Many advertisers face the situation when they launch an advertising campaign on Google Ads but cannot find their ads in the search results. This does not necessarily mean that the ad is not working or that there is a problem. Here are all the possible reasons why you can’t see your ads.

1. Low budget

If you have a limited daily campaign budget, Google may distribute your ad impressions evenly throughout the day or stop them when the budget is exhausted.

2. Low ad rank

Ad Rank is defined as the product of the bid, ad quality, and the impact of extensions. If the rating is too low, your ad may not be displayed.

3. Incorrect geo-targeting

If a campaign is set up for a specific region and you are looking for ads from another location, they simply won’t show up for you.

4. Low bid in the auction

If the CPC is not high enough, competitors may crowd out your ad, making it impossible to display it.

5. Device restrictions

If an ad is set up for certain types of devices (e.g., mobile) and you search for it on a PC, it will not be displayed.

6. Impression Share

Google may limit the number of times your ads are shown if they don’t win enough auctions due to low bids or a limited budget.

7. Use of personalized searches

Google personalizes search results based on your browsing history. If you’ve searched for your ad many times but haven’t clicked on it, Google may stop showing it to you.

8. Time targeting

If you set a specific time for your campaign to run, your ad will not be displayed outside of that timeframe.

9. Disabled keywords

If the campaign keywords are in the Paused or Rejected status, ads will not be shown for these queries.

10. Lack of relevance of the query

If your query does not match the keywords or variations of keywords in the campaign, ads will not be displayed.

11. Poor quality of the landing page

If Google believes that a landing page is of low quality or has a poor user experience, it can affect ad impressions.

12. Disabled ad or campaign

An ad, ad group, or campaign may be in a Paused or Disabled status.

13. Ad rejection

If an ad violates Google’s policies (for example, contains prohibited content), it may be rejected and will not be visible in the SERP.

14. Competition

In highly competitive niches, other advertisers may have higher bids and better quality ads, which may result in your ad being pushed out of the auction.

15. Use of restrictive negative keywords

If you have added negative keywords that overlap your search queries, your ads will not be shown for these queries.

16. Problems with payment

If your account has payment issues (insufficient funds, declined card), ads will not be displayed.

17. Dynamic ad rotation

If you set up uniform rotation or optimization, Google may show different variants of ads, and a particular variant may not appear in the search.

18. Ad extensions

If an ad has an extension (e.g., phone number, link to a website), it may not appear in every query due to Google’s algorithms.

19. Violation of Google Ads policy

If your account has restrictions due to previous policy violations, this may affect your ad visibility.

Conclusion

If you don’t see your ads, it doesn’t mean that they are not working. The best way to check your impressions is to use a report in Google Ads or the Ads Preview and Diagnostics tool. It is also important to analyze campaign metrics to find possible causes and fix problems.