Advertisers using automated bidding are being urged to review whether older pay-per-click account structures still fit how modern ad platforms optimise campaigns. The core argument in a newly published Search Engine Journal article is that overly fragmented campaign setups can weaken Smart Bidding performance by splitting data across too many separate entities.

While this is not a regulatory change or a platform policy announcement, it is relevant for companies that depend on paid search for lead generation or e-commerce sales. For many European businesses, account structure now has a direct effect on how well automation tools can learn from conversion data.

What happened

Search Engine Journal published an analysis arguing that legacy PPC account structures may be undermining Smart Bidding strategies. According to the article, advertisers that still rely on heavily segmented campaigns created for earlier manual bidding approaches may be limiting the volume and quality of signals available to automated bidding systems.

The central recommendation is not to remove all business distinctions, but to reduce unnecessary duplication where multiple campaigns target near-identical goals, audiences or keywords. The idea is that a more consolidated structure may allow bidding systems to optimise more effectively.

This should be understood as expert guidance rather than a newly announced requirement from an advertising platform.

Why it matters for European businesses

For SMEs and mid-sized businesses, paid search efficiency is often constrained by limited budget and limited conversion volume. If conversion data is split across too many campaigns, automated bidding systems may have less context to make accurate decisions on bids, audience intent and expected outcomes.

That matters in practical terms because many businesses have adopted automation features in ad platforms without revisiting the account structures built years earlier. A company may think it is running a modern automated PPC strategy while still operating a legacy setup designed for manual control.

For European marketing teams, the business impact can include:

• slower learning for bidding automation
• less efficient budget allocation across similar campaigns
• more management overhead for internal teams or agencies
• reduced ability to scale campaigns when conversion data is thin
• difficulty comparing performance clearly across overlapping campaign groups

This is especially relevant for advertisers in competitive markets, multilingual campaigns, regional rollouts and e-commerce programmes where campaign complexity tends to grow over time.

Who may be affected

The issue is most relevant for businesses that already use automated bidding in search advertising, particularly where accounts have evolved over several years.

• SMEs with small to medium ad budgets that need automation to work efficiently from limited data
• E-commerce businesses managing multiple product, market or category campaigns
• Marketing teams inheriting old account structures from previous agencies or internal teams
• Digital agencies responsible for improving paid media efficiency without increasing spend
• Multi-market European advertisers balancing language, geography and commercial segmentation

Businesses with very low conversion volumes may be particularly sensitive to over-segmentation, because splitting performance data too aggressively can make it harder for automation systems to optimise.

What companies should consider

Companies do not need to assume that every detailed campaign structure is wrong. In many cases, segmentation is still justified for budget control, reporting, geography, language, product lines or different commercial objectives. The practical question is whether each split still serves a business purpose.

• Audit campaign duplication: identify campaigns separated mainly for historical reasons rather than clear business needs.
• Review conversion volume: assess whether too many campaigns are competing for too little data.
• Preserve meaningful distinctions: keep separations that support pricing, markets, inventory, compliance needs or genuinely different goals.
• Test consolidation carefully: merge selected campaign groups in stages and measure impact on efficiency, lead quality or return on ad spend.
• Check tracking quality: account simplification will not solve weak conversion tracking or poor attribution.
• Align agency and internal reporting: ensure stakeholders are comfortable with fewer campaigns if that improves optimisation performance.

For European businesses investing in marketing automation, this is a reminder that automation depends not only on platform features but also on account design. Smart Bidding may perform better when campaigns are structured around real business differences instead of legacy operational habits.