Google Display Ads may sometimes not deliver as many impressions as you expect or not spend the daily budget as you set. In this article, Dali Agency will highlight common reasons why your ads may not be delivering and how to fix the issue using tools within Google Ads.
Things to know when launching a Google display ads campaign
If you’re new to launching display campaigns, it may take some time for your campaign to start delivering impressions. Here are a few reasons why this may happen:
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New or edited ads will go through a review process within 24-48 hours to ensure they meet all policy requirements.
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For campaigns using automated bidding strategies, there may be fluctuations in performance or changes in spend as Google Ads optimizes for your set goals.
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It may take some time for Google Ads to adjust the delivery process if you make changes to campaign settings.
Suggestions
Suggestions help highlight opportunities to improve performance when your Google Ads campaign isn’t running or receiving low traffic. For example, you might consider the following types of suggestions when troubleshooting these issues.
Common suggestions to fix a campaign not running:
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Campaign has not started or has ended
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Create or unpause an ad group
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Account budget exhausted
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All ads have been disapproved
Common suggestions to fix low traffic issues:
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Adjust the target CPA
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Increase the budget
If your ads are still not receiving impressions after 2 business days, check the common reasons mentioned in this article.
Common reasons why Google display ads don’t run or have low traffic
Account issues
If your account is suspended or you encounter payment issues, you will not be able to run ads until the issue is resolved.
For account suspension:
- Use the tool for suspended accounts to automatically check the status of your account.
For payment-related issues:
- If you pay via monthly invoicing, check the account’s budget. If the total campaign cost reaches the designated amount for your account’s budget before the end date you set.
- Check the “Payment Summary” or “Transactions” page to see any declined payments. Your account may stop running ads until the outstanding balance is cleared.
Advertising group, component, or ad issues or policy problems
Even if your campaign is on, make sure that you have active ad groups, components, or ad groups operating within your campaign. The review status of ad groups, components, component groups, or keywords can impact the delivery of your campaign. Hover over the status of your campaign to see the percentage rate of eligible ads that can appear.
- Check to ensure that your ads, ad groups, or components are ready to run and can be activated.
- Use the budget manager to check for policy restrictions on ads, keywords, and extensions across your entire account.
Date range and campaign start and end dates for Google display ads
Google Ads will display performance data for the date range you select. Your campaign will only show impressions that are within this range.
- Make sure the date range in your account includes the campaign’s start and end dates.
Auction dynamics
Other advertisers participating in the same auction with you can influence the delivery of your campaign. For example, if a new advertiser enters the same auction as your campaign, this may affect the number of impressions your ad receives.
Add the following columns to the display network’s impression share metrics to see if auction dynamics may affect your campaign’s delivery:
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Impression share: The number of impressions you’ve received on the Display Network divided by the estimated number of impressions that were eligible for your ad.
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Lost impression share (Budget): The percentage of time your ad didn’t appear on the Display Network due to insufficient budget. This data is available at the campaign level.
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Lost impression share (Rank): The percentage of time your ad didn’t appear on the Display Network due to a low rank.
Low bid and optimization goals
Although it’s possible to run ads with a very low bid, your campaign may not be able to participate in or win auctions. Therefore, your ad may not receive any impressions.
- Verify that your campaign’s optimization strategy aligns with your business objectives. For example, if your goal is to get as many conversions as possible within the set budget, use the conversion optimization strategy.
- If you’ve already achieved your optimization goal, consider whether you can achieve your set manual bid target or the automated bid target (based on past performance). For example, if you’re using a target CPA bidding strategy and your target CPA is significantly lower than your previous average CPA, you may not reach your target CPA while still maintaining a reasonable level of traffic. In this case, you should reconsider your target CPA.
- Use the bid simulator in your ad group performance reports (if available).
Low budget
When you have a low budget, your ads may not deliver frequently because Google Ads needs to ensure your campaign doesn’t exceed the spending limit. Your campaign’s status may also show as “Eligible (Limited)” to indicate that the campaign is currently not delivering or delivering less than expected due to a low budget.
- If your campaign status is limited due to budget, check the budget report to better understand how your campaign’s spend compares to your daily average budget and the impact it has on your spending.
- Consider increasing your budget to ensure your campaign has enough budget to run throughout the day.
Narrow targeting scope on display campaigns
While targeting settings help you find users most likely to be interested in your business, adding targeting criteria or encountering issues with your marketing lists can narrow the potential reach of your ads.
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Keyword targeting: If you target a small list of low-traffic keywords, your display campaign may not be delivered.
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Location targeting: If you target a specific location, ads may not be eligible to deliver. For example, video ads cannot deliver on a YouTube channel even if you add those channels to your campaign targeting criteria.
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Audience targeting: If the number of users on your list does not meet Google’s minimum requirements, your campaign will not deliver.
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Postal code targeting: Targeting a small postal code, radius, or city with a low population could limit your campaign’s reach or prevent it from delivering ads.
Overlapping targeting criteria between campaigns
Your account may have multiple campaigns or ad groups eligible for overlapping auctions due to similar keyword targeting criteria. If there’s overlapping targeting criteria, traffic may primarily shift to one of your campaigns.
Review and consider updating your campaign’s targeting criteria so that it doesn’t overlap with other campaigns in your account.
Tracking Google display ads conversions
If your campaign is using automatic bidding to optimize for conversions but lacks sufficient conversion data or you’ve set up conversion tracking incorrectly, your ads may be limited in their delivery.
- Check the conversion tracking setup using the conversion tracking troubleshooting tool.
- Review the past performance of the conversion action you’re targeting to ensure sufficient frequency to use with automatic bidding.
Low ad strength or variety of ad components (Ad strength)
If you’re running a campaign based on components, such as responsive display ads, make sure you have a variety of ad samples in different formats. Campaigns with ad groups or components lacking variety only qualify for fewer auction opportunities and have limited reach.
- Check your ad strength in the campaign to determine whether you can improve the relevance or quality of the ad samples. Specifically, if the ad strength is not very good, consider adding more components to improve performance and delivery.
Disabled audience segments
If any audience segments based on your data (previously known as “remarketing lists”) are disapproved, you’ll see their status change to “Disabled” due to a policy violation in your Ads account. You will receive an email about this issue. Campaigns targeting disabled segments will not deliver ads. Also, if any audience segments are revoked or stopped sharing from other accounts, campaigns and ad groups targeting those segments will stop delivering.
- For disabled audience segments, remove those segments from the ads or campaigns targeting them.
- For revoked or stopped sharing segments, please re-share the segment with the relevant accounts or remove the segments that have stopped sharing from your ad groups or campaigns targeting them. You can find disabled segments by going to “Audience Manager” in the “Shared Library” in the menu, clicking on “Your Data Segments,” and checking the “Status” column for the segments that have been disabled.
Google display ads – Conclusion
If you want to optimize your Google Display Ads campaign, contact Dali Agency. Our expert team will provide effective strategies to help you achieve your goals.
We are committed to supporting you every step of the way, from consultation to execution. Contact us now to start your growth journey with Dali Agency.
