About 70% of new Google Ads clients arrive with an account someone else built or inherited. Most are running 60-80% wasted spend. The fix is either a refactor (60 days of cleanup) or a rebuild (2-week sprint to start fresh). Knowing which one you need saves $20K+ in opportunity cost.

When to refactor

A refactor keeps your existing campaign structure and history, but fixes what is broken inside it. Choose this if:

Conversion tracking is mostly working — events fire but maybe count form-views instead of submissions
Account structure is roughly right — campaigns organised by intent or product line, not by random one-off ideas
Negative keywords have been maintained at least quarterly
Audience segmentation makes sense
Quality Scores are mostly 6+ across active keywords
You have meaningful history (12+ months) that bidding algorithms can use

If you tick 5 of those 6, refactor is the answer. Expect:

2-3 weeks of cleanup
Tracking fixes, negative keyword expansion, ad copy refresh, audience consolidation
20-40% CPL reduction within 60 days
Cost in Melbourne: $1,500-3,000 for the cleanup project + ongoing management

When to rebuild

A rebuild starts fresh — new campaigns, new tracking, new structure, new naming. The old campaigns get paused (not deleted — rollback option) and the new ones launch in parallel. Choose this if:

Conversion tracking is fundamentally broken (counting all clicks, counting page-views, counting form-views, not counting at all)
Account structure is incoherent — campaigns named “Test 1”, “Final Final”, “DO NOT TOUCH”, running for years
Negative keywords either non-existent or 3,000+ unmanaged
PMax is running half the spend with no visibility
Quality Scores below 5 on most active keywords
Search terms reports show 40%+ wasted spend
You have inherited the account from an agency that “owns” it

If you tick 4 of those 7, rebuild is the answer. Expect:

2-week sprint to build new structure + tracking
4-week stabilisation period as new campaigns gather data
40-70% CPL reduction within 90 days (most common range)
Cost in Melbourne: $3,500-6,500 for the rebuild + ongoing management

The most common Melbourne rebuild patterns

We see five repeating patterns across Melbourne SMB ad accounts. If your account fits one of these, rebuild is almost always the answer.

Pattern 1: PMax doing everything

You ran Search ads for a year, an agency suggested Performance Max for “scale”, and now PMax is 70% of spend, you cannot see search terms, and CPL is mysteriously rising.

Rebuild outcome: Split into Search (intent-led keywords) + Shopping (for ecom) + restricted PMax (with brand exclusions, asset group control, search themes). Most accounts see 30-50% CPL drop within 60 days.

Pattern 2: One mega-campaign

The previous account manager dumped all your keywords into one campaign because “Google’s algorithm needs data”. Now Smart Bidding cannot tell the difference between “[product] for sale” and “what is a [product]”.

Rebuild outcome: Split by buyer intent — research vs comparison vs ready-to-buy. Bid strategies that match each. Tighter quality scores, lower CPCs.

Pattern 3: Brand cannibalising organic

You have decent SEO rankings for your brand name. The previous agency ran Search ads on your brand to “protect the SERP”. Now you are paying $4 per click for traffic that would have come organically anyway.

Rebuild outcome: Brand campaign restricted to defensive plays (competitor bids on you, generic brand misspellings). Budget redirected to actual prospecting. Most accounts free up 15-25% of total spend.

Pattern 4: Broad-match without negatives

Modern Google Ads pushes broad-match aggressively. Without aggressive negative keyword discipline, you end up bidding on every loosely-related query Google can find.

Rebuild outcome: Mix of phrase + exact + restricted broad with audience signals. Negative keyword lists built across campaigns, refreshed weekly.

Pattern 5: Conversion tracking counting the wrong thing

Many accounts count “form views” as conversions. Or “30-second sessions”. Or “scrolled 50% of the page”. Smart Bidding optimises toward these — and your real bookings/sales fall while reported conversions go up.

Rebuild outcome: Conversion goals tied to actual business outcomes — submitted form, completed checkout, phone call > 60 seconds, calendar booking. Smart Bidding now optimising toward something real.

What rebuild does not mean

It does not mean deleting the old account. Old campaigns get paused. Full rollback is available if needed.
It does not mean losing learning data. Account-level conversion history persists.
It does not mean a content overhaul. Landing pages stay (unless they are also broken — different project).
It does not mean a redesign of your customer journey. Same offer, same products, same audiences — better structure around them.

How to know if you should refactor or rebuild

Run this 10-minute audit on your own account.

Open Google Ads. Go to “Conversions” in the toolbar.
Look at each conversion goal. For each one, ask: “If this number doubled tomorrow, would I make more money?” If the answer is unclear for any conversion goal, that goal is wrong.
Open “Reports” → “Search terms” for the last 30 days. Sort by cost. Look at the top 20 queries. How many of them describe what you actually sell?
Open “Campaigns” view. Look at campaign names. Do they describe buyer intent (e.g. “Search - High Intent - [Product]”) or random tags (e.g. “Test”, “New”, “Updated”)?
Open any campaign. Check the negative keyword list. Is it 0-20 negatives, or 100-1,000+?

If you see 3+ red flags from this audit, you need a rebuild. If 1-2, refactor is probably enough. If 0, you have a well-managed account and your problem is something else (creative, landing pages, audience saturation).

Want a second opinion?

Get a free 3-min Loom audit. Drop your account access (or just your URL — we can infer a lot from the public landing pages), and I will record a video covering the three biggest leaks I find.

More resources

Google Ads Melbourne service page — what we do at $1,500-$5,000/month management tiers.
Analytics & Tracking Melbourne — conversion tracking rebuilds.

When to rebuild your Google Ads account (and when to just clean it up)