A **rule group** is a named set of campaigns. Rules point at groups, not at individual campaigns — which is what makes automation maintainable instead of a list of near-identical rules.

It is also your safety control, because a group's campaign count is the blast radius of every rule attached to it.

[Watch the walkthrough](https://kb.trackiq.com/kb-assets/kbvideo-rule-groups-explainer-e92ec239.mp4)

*Prefer to watch? Sixty-eight seconds on blast radius, and grouping by intent.*

## **The screen**

![The Rule Groups tab, with a campaign count per group](/kb-assets/shot-auto-rule-groups-view-651d68.png)

**Automations → Rule Groups.** One row per group:

| Column | |
|---|---|
| **Name** | what it covers |
| **Description** | why it exists — empty by default |
| **Campaigns** | how many are in it |
| **Created** | when |

**+ New Group** creates one. Each row has a menu.

## **Why groups instead of campaigns**

One rule pointed at a group of 31 campaigns is **one thing to maintain**. Thirty-one rules is thirty-one things to keep in step, and they will drift.

Groups also mean a new campaign inherits your automation by being added to the right group, rather than by someone remembering to build it a rule.

## **Group by intent, not by convenience**

This is the decision that determines whether your automation helps or quietly harms, and it is easy to get wrong because the wrong way looks tidier.

A rule enforces **one definition of good** across everything in its group. But campaigns do different jobs:

| Job | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| **Defending** a keyword you own | a higher ACoS is the price of holding ground |
| **Launching** | ACoS is expected to be poor — you are buying rank |
| **Harvesting** | the efficiency target genuinely applies |

Put all three in one group under a single target ACoS and the rule will **strangle your launches and under-defend your best keywords** — while the group average improves, which is what makes it hard to spot.

**Group by what the campaigns are for.** The naming in a well-run account shows this: separate groups for a product line, and separate ones again for its *Single KW / Must Win* campaigns, which are defended rather than optimised.

## **Sizing a group**

**Start small.** A rule that behaves on 6 campaigns will behave on 31. A rule that misfires on 31 costs five times as much to notice and undo.

**Check the count before attaching a rule.** It is right there in the table, and it is the number that tells you how much of your account a mistake would reach.

**Watch for a group that keeps growing.** A group that started as “our hero product” and now holds 40 campaigns has probably stopped being one intent.

## **Use the description field**

It is empty by default, and it is the only place to record *why* a group exists.

> *“Defended brand terms — higher ACoS is intentional. Do not attach efficiency rules.”*

That sentence is worth more than it looks. Six months on, or when somebody inherits the account, the group name alone will not stop a well-meaning colleague attaching a target-ACoS rule to campaigns that are supposed to run hot.

## **One group, one rule — usually**

Two rules that both adjust bids on the same group will fight, and the **Change Log** will show a bid moving up on Monday and down on Tuesday.

If you want both scaling and trimming, prefer a recipe that does both in one decision — **Hit my Target ACOS** for bids, or **Defend margins** for budgets — over two opposing rules. See **Targeting Rules** and **Campaign Rules**.

Running one **targeting** rule and one **campaign** rule on the same group is fine. They act on different things.

## **Checking it worked**

After attaching a rule to a group, read the **Change Log** the next day and check the **volume**. A rule touching far more than the group's campaign count suggests is a sign the group is wider than you thought.

See [**The Change Log: Auditing What a Rule Changed**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/the-change-log) and [**Guardrails to Set Before You Automate Anything**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/guardrails-before-you-automate).

## **Related**

- [**The Automations Screen: Rules, Rule Groups and the Change Log**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/the-automations-screen) — where groups are managed.
- [**Set a Target ACoS Across a Whole Portfolio**](https://kb.trackiq.com/hc/knowledge-base/articles/set-a-portfolio-acos-target) — the playbook that uses them.