Why Are My
Google Ads
Not Running?

Ads that are not serving cost you money in a way that never shows up on an invoice. The frustrating part is that Google Ads rarely tells you the reason in one place. The explanation might be a banner at the top of the account, a status tooltip four levels down, an entry in the Policy Manager, or a declined card in a billing section you have not opened in months.

This guide works through the causes in diagnostic order, from the ones that stop an entire account instantly to the ones that quietly suppress delivery. For each, you get the exact place to look and what to change.

Start here: the two minute check

Before working through individual campaigns, rule out the account-level causes. If any of these apply, nothing below them matters.

1. 1

   Look for a banner at the top of the account

   Sign in at ads.google.com. A red banner usually means a suspension or a failed payment. An amber banner usually means a warning, a verification requirement or a limited status. Read the exact wording and note it.
2. 2

   Check Billing then Summary

   Confirm the primary payment method is valid and not expired, that there is no outstanding balance, and that no recent transaction was declined. A single declined card stops every campaign in the account.
3. 3

   Check the account status

   Under Admin or Account settings, confirm the account is active rather than cancelled or suspended. Cancelled accounts can be reactivated, suspended ones cannot without an appeal.
4. 4

   Check the campaign status column

   In the Campaigns view, look at the Status column. Hover any status that is not Eligible to read the explanation Google provides in the tooltip.
5. 5

   Open Tools then Policy Manager

   This lists every disapproved ad, keyword, asset and extension in one place, along with the specific policy applied. It is the fastest way to find content level problems.

How to read the status column

Google Ads applies status at four levels, and each one overrides everything beneath it. An eligible ad inside a paused ad group inside a paused campaign will never serve, and the ad will still read Eligible. Always check downwards in this order: campaign, ad group, keyword, ad.

• Eligible. The item can serve. It does not mean it is winning auctions or getting impressions.
• Eligible (limited). It can serve but something is restricting it, commonly a policy restriction, a restricted category, or a targeting or bid constraint. Hover for the reason.
• Under review. Google is reviewing the content. Normally under one business day.
• Disapproved. Blocked for a policy reason. It will not serve anywhere until fixed and re-reviewed.
• Paused. Someone or something turned it off, including automated rules and scripts.
• Removed. Deleted. It cannot be reactivated, only recreated.
• Ended. The campaign end date has passed.
• Pending. The campaign start date is in the future.
• Limited by budget. Serving, but only until the daily budget runs out.

1. Billing and payment problems

The most common reason an entire account stops overnight. Google stops serving immediately when it cannot collect, and the notification email frequently lands in a spam folder or goes to an old billing contact rather than the person managing the campaigns.

Typical triggers:

• An expired, cancelled or replaced card that was never updated in the account.
• A card declined because the payment threshold was hit mid-month and the bank blocked an unexpected charge.
• A monthly invoicing account that has exceeded its credit limit.
• A prepaid balance that has run out in countries using manual payments.
• A bank flagging Google as an unrecognised international merchant.
• A billing profile that was closed or transferred during a company restructure.

2. Disapproved ads and policy issues

Disapproval is content-level enforcement. It blocks the specific ad, keyword, extension or asset rather than the whole account, but if every ad in an ad group is disapproved the effect is the same as being switched off.

Frequent causes include:

• Excessive capitalisation, repeated punctuation or non-standard symbols in headlines.
• Trademark terms used in ad text without authorisation.
• Superlative or unverifiable claims such as best, guaranteed or number one.
• Restricted content such as healthcare, financial services, gambling or alcohol without the required certification.
• A destination URL that does not work, redirects unexpectedly or does not match the display URL domain.
• Missing pricing, terms, refund policy or contact details on the landing page.
• Images or video assets that breach the ad format or content requirements.

3. Account suspension

If every campaign stopped at the same moment and there is a red banner naming a policy, the account is suspended rather than misconfigured. No amount of budget or bid adjustment will restart it.

