The need for instant gratification is a fundamental consumption habit, but with digital advertising, the delay between purchase (starting an advertising campaign) and gratification (receiving new business from advertising) is often at a considerable delay. Therefore, when businesses invest in Search Engine Marketing, often they look for quick gratification in another form – once their strategist announces a new campaign has been launched, they head to a search engine, type in a keyword, and look for their own ads.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy can\u2019t I see my own ads?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This is completely understandable – It\u2019s a business owner’s duty to ensure their marketing dollars are appropriated wisely. <\/span>The inability for a business owner to see their own ads is merely the desired gratification for their purchase in the form of a tangible item. <\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That said,<\/span> it is perfectly possible for a good campaign to <\/b>not <\/i><\/b>show ads when the business owner, employee, or someone else in the company looks for them<\/b>. Let\u2019s discuss why!<\/span><\/p>\n Before I tell you some legitimate reasons why you might not be seeing your own ad, <\/span>please<\/b> log in to Google AdWords, click on \u201cTools\u201d and click on \u201cAd Preview & Diagnosis.\u201d Set your location (if you have a location-specific service) and start testing the keywords you\u2019re wanting to appear for. If you aren\u2019t triggering an ad, the preview & diagnosis tool <\/span>will tell you the exact reason why<\/b>! Not only does this save you a wasted impression, it tells you the reason! \u00a0If your ad is showing, you can prove to yourself that you aren\u2019t crazy.<\/span><\/p>\n If the Ad Preview & Diagnosis Tool says your ads are running, here are other\u00a0reasons why you may not see your AdWords ads when you manually search for your keywords:<\/span><\/p>\n This might come as no surprise, but if you are targeting a region or area outside of your physical location, Google will not show you your own ads.<\/span><\/p>\n So, if I\u2019m running an ad for \u201cSan Diego Pool Cleaning Services,\u201d and my geographic settings are San Diego, CA but I\u2019m in Los Angeles, I won\u2019t see my own ad!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n You can fix it by clicking the Location tab in settings in the ad campaign and trying out one the following:<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve left your delivery method as the default one, \u201cstandard,\u201d this gives Google total control over when your ad shows. No one truly knows what the ratio is–is it one out of every five eligible searches? Ten?–except for Google says they will do their best to show your ads throughout the day. This means that if you search for your own ads, it might fall under the \u201cGoogle is choosing to not show you at this time\u201d situation of standard delivery. This is the main reason we prefer accelerated delivery.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s simple! Just click on the campaign you would like to set your delivery method for and then underneath the Daily budget tab in settings, click the delivery method, and select \u201caccelerated delivery method\u201d and save.<\/p>\n Finally, if your budget is tapped for the day, you won\u2019t see your ad. The best way to see if this is the case is to set your date range to \u201ctoday\u201d and see if the campaign where your desired search term exists in as a keyword has met or exceeded that daily budget amount. If it\u2019s the middle of the day and your ad <\/span>should<\/b> be showing, consider adjusting your ad schedule to have more control over when you\u2019re garnering traffic.<\/span><\/p>\n As I mentioned earlier, you can adjust your ad schedule to limit the number of hours per day your ad shows and selecting a time that best targets your audience but this can lead to another issue that we will discuss in a bit.<\/p>\n There is a possibility that the maximum cost per click (CPC) for your keywords are too high for your daily budget. If this is the case then you should consider lowering your bids or increasing your budget. On the contrary, your keywords bids might be too low for your google ad to show. You can fix bid simulators in your Google Ads account and estimate the impact of increasing or decreasing your bids. That might fix the problem.<\/p>\n As previously discussed, you can adjust your ad schedules to match the hours of the day that are most engaging for your targeting audience.<\/p>\n While this might be a good idea to evenly spread out your ad budget to specific hours, it is possible that even after customizing your ad hours the ad is still not showing. You can verify the following:<\/p>\n Do your research to know the hours when your audience is most likely to search your ad and then consider expanding your schedule to ensure that your schedule is not too narrow or is set to the wrong hours of the day.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, if you keep typing in \u201cbuy blue widgets\u201d over and over without clicking an ad, or especially without clicking your own ad, Google will stop serving ads to you altogether. They know you are not necessarily engaged with the ads that are being presented, so why waste their impressions?<\/span><\/p>\n Do you think this is the issue? If yes, don\u2019t worry we have an easy fix for you. The Ad Preview tool can help you show your ad as they appear in the Google search engine.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also possible that Google knows you spend time on your own domain (<\/span>www.buymybluewigets.com<\/span><\/a>) and, thus, won\u2019t serve an ad to you. They know you\u2019re familiar with the domain and brand, so it might not be \u201cnecessary\u201d to show you an ad that you otherwise wouldn\u2019t click since you already know about <\/span>www.buymybluewidgets.com<\/span><\/a> – after all, you own the company!