A naming convention is an agreed pattern for naming campaigns, ad groups, ads, audiences and conversion actions, so anyone can tell what something is from its name alone. In an ad account it turns a list of names like “Campaign 4” and “New test copy” into labels that sort, filter and report cleanly.
How a naming convention works
You decide which facts matter for every campaign and put them in the same order, separated by the same character. A typical pattern for a Google Ads search campaign might be market, campaign type, brand or non-brand, theme, location and bid strategy:
UK | Search | NonBrand | Boiler Repair | London | tCPA
Ad groups follow a shorter pattern, often the theme and match type. On platforms where ads have their own names, such as Meta Ads, the ad name can carry the angle being tested and a date, such as “Price-led | 2026-10”; in Google Ads, where search ads have no name field, labels do that job. The same thinking applies to utm_campaign values on email and social links, so a campaign has one recognisable name across Google Ads, Meta and your analytics.
Not everything belongs in a name. Information that changes over time, such as whether a campaign is in a test, which promotion it supports or who owns it, is better held in Google Ads labels, which you can add and remove without renaming anything. Names describe what a thing is; labels describe its current status.
The convention is written down in a short document that everyone working on the account follows, including any freelancer or agency. Its value comes entirely from consistency: a perfect pattern used half the time is worse than a simple one used every time.
Why it matters
Good names make reporting cheap. If every non-brand campaign contains “NonBrand”, you can filter the campaigns view, build a Looker Studio report or write a Google Ads script that treats them as a group, without maintaining a separate list. Splitting brand from non-brand spend, a question every UK business owner should be able to answer, becomes a one-click filter.
They also protect you at handover. When a staff member leaves or you change agency, an account full of vague names takes days to understand. One built to a convention, alongside a clear account structure, can be read in an hour.
Common mistakes
- Inventing a pattern but not writing it down, so it drifts within weeks.
- Packing every possible detail into names until they are too long to read in the interface.
- Using different separators or spellings for the same thing, such as “NB”, “Non-Brand” and “Generic”, which breaks filters.
- Putting dates or budgets into campaign names and then never updating them, so the name tells a lie.
- Naming conversion actions vaguely (“Submit”, “Lead 2”), so nobody knows which form or call each one tracks.
- Renaming campaigns that feed external reports without updating those reports, breaking the link.
How to act on it
Write a one-page convention that covers campaigns, ad groups, ad names or labels, audiences, conversion actions and UTM values. Choose a separator that is easy to read and filter, such as a pipe with spaces, and keep a short list of approved abbreviations. Then rename the account in one sitting using Google Ads Editor, noting old and new names so historical reports still make sense.
Apply it to every new item from that day, and check names during your monthly review. Setting a convention is one of the first things I do when taking on an account for ongoing PPC management, because every later report depends on it.