You can usually still sign in and see the interface, which is why suspensions are sometimes mistaken for a technical fault for several days. Check the banner text and the email sent to the account's primary contact. The most common policies are circumventing systems, misrepresentation, unacceptable business practices and business operations verification.

4. Still under review

New ads, and existing ads that have been edited, go back into review. Most clear within one business day and many within a few hours. Longer delays usually mean a restricted category, a new account with no history, or an outstanding advertiser verification requirement.

5. Budget exhausted or limited

Limited by budget means your campaign could serve more but the daily amount is spent. Ads still run, they just stop partway through the day, which looks like being switched off if you check in the afternoon.

It also appears suddenly on campaigns that were previously fine, usually because competition increased, a bid strategy change raised your cost per click, or new keywords started capturing traffic.

6. Bids too low to enter the auction

Ads showing as Eligible with zero impressions are usually a bidding problem. If your maximum cost per click sits below the first page bid estimate, you are technically in the auction but effectively never winning a placement.

7. Targeting too narrow

Layered targeting compounds. Each restriction is applied as an intersection, so combining several narrow settings can reduce the eligible audience to almost nothing without any single setting looking unreasonable.

• A location radius of a few miles around a low population area.
• Location settings restricted to Presence only when your customers search from elsewhere.
• Narrow age, gender, household income or parental status layers.
• An audience segment or customer list too small to serve, particularly remarketing lists below the minimum size.
• Device targeting that has excluded mobile, which is the majority of search traffic.
• Language settings that do not match the language your customers actually browse in.
• Ad schedules that only permit a couple of hours a day.

8. Dates, schedules and paused settings

Simple, extremely common, and easy to overlook because nothing appears broken.

• The campaign end date has passed, so status reads Ended.
• The campaign start date is in the future, so status reads Pending.
• The campaign, ad group, keyword or individual ad is paused.
• An ad schedule limits serving to hours or days you did not intend, or is set in a different time zone to your customers.
• An automated rule or script paused the campaign, often on a cost or performance trigger.
• A seasonality adjustment or a bid strategy change was scheduled and then forgotten.

9. Keyword and negative keyword issues

An ad group can be perfectly configured and still serve nothing if the keywords cannot trigger it.

• Low search volume keywords are marked inactive by Google until volume increases.
• Exact match on highly specific long tail terms with almost no monthly searches.
• Negative keywords, often at shared list or account level, blocking your own core terms.
• A broad negative such as free or cheap unintentionally excluding a large share of relevant queries.
• Conflicting negatives added by a previous manager or an imported list.
• Duplicate keywords across campaigns competing with each other, so only one serves.

10. Conversion tracking and Smart Bidding

Automated bidding strategies depend on conversion data. When that data breaks, the strategy behaves conservatively and delivery collapses, often without any obvious error.

• A site migration, theme change or consent banner update removed or blocked the conversion tag.
• Consent mode or a cookie banner is preventing conversions from being recorded.
• The conversion action was set to a category or count setting that no longer matches how it is used.
• Target CPA or target ROAS is set at a level the account has never historically achieved.
• The strategy is inside a learning period following a significant change, typically around a week.
• Too few conversions per month for the strategy to have meaningful signal.

11. Landing page and technical faults

Google checks destinations continuously, not just at review time. A page that breaks after approval can cause disapproval days or weeks later.

• The destination URL returns a 404, a 500 error or times out.
• An expired SSL certificate causing a browser security warning.
• A redirect chain that sends users to a different domain than the display URL.
• Geo-blocking or bot protection serving different content to Google's crawler, which is treated as cloaking.
• A site that is unusable on mobile, or blocks the back button.
• Tracking template or ValueTrack parameter errors that break the final URL.
• An interstitial, pop-up or app download prompt that obstructs the content.

12. You are searching for your own ads

Everything may be working and you simply cannot see it. Searching Google for your own ads is unreliable and mildly harmful: it records impressions without clicks, which depresses click-through rate, and Google limits how often it shows you the same ad.

The numbers worth knowing

Frequently asked questions