Have you looked up your brand on Google, or a term you’re bidding on, and not seen your ad show up? There may be a few reasons why this is happening. We’ve created a checklist for you to go through to rule out reasons why this might be happening.
- Have You Looked Into Your Impression Share?
Is your search impression share low? You might not be capturing all the search demand in your campaigns. Note: Your impression share is a percentage based on the number of impressions you’ve garnered vs. the number of impressions that are available in the auction (for your targeting). If your impression share is low, there is a chance that you’re limited by budget.
- Are your ads live?
This might seem like an obvious one. But your ads may be disapproved for a variety of reasons or they may be pending. Make sure to check this in the “Ads” tab of your campaign.
- Have you exhausted your budget for the day?
Again, this might seem like an obvious one, but demand for search volume changes everyday. If you have a daily budget associated with your campaign and you’ve already exhausted your budget for that day, your ads might not be showing. I recommend checking into your account frequently to accommodate for spend volume changes. You might also want to implement a day-parting strategy, potentially an ad schedule of your business hours to show up in the auction for times that you are open and ready to accept incoming leads.
- Are you targeting the right location?
What is your targeting? Check under your campaign settings to make sure the selected Geos are the locations you want to target. A handy tip: Use Google’s Ad Preview Tool to check your ads from different locations to see what your ad looks like. You may have different services provided in different location. You can easily separate these by campaigns to make sure specific offerings are segmented by ad groups or keywords.
- Do you have negative keyword conflict?
There could be a negative keyword conflict within your account or campaign which is blocking your ad from showing. Use the Adwords Keyword Diagnosis Tool to get instant access on whether your ad is showing for specific keywords.
- Is your internal IP blocked?
Check your IP Exclusions in campaign settings. Many companies block their employee’s IP in order to not show them their ad. This could inflate your impression data, and lower your CTR.
- Have you searched multiple times using the same keyword search?
Google recognizes if a user has done the search multiple times from the same IP address or computer. There is a potential that it will not show the ad anymore, because the user hasn't clicked on the ad previously or it doesn't think the user is an interested buyer.
- Are You Below First Page Bid?
Review your ads and make sure your bids are reaching the first page bid break. Your ads below first page will only show on rare occasions when a user is researching past the first page bid, or when other advertisers’ budgets are depleted for the day. In order to increase your brand’s visibility, make sure your bids are competitive enough to reach your audience.
