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Why Can’t I See My Own Google Adwords Ads?

October 11, 2008 on 9:48 am | In Google Adwords | 9 Comments

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I got a call last week from a client who spends big $$$ on Google Adwords every month:

“I’ve checked my main keywords half a dozen times today and I can’t see my ads anywhere!”

That may be the problem… One of Google’s anti-click fraud measures is to lower the ad position of ads when you search from the same IP address. If you click a few times on your own ad to “check that it’s working”, you may find that you can’t see your ads when you check and check again.

A better way to check on the status of your OWN ads is to use the Google Adwords Ad Preview Tool.

Not only will you not mess with your impression/click data, but you can “test” ads without incuring cost.

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I had a similar problem recently with a campaign run in two languages. My client was searching for X language keyword on Y language Google (same country changed in preferences) and her ad did not show, but it was showing when you clicked the “google.com is available in language X” button.

Solution – Copy the Campaign in X language and repeat in Y language. Put the keywords on exact match so someone searching on Y language Google on the X language Google will see the X language ads. Put the X language keywords on exact negative match for Y language campaigns.

Sounds tricky, but it’s not. I didn’t want to give too many details away.

What I’m trying to say is that in a complicated account it could be something really simple that agents know not to do, but general searchers do not!

Comment by Sebastian Graham — October 11, 2008 #
@Sebastian – all those Xs and Ys were a bit confusing, but I get the gist of what you’re saying.

Multilingual campaigns throw up some interesting variations. I have done a few Japanese-language campaigns and found that you can actually fit more “ideas” into the given ad space than in English.

Comment by Will Swayne — October 13, 2008 #
It can be even more frustrating when the budget is very low so the ads already don’t show as much as you’d like them to. But then the client clicks on the ads…VERY frustrating. It also open up a whole other set of worm cans

Thanks for this post…its nice to see someone else venting (and also giving some worthwhile tips at the same time)

Comment by Leila — October 13, 2008 #
@Leila – aaah, budgets. Don’t even get me started on budgets . The situation you describe is even more frustrating when the budget is relatively low but the click cost is HIGH (i.e. $20). I’ll make a note to post something on budgets down the track…

Comment by Will — October 14, 2008 #
I think you have to point on your budget per clicks.
It happen when there are too many advertisers for a keyword google place ads with high budget for that keyword. Increase budget or wait some days.

Comment by Spacci — January 12, 2009 #
Google with all this software is trying to take over the internet. While effective we might all be sorry one day for creating this giant.

Comment by gold coins to buy — February 28, 2009 #
Hey Will, truly excellent resource you’ve pulled together here. Perhaps Google doesn’t need our cash, run for cover and find some other place to hide, I’ve found success or failure may hinge on what you do or don’t know about keywords?

Having a list of 100,000 keywords isn’t always the best approach or key to dominating your market. The key is a few buying keywords of three to five.

Cheers, John

Comment by John — June 6, 2009 #
There could be a few reasons if the ads are now showing. I would do a complete verification of the campaign’s settings and wait for at least 24 hours. After that, I might get worried but I never had a problem before with ads not showing

Comment by Tim — July 22, 2009 #
The only problem is that Google does not state upfront how they come up with your share of the advertising revenue as the website owner, or publisher as commonly known.

Comment by ppc management services — January 12, 2010 #