How to fix Google Ads Display campaign not running or low traffic

This article outlines common reasons why your Google Ads campaigns might not be running or are experiencing low traffic. It also provides troubleshooting steps to help you identify and resolve these issues.

Before you begin

If you recently enabled your campaign or made changes, it may take some time for impressions and traffic to stabilize. Here's what to expect:

Ad review: New or edited ads take 24-48 hours to be reviewed to ensure they meet all policy requirements.

Learning period: Campaigns using automated bidding strategies need time to optimize. Avoid making changes during this period. Allow 1-2 business days or longer for the system to adjust and gather new performance data.

Go to the Campaigns page in your Google Ads account

Recommendations

Recommendations help highlight opportunities to improve performance when your Display campaign isn't running or has low traffic. Examples of recommendations include the following:

Common recommendation types to fix campaigns not running:

Campaign hasn’t started or has ended

Create or unpause an ad group

Account budget exhausted

All ads disapproved

Common recommendation types to fix low traffic:

Adjust your CPA targets

Raise your budgets

Go to the Recommendations page in your Google Ads account

Use diagnostic insights to identify why your campaign isn't serving.

Diagnostic insights highlight issues that may be limiting your campaign’s ability to serve. Diagnostic insights also provide recommendations on how to resolve these issues. Learn more About diagnostic insights.

For example, if an advertiser hasn’t gained any conversions or traffic after creating a campaign, they can use diagnostic insights to discover that their campaign isn’t serving because their assets are disapproved, and view a recommendation to fix these disapproved assets.

Common reasons your ads aren’t running

The following sections will cover common reasons why your ads may not be running or are experiencing low traffic, along with troubleshooting steps.

1. Account issues

If your account is suspended or has billing issues, your ads won’t run until the problems are resolved.

Learn more about Account issues.

2. Ad groups, assets, or ads aren't active or have policy issues

Even if your campaign is enabled, make sure you have active ad groups, assets, or ads within your campaign.

Learn more about Ad groups, assets, or ads are not active or have policy 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 start and end dates.

4. 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.

5. Low bid targets and optimization goals

While it may be possible to serve ads with a very low bid, your campaign is not likely to enter or win as many auctions and your ads may not have as many impressions. For new campaigns, consider using "Maximize Clicks" to allow the system to automatically set bids to bring you the most clicks within your budget.

Learn more about Low bid targets and optimization goals.

6. Display Targeting is too narrow

While targeting settings help you find interested users, each time you add targeting, you narrow the potential reach of your ads. Review your targeting settings to ensure they align with your business and audience.

Learn more about Display Targeting is too narrow.

7. Targeting overlaps with other campaigns or ad groups

You may have multiple campaigns or ad groups that are competing against each other in the same auctions because of similar keyword themes or targeting.

Learn more about Targeting overlaps with other campaigns or ad groups.

8. Conversion tracking

If your campaign is using automated bidding to optimize for conversions, incorrect conversion tracking or insufficient data can limit ad serving.

Learn more about Conversion tracking.

9. Low creative asset coverage and diversity (Ad Strength)

If you’re running an asset-based campaign, such as Responsive Display Ads, it’s important to have a diverse set of creatives across ad formats. Improve your ad strength by including relevant keywords, headlines, and assets to increase the likelihood of your ads being shown.

Learn more about Low creative asset coverage and diversity (Ad Strength).

10. Audience segments are disabled, removed, or revoked

If any of your data audience segments(formerly known as "remarketing lists") are disapproved, the status of your data segments will change to “Disabled” due to policy violation.

Learn more about Audience segments are disabled, removed, or revoked.

11. Certain features used in campaigns

Certain features, or a lack of policy compliance and positive user engagement, can cause your campaign to be paused.

Learn more about Certain features used in ad campaigns.

12. Ad groups paused due to low activity

To improve your advertising experience, Google Ads automatically pauses ad groups that haven't served for a while.

Ad groups are considered low activity if they were created over 13 months ago and have 0 impressions over the past 13 months.

To find or re-enable these ad groups:

From your Notifications

Click the Notifications icon in the top bar of your Google Ads account.
Select the notification about low activity ad groups, and click View.

The “Ad groups” page shows a list of paused groups. You can filter paused ad groups based on “Status reason”. Low activity ad groups will have the status “Paused (due to low activity)”.

From the “Ad groups” page

In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon.
Click the Campaigns drop down in the section menu.
Click Ad groups.
Click the filter icon and input “Status reason”.
Check “Ad group paused due to low activity” and click Apply.

To turn on paused ad groups again, follow the instructions in Pause or enable your ad groups.

In Google Ads Editor

Ad groups that are paused due to low activity are visible in Google Ads Editor. To view your paused ad groups, filter by “Paused by system reason” and select Low activity, then click Apply.

It’s strongly recommended that you only unpause ad groups that you believe will receive impressions in the coming weeks. Unpaused ad groups will be automatically paused again if they don’t receive any impressions for 3 months.

13. Your campaign is paused or was removed

Your campaign may be paused or have been removed. For more information, refer to:

Was this helpful?

How can we improve it?