PPC Active Ads not showing

You could have all the analytic tools, PPC bid maximization services and website monitoring services in the world, yet sometimes things are just not going to add up.

Inspite of all the automation you might have in place, you just can't manage a successful search engine marketing campaign without logging in daily to your accounts and studying the numbers.

Consider this scenario experienced by one of our pharma clients:




Two ad creatives, both created at the same time (4 days ago), campaign is setup to automatically rotate between the ads.

Thanks to data from another campaign, we know ad #2 converts a lot better than ad #1, yet regardless of how high we're pushing the daily budget, Google refuses to show ad #2 (End Impotence Fast)

Although both ads show as 'Active', when we tried pausing ad #1, nothing was showing up for the selected keywords.

The reason?

Google AdWords, similar to Yahoo Panama keeps a third status per each ad creative and keyword. That third status is "Active - Approved".

Unlike Yahoo and MSN, Google keeps its editor approval process behind the scenes. Where Yahoo and MSN will specifically show you a certain keyword/ad has not been approved, Google's interface hides the fact that certain keywords or ad are under review.

In the example above, ad #2 has not been approved by Google yet, more than likely due to the word "impotence" flagging a 'manual-approval-required' trigger.

The conclusion: Login to your accounts daily, download the data to an Excel spreadsheet, sort and study the numbers daily. Understand the rational behind the numbers and tweak ads/keywords until you get the desired results. Don't have time to do this? Hire an Internet Marketing agency.

Here are some tips on cutting through Google's manual approval process -

1. Every time you touch a keyword CPC or edit an ad, it will go through a script that checks your landing page and keywords against a master database. If you're not happy with the price you have to pay per click or if one of your ads is still not showing after a week, try editing it and understand this takes your ad/keyword through the cycle again.

2. Make sure the keyword you're going after appears on the target landing page. Hint: You could auto-generate it based on the user search query

3. Avoid any HTTP redirects on your landing page. Make the landing page appear like a credible source and not another made-for-adsense site.