ads not showing for keywords that are active

[yotankgirl]

I recently found out that I can't use trademarked terms in the european
market, so I made a seperate campaign that didn't use the trademarked
terms in the ads, geo-targeted at only at the europe. I also changed my
original campaign to only be geo-targeted to any place but europe.
After I did all that I realized my ads weren't getting near the amount
of clicks or impressions that they used to, and I realized that the
keywords were ONLY showing for the campaign that was targeted to
europe, so I deleted that campaign thinking that it should return my
impressions to normal, but now my ads just don't show at all for the
keywords that used to show it. What do I have to do to make my ads show
at their normal rate again?

[caugas]

What percentage of your prior clicks came from trademark terms? Is it the difference between your first campagin and your present campaign?

For some campagins Trademark terms equates to a large amount of impressions and clicks.

[Mark 71]

I made a similar experience like yotangirl: set up a campaign for an online shop selling fan items and sport goods. Some ad-groups had no trademarks in their ad-text or as keyword, some had.
Only the ad-groups without any trademarks are visible to the google user and produce impressions. The other are shown as active in the AdWords Interface, but if you enter the related keywords, they are not shown in the Google SERP.

I wrote to the Google Support, no answer. I don't understand this at all. I see other ads showing for a keyword like mine (with or without a trademark), and also some ads have trademarks included.

The campaign is limited to Germany, Austria and Switzerland (german language). How long does it normally take Google approves ads or keywords? What do you suggest to do? Does it makes sense to create a second campaign and avoid totally all trademarks in keywords and ad-text?

quite frustrated with the Customer Support at Google...

[AdWordsRep]

Warning - Very Long Post Ahead. ;)

Yotankgirl, questions like yours (which are focused on a particular situation in a particular account) are very difficult to answer in a meaningful way without a look at that account. The answer could easily depend on a lot of factors which are not mentioned in the limited details given here, but which a close look at the account would reveal.

For this reason, I'd suggest contacting AdWords support, using the 'Contact Us link within the account. This method of contact is important, as explained farther below.

On a related subject, I see real confusion in this tread as to what 'active' means, and would like to point to an Inside AdWords blog post on this subject which will clarify it:

What does active really mean?
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/04/what-does-active-really-mean.html

Excerpting from that longer post:

...To get to the heart of the question, let's first take a look at what 'Active' doesn't mean: in all cases a status of 'Active' is not meant to indicate (nor is it a guarantee) that one's ads are running.

Rather, in the case of campaigns and/or Ad Groups, a status of 'Active' simply means that the campaign (or Ad Group) is not paused or deleted. And, in the case of keywords, 'Active' means that the keyword has a minimum bid at or above the minimum required for that keyword to be eligible to show an ad... Also, in this thread, Mark 71 said:

I wrote to the Google Support, no answer. I'd like to provide a few tips on how to get the best customer support from the AdWords team, so I'm quoting some text below which I posted some time ago. I've bolded what I feel are the two most common caused for an advertiser not to see a response from the support team.

* The best way to contact AdWords support via email is to use the 'Contact Us' link located on each page of your account.

* However, if for some reason, you are unable to use the 'Contact Us' link, then please use the page linked to below. This link is always accessible through the AdWords Help Center:

https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/request.py

* If you're not using the 'Contact Us' link, then please identify your account by customer ID and/or email address. A surprisingly large number of emails come in each day with absolutely no way to identify the account associated with the question. As you might imagine, this makes a meaningful response much more difficult. And slower.

* Please note that using any other contact methods than the above will likely slow down your response.

* Please be aware that, at present, customer service folks are working Monday through Friday. So writing to support on Friday night means that your reply will be delayed until at least Monday - and quite possibly longer, depending on volume.

* Also, be aware of peak periods and slack periods. Highest volume of email occurs on Monday. Volume is lower, and turnaround time is potentially quicker mid-week. So if your question is routine rather than urgent, please consider writing mid-week.

