About auto-pause for low activity keywords

Positive keywords that have had little to no activity after a long period of time, may be automatically paused. This helps to simplify and improve your account structure and to let you focus on keywords that drive results to your campaigns.

On this page

• Benefits
• How it works
• Instructions

Benefits

• Platform stability: Eliminate the manual task of finding and pausing low activity keywords.
• Simplified account: Reduces excessive and ineffective keywords.
• Flexibility without limits: Unpause any keywords if they are expected to perform.

How it works

Positive keywords that were created over 13 months ago and have had zero impressions in the past 13 months may be automatically paused. You’ll be notified of the pause in your Google Ads account or you can view updates in your change history. You can unpause any keywords you believe will get impressions in the coming weeks. Unpaused keywords will be automatically paused again if they continue to get zero impressions in the next 3 months.

Instructions

Note: The instructions below are part of the new design for the Google Ads user experience. To use the previous design, click the "Appearance" icon, and select Use previous design. If you're using the previous version of Google Ads, review the Quick reference map or use the Search bar in the top navigation panel of Google Ads to find the page you’re searching for.

From your Notifications

1. Click the Notifications icon at the top bar of your Google Ads account. Select the notification about low activity keywords, then click View.
2. The “Keywords” page shows a list of paused low-activity keywords.
3. Low activity keywords will have the status “Paused”, with a secondary status of “Keyword paused due to low activity”
4. To turn on paused keywords again, the instructions are similar to the ones found in Pause or enable your ad groups.

From the “Search Keywords” page

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon .
2. Click the Audiences, keywords, and content drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Search Keywords.
4. Click the filter icon and input “Status reason”.
5. Check “Keywords paused due to low activity” and click Apply.
6. To turn on paused keywords again, follow the instructions to Pause or resume keywords.

Related links

• About keyword status
• About ad groups paused due to low activity