets together rather than splitting to the point where nothing can be optimised. Structure should follow economics, not the org chart.

Should every location share the same target?

Same campaign structure, same naming, same conversion definitions, so a "lead" means the same thing in every market. Without that, comparison is meaningless and optimisation becomes political.

Then localise the targets. A target is arithmetic, not a value judgement.

Should brand campaigns be split by location too?

Brand campaigns behave differently from non-brand and should be separated regardless of location structure. On Search, brand defence is conditional — check whether anyone is actually bidding on your name before running it. On Shopping, always split, because there is no organic listing.

Is somebody else changing my multi-location account?

On a 12-account book, 1,141 of 1,148 change events over 29 days were mine. The other 7 were scheduled scripts on client-organisation seats, firing at fixed times, all on brand campaigns — including a budget cut that silently reversed one of my own.

On a franchise or corporate network, assume automation is touching the accounts until proven otherwise. No before-and-after read is clean on a campaign someone else is nudging.

Related questions

I have several locations — should I run one Local Services Ads account or a separate one per location?

Separate profiles per location, because LSA ranking is heavily proximity-driven and a profile ranks from its address. One profile covering a wide area will lose to local competitors everywhere except near its own pin. Read the full answer.

I increased my LSA budget 50% and barely got more leads — why did my cost per lead go up?

Because budget was not your constraint. If you were not paced out, extra budget buys you nothing except a higher position in auctions you were already winning — which costs more per lead without producing many more of them. Read the full answer.

I have locations in a dozen different cities. Should each one get its own Google Ads account, or should it all run from one?

Separate campaigns, one account or a manager structure — and the reason is not administrative. Each location has its own economics, and a shared budget across locations means the algorithm allocates against a blended target that fits none of them. Read the full answer.

Written by Usama Khan, who runs Google Ads for e-commerce brands and home-services companies at AdventurAds. Figures are from accounts under active management and are anonymised. Last reviewed 2026-08-26.