<\/span><\/p>\n If the search term \u201cbuy blue widgets\u201d is very valuable to your business, and you\u2019re not triggering one of your own ads, there\u2019s a possibility that you aren\u2019t actually running that keyword. If you yourself built the campaign and know you added the keyword in, this might not apply. (Barring a low-quality score, bad match type, or low impression share due to rank or budget.) But if you have an agency managing your campaigns and you\u2019ve checked the previous five steps, it\u2019s possible that they simply aren\u2019t targeting that search term. And if that keyword is valuable to you or your business, it\u2019s worth having a discussion with your agency. <\/span><\/p>\n Focus on building ad groups keywords that are relevant to your ad. The closer the relevance of your keywords in an ad group, the higher the chances that they would show in users’ search queries.<\/p>\n Negative keywords can be a great tool to block undesired traffic, however, adding the wrong negative keywords can cancel the active keywords. Incorrect negative bids can be another reason your ad might not be showing.<\/p>\n You need to review your negative keywords and make sure that the keyword is eligible to run the ad.<\/p>\n Use bid simulators to place your negative bid to ensure that you are not knocking yourself out of the ad competition.<\/p>\n Now, let’s discuss some performance issues that might be one of the reasons that your google ad is not showing.<\/p>\n Your google ads may not be showing because your copy isn\u2019t keyword-focused. It is important to add your target keyword to your ad copy if you want your ad to rank highly in the paid search results.<\/p>\n Now that your ad copy is optimized, you should look at the relevance of your landing page. If your landing page is failing to help your user’s intent behind their search query, you\u2019ll likely do poorly in your ad auction.<\/p>\n Take a moment to think about what your potential users are trying to accomplish using the triggering keywords. Once you can identify this, you\u2019ll be able to better address their problems and perform better in the Google Ads auction.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you\u2019ve run through the ten steps above, and you\u2019ve confirmed that all settings are in place and you aren\u2019t using a computer known to Google with specific search behaviors. If you really want to be trigger ads for the search term \u201cbuy blue widgets,\u201d but you aren\u2019t every time you show, <\/span>this doesn\u2019t mean that your agency or AdWords consultant is failing you. <\/b>It\u2019s easy to point the finger in this case–may be the business is slow or hasn\u2019t picked up since you outsourced your SEM efforts–but, odds are, your keywords are running.<\/span><\/p>\n What you should ask is not \u201cWhy can\u2019t I see my ad?\u201d – the question should be, \u201cWhat does the data look like for \u2018this keyword I really care about\u2019?”<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If your consultant or strategist researched your business and knows what keywords matter within your vertical, they\u2019re probably running whatever you\u2019re looking for. <\/span>What you should ask is not \u201cWhy can\u2019t I see my ad?\u201d – the question should be, \u201cWhat does the data look like for \u2018this keyword I really care about\u2019?\u201d<\/b> If you\u2019re running the keyword and it has no clicks or impressions, check its impression share–are you losing anything due to rank or budget? If you don\u2019t see the keyword in your campaigns, create a new ad group with that keyword and its own ad within. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n If you have a budget of $1,000 per month and you sell shoes, don\u2019t be shocked if you aren\u2019t triggering ads for \u201cNike shoes\u201d or \u201cNike.\u201d In the industry, we call these \u201chead terms,\u201d which means they are very top-of-funnel searches with low buying intent. A smart SEM strategist will build out keywords that match your budget, so at $1,000 per month, they will focus on bottom-of-funnel, high intent keywords that are often very long-tailed variants. But if you have a million dollars per month and care about brand awareness, lifetime customer value, and are in it for the long haul, \u201cNike\u201d or \u201cNike shoes\u201d as keywords aren\u2019t that far off base.<\/span><\/p>\n In short, don\u2019t search for your own ads: you can see exactly what they look like in the Ad Preview & Diagnosis Tool. If you don\u2019t see them in there, follow the steps above to make sure you\u2019re eligible where you should be. When you are talking with your strategist, don\u2019t ask why you can\u2019t see your ads – \u00a0just ask \u201c<\/span>what does the data look like<\/b> for this keyword\u201d<\/b>. The answer will give you a lot better idea of your strategist’s level of expertise, and the health of your account.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n
Why You Might Not Be Seeing Your Ad:<\/b><\/h2>\n
![\"Ad](\"http:\/\/52.203.240.20\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Ad-Preview-Tool-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n1. Settings: Geographic targeting<\/h3>\n
![\"Settings](\"http:\/\/52.203.240.20\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Settings-Location.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHow to Fix It<\/h4>\n
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2. Settings: Delivery Method<\/h3>\n
![\"Settings](\"http:\/\/52.203.240.20\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Settings-Delivery.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHow to Fix It<\/h4>\n
3. Settings: Campaign budget<\/h3>\n
How to Fix It<\/h4>\n
4. Settings: Ad Schedule<\/h3>\n
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How to Fix It<\/h4>\n
5. Google\u2019s Knowledge Of Your Search Behavior<\/h3>\n
How to Fix It<\/h4>\n
6. Google\u2019s Knowledge Of Your Familiarity With Your Own Domain<\/h3>\n
<\/span>7. You\u2019re Not Actually Targeting That Search Term<\/h3>\nHow to Fix It<\/h4>\n
8. Negative Keywords<\/h3>\n
How to Fix It<\/h4>\n
Performance Issues<\/h2>\n
9. Ad Copy Isn’t Optimized<\/h3>\n
10. Landing Page Isn’t Relevant<\/h3>\n
Why You Shouldn\u2019t Care About Seeing Your Own Ad<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Be Realistic With Yourself And Your Agency<\/b><\/h2>\n
Conclusion<\/b><\/h2>\n