To find where your ad appears in search results for a particular search term, use the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool. We know it's tempting, but it's best to resist the urge to search for your own ad on Google.com. Here's why:
- Comparing how often your ads are shown online to how often users click on them—known as your clickthrough rate—is a metric that can influence your long-term account performance. By performing your own searches that trigger your ad, you can negatively impact your ad performance data.
- If you repeatedly look for your own ad using Google search but never click on it, you might stop seeing it entirely. That's because Google's system stops showing you ads that it thinks you aren't interested in.
This article explains how you can find your ad on Google. The Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool will tell you if your ad isn’t showing and why, so you can make any changes and begin reaching customers. Learn more about text ads on the Display Network
Before you begin
- If you've just created or changed an ad, remember that it might need to be reviewed and approved by Google before it’s eligible to run. Check your ad’s approval status.
- Make sure your ad, ad group, and campaign are turned on enabled. Check if your ad is enabled to show to customers.
- Keep in mind that the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool only finds ads on the Google Search Network. The tool is not able to locate your specific ad on the Display Network.
How your ad is formatted
The Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool only shows one way that your ad could be formatted. Across different devices, browser sizes, and user searches, your ad could be formatted differently:
- If your ad appears above search results, your display URL might be placed alongside your headline, instead of beneath it.
- Your ad assets might not show every time your ad shows. For example, if you have Call assets set up, they won’t show on devices that don’t support calls.. . You can verify that your assets are running with your ad by checking your statistics on the “Ad assets” tab.
- In some situations, Google Ads needs to shorten your text, usually with an ellipsis (“...”). This could happen if your ad text frequently uses wider characters (like “m”) instead of narrower characters (like “i”), because your headline text could be wider than the space available for it on some browser sizes. With most Latin languages, you can avoid this effect by limiting your line’s overall character count to 33 characters total.
Instructions
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Click the tools icon
at the top right of your account then click on Ad Preview and Diagnosis under the ‘Planning’ section.
- Click the Tools tab and select Ad Preview and Diagnosis.
- In the text box, enter the keyword you want to test. Make sure it’s a keyword that’s included in your campaign, or closely related.
- Change any of the other settings (location, language, device) as needed. If you’ve targeted your ad to a certain language, location or device, you’ll need to specify this information to preview your ad.
- Click Preview.
- The tool will tell you if your ad is eligible to appear for these search settings. If your ad is eligible to show on the first page of Google search results, you’ll see it highlighted in green. Ads that are eligible and show on the 2nd page or later may not appear in the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool. Keep in mind that if your ad has assets, they may not always display in the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool. View your ad asset performance.
