Troubleshoot issues with Promote

Use this guide to fix issues with Promote on YouTube, including budget spend, promotion status and access limitations.

Resolve issues with promotions spending little or no budget

Wait one to two days for policy review ('Pending' status)

If your promotion has a 'Pending' status with no budget spent, it is still under review. Every promotion goes through an automatic ad review process to ensure compliance with the Google Ads policies. This review may take one to two days. If your new promotion violated any of the video requirements, it will be disapproved and marked as inactive. Learn more about fixing promotions with 'Disapproved' or 'Active (limited)' statuses.

If a promotion that's been marked active for three or more days shows no activity, contact the Google Ads support team for help.

Broaden targeting or increase budget

A promotion may sometimes serve slowly or not at all if the audience settings are highly specific or the budget is too low. While precise targeting is powerful, if an audience is too niche, our system can struggle to find enough of the right viewers to show your ad consistently.

To help your campaign find its audience and run smoothly, consider slightly broadening your targeting or increasing your budget on the 'Promotion details' page.

Fix promotions with 'Disapproved' or 'Active (limited)' statuses

If your promotion has a 'Disapproved' or 'Active (limited)' status, this means that a Google Ads policy violation was found during review. This process assesses the video content, headline and description.

Hover over the status for details on the specific violation. To fix this:

• Switch the video for promotion or
• Make the necessary changes to address the policy violations, then relaunch the promotion to be reviewed again for approval.

Note: You can only run promotions on public or unlisted videos. Learn how to change your video privacy settings.

Understand Promote policies

Political content and election advertising

The Google Ads policies state that any content featuring a public office holder (verbal mention or image) will qualify as an election ad. If this applies to your video and you would still like to promote it, we recommend that you go through election advertising verification. Learn more about political content policies and the election advertising verification.

Important: Starting on 10 October 2025, when new European Union regulations on political advertising come into effect, Google will no longer allow political advertising in the EU. If you are a creator whose promotions through YouTube Promote contain EU political ads, you will still be able to use YouTube Promote on your video. However, you will have to self-declare if your content contains an 'EU political ad' and the promotion will not be available to viewers in the EU.

To self-declare your content as containing an 'EU political ad', under the 'Targeting' section, for European Union political ads, select Yes, this promotion has EU political ads. EU regulation requires Google Ads to ask you to declare if a promotion constitutes an EU political ad.

Starting in April 2026, creators with active EU impressions (>0 since October 2025) who have not yet declared their channel-level status will be served a mandatory dialogue when accessing the Promotions tab in YouTube Studio. The dialogue will ask them to declare whether or not they promote EU political content through YouTube Promote. Creators can manage their status under YouTube Studio > Settings > Promotions.

Healthcare and medicines

Some content from beauty/health creators may be flagged by this policy. We recommend reviewing these policies in depth and choosing a different video that follows our guidelines. Learn more about the healthcare and medicines policies.

Financial products and services

If this applies to your video and you would still like to promote it, we recommend that you go through financial services verification. Learn more about our financial product and services policies and the financial services verification.

Editorial: Punctuation, symbols and capitalisation

Please note that the Google Ads policies prohibit emoji, some punctuation and some capitalisation in the spirit of professionalism. Learn more about the punctuation and symbols policies and capitalisation policies.

Fix Promote access issues

Access limitations are often caused by incomplete verification, missing channel permissions or failed Google Ads account linking. Try these solutions to get started with YouTube Promote.

Complete advertiser verification

In some cases, Google Ads may ask you to go through advertiser verification to run promotions on your YouTube channel. This is routine and part of a gradual rollout of Google's transparency efforts. All advertisers will eventually be required to complete advertiser verification. If you receive this alert, follow the link to complete verification as soon as possible or your promotions may not run. Learn more about Google Ads advertiser verification.

Verify required user roles and account types

If you can't use the Promote feature, review the below limitations to see if they apply to you:

• YouTube account type: For channels using Brand Account user permissions, only the primary owner can select a Google Ads account and set up the first promotion. Once done, other users can then view and create promotions.
• YouTube account role: Make sure that you have an Owner, Manager or Editor role on the channel that you'd like to use Promote on. Note that the channel Viewer role can only view promotions. Read more about channel permissions.
• Google Ads account access: Promote is currently unavailable for manager accounts (MCC) and Google Grants accounts.
  • Note: Make sure that you are signed in to the Google Ads account associated with Promote for your channel. Review how to gain admin access and unlink or relink your Google Ads account.

Note: A channel owner can turn on two-step verification for an extra layer of security.

Gain admin access to or unlink/relink a Google Ads account

If you can't find your Google Ads account in the selector list or receive an access error for a linked account, your user profile may lack the required access level and permissions. Here are a few ways to complete the linking process:

• Add your primary channel owner email as admin on the Google Ads account.
• Request admin permission from the account owner.
• Unlink the current account and link a different one where you have admin access.

Switch a linked Google Ads account

Note:

• Updating your linked Google Ads account won't unlink your Google AdSense account. Learn more about how to change your linked AdSense account.
• Linking a Google Ads account for Promote is distinct from product linking and brand partner access used to collaborate with advertisers.

To switch your linked Google Ads account in YouTube Studio:

1. Go to Settings Promotions.
2. Under 'Google Account', click UNLINK.
   • Note: Unlinking will remove access to view or edit past or running promotions on that account.
3. Link a different account.

Fix billing issues through Google Ads

Resolve billing issues

Visit the Google Ads site to address any billing issues that may occur on your account.

Note: Promotions created from YouTube can only be managed on YouTube and are not accessible through Google Ads. Learn more about the difference between Promote and Google Ads.