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Occasionally, you may find that your Search campaigns don’t serve as many impressions as you would expect, don’t spend much of your set daily budget, or are experiencing low clicks or conversions. 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.
Before you begin
What to expect when a campaign is enabled
If you recently enabled your Search campaign, it can take some time for your campaign to start serving impressions. There are a few reasons for this:
- Review time: Most ads are reviewed within 24-48 hours. However, for new accounts or specific formats like image or video, it can take up to 5 business days for review.
- 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.
- Setting changes: It may take Google Ads some time to adjust serving if you make significant changes to your campaign settings, such as adjusting your budget or bidding strategy.
Using the Ad preview tool
The Ad Preview Tool and Diagnosis tool helps you identify why a specific search term may not serve. Note that the search results returned by this tool may change over time.
Go to the Ad preview tool in your Google Ads accountRecommendations
Recommendations help highlight opportunities to improve performance when your Search campaign doesn’t run or has low traffic. For example, you can look out for the following example recommendation types when you troubleshoot these issues.
Common recommendation types to fix campaigns that don’t run:
- Campaign hasn’t started or has ended
- Create or unpause an ad group
- Account budget exhausted
- All ads disapproved
- Add or unpause keywords
Common recommendation types to fix low traffic:
- Adjust your CPA targets
- Adjust your budgets
- Expand your reach with Keyword Planner
- Audit negative keywords lists to ensure they don’t block relevant traffic
Use diagnostic insights to identify why your campaign isn't serving
Diagnostic insights highlight issues that may limit your campaign’s ability to serve. Diagnostic insights also provide recommendations on how to resolve these issues. Learn more About diagnostic insights.
Example: An advertiser hasn’t gained any conversions or traffic after they create a campaign. They use diagnostic insights to discover that their campaign doesn’t serve because their assets are disapproved, and views a recommendation to fix these disapproved assets.
12 common reasons why your Search ads aren't running or are getting low traffic
1. Account issues
If your account is suspended, under a security review, or if you have a billing issue on your account (such as billing hold or unconfigured payment method), you won’t be able to run your ads until the problem is resolved. Additionally, if you run political ads, ensure that all identity and policy verification requirements are complete. An account security review can result in zero impressions or a temporary daily spending limit. If you suspect a security hold on your account, here are some steps you can take:
- Confirm Account Security: Navigate to “Tools and Settings” > “Access and security” to review all users with administrative access and ensure they are authorized.
- Add Allowed Domains: In the 'Access and security' section, add the email domains of your authorized users to the 'Allowed Domains' list.
- Complete verification processes: Complete any required advertiser or account verification to improve your account's trust level.
- Maintain a good payment history and comply with Google Ads policies: Ensure payments are successful and on time, and that your campaigns adhere to all policies. This helps the system build trust in your account.
These automated reviews cannot be expedited. Once the security check is complete, any spending limits are typically removed automatically, and your campaigns will resume normal spending. You will not receive a specific notification on your dashboard for this background check.
Learn more about Account issues.
2. 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 start and end dates.
3. Ad groups, assets, or ads aren't active or have policy issues
Even if your campaign is enabled, check to make sure you have active ad groups, assets, and/or ads within your campaign.
Learn more about Ad groups, assets, or ads are not active or have policy issues.
4. Low bid targets 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 Low bid targets and optimization goals.
5. Low budget
When you have a low budget, your ads may not serve as often while Google Ads ensures your campaign doesn't spend more than your spending limit.
Learn more about Low budget.
6. Targeting is too narrow
While targeting settings help you find the right users, overly restrictive geographic or audience targeting can significantly limit your reach. If your ads don’t serve or have low traffic, broaden these settings. Note that each time you add targeting layers, you narrow the potential reach of your ads.
- Keyword Match Types: If you are using only exact or phrase Match keywords, your reach may be limited. Consider adding broad Match keywords to capture a wider audience. Use negative keywords to filter out irrelevant searches when using broader match types.
- Negative Keywords: Review your negative keyword lists to ensure you are not accidentally blocking relevant traffic.
- Location Targeting: If your location settings are too restrictive (for example, “Presence” only), consider broadening it to “Presence or Interest” to reach more people.
- Audience Settings: For new search campaigns, set your audience targeting to “Observation” instead of “Targeting” to avoid overly restricting your campaign's reach from the start.
Learn more about Targeting is too narrow.
7. Targeting overlaps with other campaigns or ad groups
You may have multiple campaigns or ad groups in your account that are eligible to enter overlapping auctions due to similar keywords or other targeting.
Learn more about Targeting overlaps with other campaigns or ad groups.
8. Lost impression share
Impression share data, specifically Search Lost IS (rank), can help you identify the percentage of time that your ads weren't shown on the Search Network due to low Ad Rank. To improve Ad Rank and reduce lost impression share, you can increase your bids, improve your Ad Strength, and ensure your landing page provides a good user experience.
Learn more about Lost impression share.
9. Conversion tracking
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.
10. Ad Quality
Ad quality is an estimate of the experience that users have when they view your Search ads. A higher Ad Quality can lead to lower prices and better ad positions.
To improve your ad quality:
- Improve Ad Strength: For Responsive Search Ads, add more unique headlines and descriptions to achieve “Good” or “Excellent” Ad Strength.
- Increase Ad Relevance: Ensure your ad copy is directly related to your target keywords.
- Enhance Landing Page Experience: Make sure your landing page is relevant to your ads and keywords, loads quickly, and provides a good user experience.
Learn more about Ad Quality.
11. Auction Dynamics
Other advertisers who are participating in the same auctions as you can affect your campaign’s ability to serve.
Learn more about Auction Dynamics.
12. Certain features used in campaigns
Your campaign may be paused if:
- You use certain features
- Your account doesn't have a good history of policy compliance and positive user engagement.
Learn more about Certain features used in ad campaigns.
