If your ads are not showing in Google, you need to worry about it. To check if your ads are being displayed or not, you must use the ad preview tool. If the ads are not being displayed even in the ad preview tool, it is alarming. But, don’t worry, we have listed down some of the most common reasons why the Google ads are not showing and how you can fix them. Tips are shared by Ranjit – web developer and blogger at AppsTale.
- 1. Pending, paused, or disapproved ads
- 2. The problem in payment processing
- 3. Low click-through rate
- 4. Low search volume of selected keywords
- 5. Irrelevant landing page
- 6. The problem in your targeting
- 7. The problem with your ad scheduling
- 8. The quality score is too low
- 9. The daily budget is exceeded
- Wrap up
1. Pending, paused, or disapproved ads
When your ad does not show up in the search result, the three possible causes are:
- your ads are pending approval;
- you have paused the ads or campaigns;
- your ads are disapproved.
If you have set up the campaign a few minutes back, Google might take some time to review it. So, wait for at least 24 hours to make sure that the ad campaign goes live.
How to Fix It?
If you have paused the ad or campaign, head back to the respective campaign and switch from pause to enable in the ads option. Also, you can check the “change history” to see when the changes have been made to your ad campaign.
Finally, if your ads are disapproved, they are not eligible to show up in search results. To fix your disapproved ads, you need to change your ad copy, following the Google ads policy.
2. The problem in payment processing
Like most advertisers, the payment for your Google ads is processed via automatic payments once you reach the threshold given by Google or when you reach the billing date, whichever comes first.
So, if you want Google to charge your card, it must be valid and updated. If Google cannot charge your card, the ads will not go live; hence, you cannot see them appearing in the search results.
How to Fix It?
Ensure that your card details are correct and have valid expiry before entering into your Google ad account.
Also, check if the international transactions are enabled on your card. If not, kindly allow it.
3. Low click-through rate
Click-through rate is defined as the percentage of impressions that turn into clicks. For example, if your ads get 100 impressions and ten clicks, your CTR is 10%. If the click-through rate of your ad is too low, it means that your ad copy is not too appealing to the audience. The higher the CTR, the more attractive it is to the audience.
How to Fix It?
To perform better in the ad auction and get a high CTR, we recommend you work on your ad copy and design it to resonate with your target audience.
Think about users who triggered the search queries you are targeting for your ads. Try to incorporate your most important keywords in your ad copy.
If it meets your prospect’s need, they will click on it, which results in a higher CTR for your ads.
Prospects at the top of your marketing funnel generally click on the ads that answer their question or provide relevant information. On the other hand, prospects at the bottom of your marketing funnel click on the ads that compel them to convert or make a purchase.
4. Low search volume of selected keywords
If Google ads display that your selected keywords search volume is low, it means you are targeting a very specific audience, niche, or only long-tail keywords.
If Google finds the search volume of your selected keywords is too low, it will temporarily make your ad inactive. However, if your target keywords’ search volume goes to a reasonable level, it will be reactivated automatically.
How to Fix It?
Visit the keywords section in your campaign and check any low search volume keywords present in your campaign.
If the status column of the keyword shows “low search volume,” try to change the keyword to a broader term. Or try to find a similar keyword with reasonable volume using any keyword tool.
5. Irrelevant landing page
Google looks at the ad copy and your landing page relevancy to rank your ads higher in paid search results. If the landing page is not relevant to the product or service you are promoting, Google will not approve your ads, or it will be poorly performed.
Your landing page should be relevant to your ad copy and must fulfill the intent of the search queries you are targeting. If your ad fails to serve the audience’s purpose, it will not show on the first page of Google search.
How to Fix it?
To make your ad rank high in Google paid search results, try to incorporate your target keywords in your landing page and design it per user intent.
Understand the key problems your target audience faces and try to provide a solution to them on your landing page. It will not only help you rank higher but also drive a better conversion rate.
6. The problem in your targeting
Reaching your product to the target audience is good. However, before you run your ad campaign, make sure that your keywords match the minimum requirement of searches. If your audience is too small to meet the minimum requirements, Your ads won’t show up.
Also, the ad might not show up if you are targeting the wrong or too narrow location. If you accidentally removed the location or the bid adjustment is too low for your targeted location, your ads will not show your target audience.
How to Fix It?
If you want to reach out to a broader audience, try to use the observation tool in the Google ads dashboard. It helps you understand how your target audience responds, even before you run a campaign.
If the issue is with the location targeting, try to research your target audience and expand the radius of your targeting. Also, make sure that your target locations do not have a bid adjustment set to “-100%”.
7. The problem with your ad scheduling
Ad Schedule informs Google at what hours and day you would like the ads to run. Without an ad schedule, the ads will run 24/7, and if this is the case with you, then possibly it is not the reason your ads are not showing. If you have set up an ad schedule and cannot see the ads, your ad scheduling is too restricted and poorly organized.
For example, if your ad schedule is set up for only one hour a day, then the searches might or might not happen in that specific hour, which results in poor performance. Also, if your ad schedule is poorly planned to show when your target prospects are not searching, your ads might lose the opportunity to appear in the search.
How to Fix It?
Research at what time your target audience is actively searching for your bid keywords. Think about when you are likely to get more visitors on your landing page and then reschedule your ad timings.
You can also head on to the ad schedule tab and check if the ad timings are too restricted. If yes, then change it.
8. The quality score is too low
The quality score determines how well your ad performs once set up. If you see that “rarely seen due to poor quality score” in the keyword status, it means that the ad is not appearing for this keyword.
How to Fix it?
As discussed above, try to make your landing page relevant to your target audience and include highly related keywords to your offer, service, or business. Remove all the irrelevant keywords from your keyword list. Optimize your keywords, ad copy, and landing page to relate them to each other closely.
9. The daily budget is exceeded
If you are running ads on a daily budget, then the ads stop appearing, after it reaches the budget for the day. If the campaign shows “limited by budget,” it means that the keywords are not eligible to show, based on the CPC bid allotted to it compared to the campaign budget.
How to Fix it?
It is recommended to lower your bids or increase the daily budget to attain better conversions and smooth running your Google ads. For this, it is suggested to monitor the bidding of your keywords frequently and optimize it.
Wrap up
After spending lots of time researching and creating a google ads campaign to realize it is not showing in search, it is very frustrating for a business owner. In that situation, it is very common to panic, and your mind goes for different options.
It is the reason I created this guide to provide a reasonable explanation as to why your Google ads are not showing. If you face any issues related to the ads not showing in Google search, follow the above-given instructions to fix the issues in your campaign or account.
After identification of your issue, take the necessary action to get your ads up and running. If you went through the above list and still didn’t see the results, it’s time to contact a representative at Google.