* We strive for a maximum turnaround time of 24 hours, for business days (Monday thru Friday). Most often, it will be faster. During very high volume periods, yes, it can be slower. But believe me, we are all tasked with not letting that happen.

* Please ensure that our replies are not being filtered out by your email program as 'Spam'. I've talked with many advertisers who are upset at our lack of response, who then find that those responses have been sent, but filtered and sent to a 'junk mail' folder. (Related note: almost all email from AdWords will have the word 'AdWords' in the subject line.)

A few more general thoughts:

* Be as succinct and as specific as possible with your questions. In many ways it is best to ask a single question (or a very few) per email. Asking 5 or 8 questions in one email may slow your response down a bit.

* Provide whatever background information will be required to answer your questions fully and quickly. Please include pertinent dates, Campaign and Ad Group names, the keywords in question, and so forth. If we have to guess, it'll slow your response down, and make it less meaningful.

* If you get an reply that doesn't meet with your satisfaction, then please reply directly to that email. This will send it directly back to the person who answered it, who is already familiar with your account. This will prevent duplication of research. Be sure to explain what was missing from our original answer.AWR

[Mark 71]

thanks for the first comment I got from a Google Rep! I read through your recommendations as well as your post (http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/04/what-does-active-really-mean.html ), and that's my experience:

I used the contact form
I contacted the support team tuesday
I gave them my account number resp. the account number of my customer
I didn't get any mail (I checked my junk mail too) at all
I will try it again...


In the post you mentioned, you wrote about what 'active' means:
"This means that it's possible for a campaign or Ad Group to show a status of 'Active,' but for the ads within that campaign or Ad Group not to be running. Likewise, it's possible for a keyword to have an 'Active' status (meaning that it is eligible to show) but for no ad to appear. This might occur, for example, if a campaign daily budget is set lower than the recommended amount or if the ads are disapproved."

How I should know that ads are disapproved or in the process of approval? Is it the only way to know by entering your keywords into google and to check if your ads appear? I can only guess that my keywords are in the process of approval or already disapproved (for what reason ever) because my bids are well above the minimum bid and my daily amount is fine (and if I don't see any (=zero) impressions on a term like "ny yankees" then it's not a matter of the daily amount - it is simply not shown).

I would suggest that you enhance the AdWords interface and show us customers the status of keywords, ads or ad groups: disapproved, in the process of approval or accepted. That would minimize our guess work and your efforts to answer customers questions regarding this issue.

In my case I will contact the AdWords Support Team again - and post here their answers / suggestions (if there are any). Anyway, thanks for your help so far!

[Mel66]

Google will tell you if your keywords aren't approved - it'll show that way in the interface, and usually they send you an email as well. However, they don't email you about keywords that are "Inactive for search" - you have to log in and look at the ad group or run a report to get that info.

If the ads and keywords are showing "active" in your account, my guess is that they're still under review. Sometimes it does take a while, as AWR mentions.

Melissa

[Mark 71]

hi Melissa,
you're right, it takes a while. After my second mail to Googles support team, they informed me 5 hrs later that all ads are now approved and visible. I checked it, that's correct. The whole approvement process took them 6 days (or 5 working days). :)

although I'm happy that this is fixed, I was very frustrated because I didn't know what's going on with my ads - that would be easily avoided by informing me ("your ads are under review, you will receive an email ... ). maybe Google can change this in near future.

Thanks to the forum for your help!
-mark

[AussieWebmaster]

Google will tell you if your keywords aren't approved - it'll show that way in the interface, and usually they send you an email as well. However, they don't email you about keywords that are "Inactive for search" - you have to log in and look at the ad group or run a report to get that info.

If the ads and keywords are showing "active" in your account, my guess is that they're still under review. Sometimes it does take a while, as AWR mentions.

Melissa

That's the one thing I like about Yahoo is the notifications about keyword approval or decline