I’m paying for it. So why can’t I find my PPC Ads?

Did You Plug it In? Check the Basics First

Just like in real life, before you call the repairman, you need to make sure you’ve plugged it in, and the same goes for PPC advertising. Check the very basics first, including:

  • Campaign, ad group or ad has not been paused or removed, intentionally or unintentionally.
  • Billing information is correct, credit card is authorized.
  • Daily budget is not depleted.
  • Ad is approved by Google/Bing and not against their advertising policies.
  • Targeted keyword is not against Google/Bing advertising policies.
  • Make sure you’re searching in the right search engine that your campaign is set up to run in.

Did you Forget to go to the Bank? Your Daily Budget is Limited, You’re Below the First Page Bid or your Bid is Higher than Your Daily Budget

Unless you have Ad Scheduling set to a specific time and day your ads should be shown, Google and Bing will spread your ad impressions throughout the day. But if there are more opportunities than there is budget, your ad won’t show every time. Beside each ad in the Status column, Google and Bing let you know if your daily budget is limited. Related to budgeting issues, is if your keyword bid is higher than your daily budget. If this is the case, your ad will never show for that keyword. Also, it could be that your bid just isn’t high enough to land on the first page, and therefore, you will need to go past the first page to find your ad. Google and Bing kindly let you know about this issue as well.

Did you Leave Your Wallet at Home? You’re in the Wrong Location, at the Wrong Time, and You’ve Been Blacklisted

Most good marketers, because they don’t want to waste their ad budgets, blacklist their own company URL so employees don’t waste precious impressions and clicks. Consequently, employees never see the company search engine ads and this may be the case as to why you’re not seeing it either. Hand-in-hand with this issue, is whether you’re targeting the location (city, town, country) that you’re actually trying to search from. If your location isn’t being targeted, you won’t see the ad. And finally, if your marketing team figured out the best time in a day for people to see your ad, and have scheduled the ads to run only those times, well you get the picture. You need to make sure that your searching via the same variables that are being targeted.

Are you Using the Right Key? Negative Keywords and Matching Issues

As in life, if you don’t have the right key, you can’t get through the door, and so it goes with search engines. Make sure that you’re trying to search with the keywords that your campaigns are actually set up to target. On the other hand, negative keywords that have been set up to be a broad match or a phrase match, may also be effecting your search in ways you hadn’t thought of, thereby stopping your ad from showing.

Is Your Home Below Standard? Low Search Volume and Low Quality Score

Google and Bing will both tell you if you’ve chosen keywords where there’s not enough searches on average, causing your ad not display. This often happens when Search Marketers concentrate on long tail keywords, which are often less competitive and deliver more relevant clicks, but consequently, they will have less people searching and in some cases, just not enough. Low Quality Score means that Google/Bing really aren’t happy with your ad, don’t believe it will garner many relevant clicks, and they think your landing page isn’t up to snuff. Best to work on increasing your quality score, rather than letting the ad only occasionally show. All of this info is given to you via the status column.

Can you Keep Up with the Joneses? Competitors are out Bidding and out Optimizing you

Obviously, if your bid is lower, or their ads have a higher quality score, or various other reasons, your competitors may just be winning most of the auctions. Which is why you need to consider hiring a company that’s an expert in PPC, such as us. Contact us at info@searchwarrant.ca, we’re here to help.

Finding peace with avoidance. Try the Ad Preview Tool

To avoid many of the issues outlined above, we recommend that clients take advantage of the Ad Preview Tool to view ads and how they show based on keywords. For starters, the impression won’t count against your campaign and Google/Bing won’t think there’s something wrong with your ad because it keeps being shown but no one ever clicks on it. But just as importantly, the results will be based on an average and not based on your own personal search history.

We know lots more tricks of the trade. Try reading some other PPC relevant blog posts such as: