Google Ads Not Running? A DIY Guide To Diagnose & Fix the Problem

Question

Feeling frustrated because your Google Ads campaigns are not running? You're not alone! Even experienced marketers sometimes face issues. Google Ads is an advanced advertising system, so some complexities are bound to come with it.
 
There are several factors that can prevent your ads from running.  There can be many reasons why your Google Ads are not running. This guide will help you with the knowledge to diagnose the problem and get your campaigns up and running again.
 
Let's get started.
 
Account Issues
 
You might have an account related issue impacting the delivery of your Google Ads campaigns. Let&rsquo;s understand the probable reasons and do the needed fix.  
 
Billing Issues: Head to the Billing section in your Google Ads account and make sure there&rsquo;s no outstanding payment or any other billing/payment related issues. If you find a problem, follow the onscreen guidelines and do the fix and resume your ads.
 
Advertiser Verification: Missed completing the advertiser verification before the given deadline? It might have paused on your Google Ads account temporarily. The fix is to complete the advertiser verification. Go to Billing > Advertiser Verification to check the status or start your verification.
Account Suspension: Check your Google Ads account's browser dashboard for a notification about suspension. Note that a suspended account cannot serve ads. You will need to fix the suspension first. Know the reason, do the fix as required to comply with policies, and submit an appeal.
 
If you are not sure how to fix Google Ads account suspension, this article will help you.

Campaign Settings
 
Problematic campaign settings might be the reason why your Google Ads are not running and not spending any money . Here are some of the most common things to look at: 
 
Campaign Status: Double-check that your campaign status and make sure it is active, not paused or ended.
 
Campaign Dates: Verify that the campaign start date is not a future date and the end date is set correctly and hasn't passed already. If the start date is a future date, your ads will start serving from that given date only.
And if the end date has already passed, you will need to either edit it add a new end date in future or start a new campaign.
 
Limited Bidding Strategy: If you see bidding strategy limited status for your campaign, it can be the reason for your ads not running. This limited flag can show up because of the limited inventory. 
For instance, say you are using only a few keywords in Exact Match or the keywords have very limited search volumes, ads may not perform in full swing, or at times may not even trigger at all. 
The fix in this scenario is to broaden the targets. Change your keywords to broad match and/or add more keywords with decent search volumes.
 
Budget Constraint: If you have a very small budget, say much less than the required CPC for a click, your ads simply won&rsquo;t run. 
The fix? Increase your budget.
 
Misconfigured bidding strategy: Campaigns using a shared budget with portfolio bidding strategy should be using the same bidding strategy in all assigned campaigns. If there&rsquo;s a mismatch, you will see misconfigured bidding strategy error and ads won&rsquo;t run. 
 
Ad Group Issues
 
There can be some issues at the ad-group level too which might be reason why your Google Ads are not running. Let's check them to ensure that your ads run as expected.
 
Ad Group Status: Ensure that all ad groups within your campaigns are active and not paused. 
 
Disapproved Ads: Check for any ads disapproved ad due to policy violations. Address the violations and resubmit the ads for approval. You can simply make some changes to the ad and save it to trigger a review.
 
Missing or Insufficient Ads: Have you added at least one active ad to each ad group? An ad-group without an active and approved ad in it, won&rsquo;t get impressions. Having more than one ad per ad-group helps. While you get variations to test, it also works as a fallback.
 
Targeting Issues
 
Targeting issues are the most common reasons for your Google ads not running. They are easy to fix. Let's understand them one by one. 
 
Too Narrow Targeting: Overly specific targeting might limit your ad's reach. Broaden your targeting settings while maintaining relevance to your audience and your ads should start running normally.
 
Too narrow targeting can happen when:
 
You have very few keywords and that too with limited search volumes
You use only a few placements in a managed placements campaign or if the selected placements are not available under Google Display Network.
You use only a few audience segments with limited available impression
Your location targeting is very small. There may not be enough available impressions for your selected audiences in the given location. The fix is to add more relevant audiences to your targeting if you cannot expand the targeted location for any reason.
 
Targeting Overlap: Check for conflicts between targeting settings in different campaigns or ad groups. Adjust the settings to avoid competing against yourself. If this happens, the secondary campaign or the ad-group might not get any impression as the ads are already shown to the same audience via your first campaign/ad-group.
 
Keyword Issues
Let us also check some of the most common keywords related issues which can be the reason for your Google Ads not serving.
 
Irrelevant Keywords: Spend some time to see if your keywords are truly relevant to your product or service. Use Keywords Planner to find relevant keywords for products and services.
 
Insufficient Bids: Are your bids competitive enough for the chosen keywords or targeting settings? If you are using CPA, ROAS, CPM, or manual CPC, make sure you are bidding sufficiently.
Try increasing the bids. Note that certain campaigns like call-only, video and display campaigns on a very narrow targeting needs higher bids than normal. Bid sufficiently.
If your bids are too small to make your Ad Ranks be below the threshold, ads might not trigger. Consider increasing your bids or optimising your bidding strategy.
 
Other Issues
 
Conversion Tracking: Is your conversion tracking set up correctly and capturing desired actions on your website or landing page? Verify the setup and troubleshoot any errors. Use Tag Assistant to Troubleshoot. 
 
Say you are using conversion specific bidding strategy viz. Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value, Target CPA, or Target ROAS, but your conversion set up has technical issues and it's not tracking, the campaigns won&rsquo;t have any goal to optimize for. They stop serving your ads.
 
Google Ads Review: Once you set up your campaigns, Google reviews your ads for policy violations. In general, it takes about 1 business day for most ads to get reviewed. 
 
Some ads, specifically, video or display ads, may take a day or two more to be reviewed. 
 
If your ads are under review, you will see this in the Ads Status. Do not worry, you simply need to wait. 
 
If it&rsquo;s more than 3 days, contact Google Ads Support team. 
 
Google Ads Periodic Account Review: Google might check your account periodically to make sure it complies with Google Ads policies. During such an internal review process, you won&rsquo;t see any warning or related notifications in your account. Ads won&rsquo;t simply run even if everything seems fine to you. 
 
Such reviews are common for ad accounts which are considered sensitive in terms of policy violations. Some examples can be - Gambling, Health, Crypto, Religion specific etc. 
 
Google can take up to 3 business days for such reviews. There&rsquo;s nothing that you can do during this period. Your ads will start serving normally once the review is done.

&ndash;
 
I am sure you have found the reason by now why your Google Ads campaigns are not running. If you haven't figured out a reason yet, try this Ads Troubleshooter.
 
Questions? Please feel free to ask in the comment section below.