Occasionally, users analyze campaigns within a strategy as a single unit and may be tempted to pause a poorly performing campaign. But is that the right approach?

First, it’s important to understand that the algorithm doesn’t allow for selective pausing of individual campaigns because they all work together as a group. Each campaign within a strategy has its own purpose—two for exploration and two for optimization. Pausing one disrupts the balance, preventing the algorithm from operating at full potential.

Second, remember that the ACOS target is set at the strategy level, not the campaign level. Strong performance in one campaign can offset weaker performance in another.

Moreover, the two exploration campaigns (auto and phrase) are expected to perform poorly over time. As successful search terms are extracted from these campaigns, they gradually contain only low-performing or irrelevant terms. As a result, performance will decline, but spending will naturally decrease as conversions dwindle.