YouTube and Demand Gen ad and ad group status

YouTube and Demand Gen ad groups and ads each have statuses that let you know if they’re able to serve. Ad group status indicates the overall serving eligibility, and ad status lets you know if your ad has passed the creative review process.

Every ad group contains at least one ad:

• One YouTube & partners or Demand Gen line item contains…
  • One or more ad groups, where each ad group contains…
    • One or more YouTube ads

This structure means that status changes at the line item level will affect the statuses of the ad groups and ads within it. A status change at the ad group level will affect the ads within it.

For example, if you pause your ad group, the ads within it will not serve.

About ad group status

Ad group status reflects overall serving enablement, or whether or not your ad group is eligible to bid.

What each status means

• Eligible: The ad group can serve.

• Paused: You’ve temporarily stopped this ad group from serving and its ads aren’t running.

• Removed: You’ve removed this ad group and its ads aren’t running.

• Incomplete: You haven’t finished setting up this ad group and its ads aren’t running.

• Line item paused: The line item for this ad group is paused so its ads aren’t running.

• Line item removed: The line item for this ad group has been removed so its ads aren’t running.

• Line item ended: The line item’s flight date has ended so its ads aren’t running.

• Line item pending: The line item’s flight date hasn’t begun so its ads aren’t running yet.

About ad status

The YouTube videos used in YouTube ads go through a creative review process to check that they comply with our content requirements. Making changes to a YouTube video generally won't impact the ad's approval status, unless the YouTube video is removed from the YouTube channel or the visibility is changed to private.

Review timeline

• After you create or edit an ad, the review process begins automatically. Each ad is assigned a status before and after it’s been reviewed.
• Most ads are reviewed in 1 business day, but complex reviews may take longer. Please wait a full 24 hours before reaching out to support about your ad review status.

What each status means

Before a review, your ad will have the following status:

• Under review: The ad is still being reviewed and can’t serve until the review is complete.

After review, your ad can serve if it has one of the following statuses:

• Approved: The ad complies with our content requirements and can serve to any audience.

• Approved (limited): The ad can serve, but not in all situations because of policy restrictions, such as trademark use or gambling-related content.

After review, your ad cannot serve if it has the following status:

• Disapproved: The ad cannot run because its content or landing page violates our content requirements. Learn more about fixing disapproved ads.

• Approved (limited all locations): The ad can't serve in your targeted locations because of policy restrictions and targeting settings. 

Check the status of an ad group or ad

You can see the status for ad groups and ads in your Display & Video 360 account:

1. Go to an existing YouTube & partners or Demand Gen line item.

2. Click the Ad groups tab. You’ll see a table with all of your ad groups and the ads in each of them.

3. Check the messages in the Status column.