Managing paid search and paid social requires a significant strategic shift.
One of the biggest is understanding that paid search is good for old entities and paid social is good for new things.
That said, sometimes new campaigns or ad groups don’t run for good reason.
In this Ask The PPC, we’ll address that.
Rafiwa of Pretoria asked:
I decided to create a new ad group with three ad groups, but I’m not getting clicks or impressions on any of my ads and keywords. What could be the reason?
Note that this article will cover common reasons why an entity is not getting any clicks.
Every account is different, and if you think there is an issue, it’s best to submit any issues to Network Support.
Reason #1: Date Wrong
The most common and frustrating obvious reason is that we don’t always have the correct date range.
This may be because we are analyzing another part of the campaign or using a different account.
Set the date range in the upper right corner to include at least yesterday and today.
You may also inadvertently set a future start date.
Check the start and end dates in your campaign settings.
After confirming that the date range is correct, you can move on to other technical fixes.
Reason 2: Ad disapproved
You will be notified when an ad is disapproved.
Sometimes these can get lost in email filters or spam.
If you find that your ad is disapproved, please check for valid reasons (eg editorial policies, restricted industries, etc.) or ad network errors.
Active ad disapprovals need to be corrected, and you can appeal the disapproval in the ad interface.
Sometimes ads fall into restricted categories accidentally because of wording choices.
The following words sometimes trigger red flags unexpectedly:
- Credit.
- housing.
- broker.
- loan.
You may also have editing issues without even realizing it.
Here are the most common editorial issues in advertising:
- Include phone numbers in ad text (must be included in the calling extension).
- use all caps (For example, “Free” or “Trial”).
- Using punctuation in the wrong places (eg “!” in the title instead of the description).
Reason #3: Keywords have no search volume
There’s nothing worse than being told that your ideal keywords don’t have a quantity.
However, some industries have naturally lower search volumes because their products/services are very niche.
If your keyword has low search volume, it won’t run.
A good middle ground is to use broad match for your long tail keywords.
Broad match allows audience signals to tell ad networks how to match your keywords to queries.
This extra queue could mean the difference between having enough data to serve and getting stuck in a low search quandary.
Reason #4: Bid too low / Bid strategy doesn’t make sense
Brand new accounts will not benefit from conversion data.
This means that bid strategies like Max Conversions and Max Conversion Value will struggle to set meaningful bids early in an ad group or campaign.
If the budget bid is too high (more than 10% of the daily budget), it may be difficult for the ad network to enter the keyword into the auction.
Be sure to set bids and bid strategies based on your industry and account age.
Reason #5: Accidental exclusion
Ad groups inherit negative terms from their campaigns.
You may have a negative keyword list or campaign-level negative keywords that block the keywords you’re actively bidding on.
Audiences can be applied at the ad group and campaign level, so the targeting of new ad groups can be adjusted.
That said, make sure you have the correct exclusions and confirm if you intend to target and watch.
Targeting and observing prevents anyone who isn’t part of your target audience from triggering your ad — meaning you’re excluding your audience, but not actively excluding them.
last point
There are several reasons why an ad group or campaign struggles to get traffic.
Be sure to check out these hidden pitfalls, and if you’re still struggling, contact your ad network representative.
Questions about PPC? Submit via this form or tweet @navahf using the hashtag #AskPPC. See you next month!
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Featured Image: Search Engine Journal/Paulo Bobita