Occasionally, you may find that your Shopping campaigns are not serving as many impressions as you would expect, or are not spending much of your set daily budget. A Shopping campaign or products may not serve due to issues at either the Google Ads side or Merchant Center. In this article, we’ll outline common reasons why your ads may not be serving, and how you can troubleshoot using the tools in Google Ads and Merchant Center.
Before you begin
What to expect when a campaign is enabled
If you recently enabled your Shopping campaign, it can take some time for your campaign to start serving impressions. There are a few reasons for this:
- It takes 24-48 hours for newly created or edited ads, creatives, assets, products, or feeds to be reviewed in Google Ads and Merchant Center to ensure they meet all policy requirements.
- For campaigns using automated bidding strategies, there may be performance fluctuations or changes in spend as Google Ads learns to optimize towards your set goal. Learn more about the duration of the learning period
- It may take Google Ads some time to adjust serving if you make changes to your campaign settings.
Recommendations
Recommendations help highlight opportunities to improve performance when your Shopping campaign is not running or is getting low traffic. For example, you can look out for the following example recommendation types when troubleshooting these issues.
Common recommendation types to fix campaigns not running:
- Campaign hasn’t started or has ended
- Create or unpause an ad group
- Fix Merchant Center account suspension
- Account budget exhausted
Common recommendation types to fix low traffic:
- Adjust your ROAS targets
- Adjust your budgets
- Fix disapproved products in your Shopping campaigns
If your ad still isn’t receiving any impressions after 3 business days, check the reasons listed in this article.
15 common reasons why your Shopping ads aren't running or are getting low traffic
1. Account issues
If your account is suspended, or if you have a billing issue on your account, you won’t be able to run your ads until the problem is resolved.
Learn more about Account issues.
2. Merchant Center account issues
If all Shopping campaigns in your Google Ads account aren't serving, check your Merchant Center account to confirm whether it is suspended or if the accounts are linked correctly.
Learn more about Merchant Center account issues.
3. Date ranges and campaign start and end dates
Google Ads shows you performance data for the date range that you select.
Learn more about Date ranges and campaign.
4. Targeting overlaps with other accounts, campaigns, or ad groups
You may have multiple Shopping campaigns or ad groups in your account that are eligible to enter overlapping auctions due to similar targeting.
Learn more about Targeting overlaps.
5. Local Inventory Ads setup
If the campaign is a Local Inventory campaign, ensure that the setting is enabled to run these ads.
Learn more about Local Inventory Ads setup.
6. Ad schedule setup
Your campaign's ad schedule determines when your ads will show.
Learn more about Ad schedule setup.
7. Products aren't eligible to serve
The fastest way to verify if products in a Shopping campaign are eligible to serve is to check the Products tab.
Learn more about Products are not eligible to serve.
8. Outdated product groups
When setting up which products to run from your Shopping campaign in product groups, you can target all products or can select specific products by filtering.
Learn more about Outdated product groups.
9. Expired product data
All products expire from your Merchant Center account 30 days after the last refresh. However, products added directly in Merchant Center don’t expire. Learn more on how to Quickly add or update your products directly in Merchant Center. Products can be refreshed by re-submitting your feed or scheduling regular feed uploads. Google will also regularly check your website and refresh your products automatically if the product data can be validated, for example, by the crawling of schema.org structured data on your product landing pages.
Next steps
Check if your feed is expired in your Merchant Center account:
- Go to the Products tab, then click Feeds.
- Click into the feed and check the last upload date.
- If it’s been more than 30 days since the last feed upload, a new feed will need to be uploaded.
Go to your Merchant Center account
10. Expired items via the “expiration date” attribute
If products have been uploaded into the Merchant Center feed along with the expiration_date attribute, these products will not serve after the date included.
Learn more about Expired items.
11. Bid limitations and optimization goals
While it may be possible to serve ads with a very low bid, your campaign isn't likely to enter or win as many auctions and your ads may not have any impressions.
Learn more about Bid limitations and optimization goals.
12. Targeting is too narrow
While targeting settings help you find the right set of users most interested in your business, each time you add targeting or if you have issues with your remarketing lists, you narrow the potential reach of your ads.
Learn more about Targeting is too narrow.
13. Conversion tracking issues
If your campaign is using Automated bidding to optimize towards conversions, but isn't getting sufficient conversion data or your conversion tracking isn't set up correctly, your ad may have limited serving.
Learn more about Conversion tracking issues.
14. Ad policy review status
The review status of your ads or products can impact your campaign’s ability to serve.
Learn more about Ad policy review status.
15. Auction dynamics
Other advertisers who participate in the same auctions as you can affect your campaign’s ability to serve.
Learn more about Auction dynamics.
