The Risks of Aggressive Google Ads Account Restructures: Lessons from Ana Kostic

Google Ads account restructures are often intended to improve campaign performance, but Ana Kostic’s experience shared in Search Engine Land reveals how drastic changes can backfire and cause significant revenue loss. Kostic’s story highlights the dangers of rushing into aggressive restructures without fully considering the business impact and the loss of valuable historical data. As Anu Adegbola writes, “You have to think about the business first.”

Why restructuring can hurt more than it helps

Restructuring a Google Ads account aims to streamline campaigns, tighten targeting, and improve reporting. But when keywords, ads, or ad groups are moved, the link to historical performance data breaks. That historical data feeds Google’s automated bidding and ad-delivery systems; without it, those systems must relearn how to optimize. As Search Engine Journal notes, “There is no way to carry over historical data when moving a keyword, ad, or ad group.” That restart can trigger a notable drop in traffic and conversions while the platform rebuilds its performance models.

What Ana Kostic’s experience teaches advertisers

Early in her career, Kostic rebuilt a messy Google Ads account from the ground up, confident that applying best practices would improve results. Instead, traffic and sales fell by roughly 40%. The account eventually recovered, but it took months for full benefits to appear. The technical cause — loss of learning tied to old entities — was only part of the problem. Kostic’s biggest takeaway was business-oriented: changes that look optimal from a platform perspective can harm short-term revenue and cash flow.

Kostic’s approach has since shifted. She now prioritizes onboarding conversations that focus on cash flow, margins, and the client’s tolerance for short-term disruption. Her methodology favors incremental updates over sweeping overhauls: “We like it slow and boring.” That philosophy recognizes that the cost of a ‘perfect’ account in the short term can outweigh structural benefits in the long term.

Practical implications for agencies and advertisers

Before planning a restructure, ask three core questions: Why are we making this change? What outcomes do we expect? How much risk will the client absorb? If the restructure is likely to interrupt revenue or conversion volume, consider alternative approaches such as pausing underperforming ad groups, consolidating keywords, or testing changes in a controlled subset of campaigns.

Communication is critical. Kostic credits transparent conversations with both her former manager and the client for helping navigate the recovery period. Instead of assigning blame, the team created a recovery plan, communicated timelines and expectations, and supported the client through performance volatility.

How to restructure without wiping out performance

Mitigating risk requires process and patience. These tactics reduce the chance of a damaging performance drop:

• Prioritize business signals: Start with an understanding of cash flow, margins, peak buying windows and how much short-term disruption the business can tolerate.
• Test incrementally: Implement structural changes on a small scale first — either in lower-volume campaigns or with a limited set of ad groups — and measure impact before wider rollout.
• Preserve conversions you trust: If an ad group or keyword consistently converts, avoid moving it unless absolutely necessary. Pausing or consolidating around trusted converters is often safer.
• Staged migration: Where possible, keep legacy entities active while introducing new structures so the account retains historical continuity for as long as feasible.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams: Talk to sales and customer-facing teams to learn how customers actually describe problems and solutions. These insights often beat platform-only assumptions.
• Set clear recovery plans: If a restructure does cause a dip, have a plan for reintroducing previous settings, shifting budgets, or pacing changes to minimize revenue loss.

The role of automation and new features

Automation and AI-driven tools like Performance Max present opportunities to improve efficiency, but they don’t remove the need for business-first judgment. Automated bidding benefits from historical performance; starting over erases that advantage. Kostic argues for guardrails and gradual testing rather than blanket adoption of new features.

When you adopt new Google Ads features, treat them as experiments: run them alongside existing campaigns, monitor performance closely, and keep the client informed. This preserves stable revenue while allowing you to learn whether a new approach delivers measurable benefits.

Conclusion and next steps

Ana Kostic’s experience is a practical reminder that technical ‘best practices’ must be considered through a business lens. Restructuring campaigns can produce cleaner reporting and better long-term architecture, but the short-term cost can be steep if historical learning is lost. Prioritize the business, introduce changes gradually, and communicate expectations clearly with clients and stakeholders.

For immediate next steps: audit any planned restructures for potential impact on conversions and revenue, develop a staged migration plan, and schedule tests on low-risk segments before broad rollout. Thoughtful, business-aligned PPC management protects performance while enabling steady, sustainable improvements.

Source: Anu Adegbola, Search Engine Land: https://searchengineland.com/ana-kostic-shared-why-best-practice-cost-her-client-40-of-revenue-484178