Whether you’re a PPC pro or a newbie, it can be confusing when you’ve set up your ads and Google flags them as disapproved. What have you done wrong?

Google is cracking down on poor quality ads and have been doing so for quite some time now, even diving into your paused ads to flag them as disapproved. Not only will your ads stop running if they are flagged as disapproved, leading to loss of leads, traffic and visibility, it is also possible that Google may suspend your Google Ads account if you are a repeat offender.

Paused Ads

If you are a small-medium business that handles their own PPC account, you likely don’t have a lot of time to focus on your campaign as it is – let alone with dozens of disapprovals to fix. The best first step is to delete any old paused ads that have been flagged as disapproved, this saves confusion (and time) so that you can focus only on the disapprovals that are preventing your existing ads from showing.

Now you can move on to your LIVE disapproved ads.

Why Is My Ad Disapproved?

Google has many guidelines that webmasters, and agencies, need to follow in order for their ads to show in the search results and across the Google Search Network. Here are 8 of the most comment reasons that ads get disapproved:

  • Inappropriate themes: Google won’t approve your ads if they contain topics or terms they deem offensive. Examples of this would be adult only content, gambling or weapons.
  • Copyright: If another brand has copyrighted a word or phrase that you have used in your ad, it will be disapproved. Aim to find a similar word/phrase or change your ad completely.
  • Telephone Numbers: If your actual ad text contains your business phone number, it will be disapproved. Google have especially adapted Phone Extensions that you can add to every ad in your account, so there is no need to include it in your ad text.
  • Character Limit: Google’s ads have character limits, and for good reason. The search results would become very messy if webmasters had free range of their ad size and would likely be abused to outrank competitors. If your ad text is too long it will get disapproved. Ensure that you follow Google guidelines and keep your headlines below 25 characters.
  • Caps Lock: Again, to prevent brands abusing the system, you are not allowed to use words in all caps within your ads. Use normal sentence or title case to get your message across and avoid all caps at all cost (unless it’s a promo code then all caps is allowed)
  • Trick Messaging: Any call to actions such as “click here” will be disapproved so why not try using a different call to action such as “buy now” or “shop the range”. Not only will these meet Google’s guidelines but also likely lead to a higher CTR than “click here”.
  • Punctuation: Similarly to caps lock offenders, be careful how you are using your punctuation. One exclamation point is allowed per ad but only in the description, never in the headline or URL path
  • Domain Discrepancies: Ensure that your ads are set up correctly and the final URL of all your ads match the root domain of your website you are promoting i.e. the display URL cannot be amazon.co.uk when your final URL is betterthanamazon.co.uk.

Ad disapprovals are annoying and can be time consuming, but they are crucial to the health of your Google Ads account and they must be resolved.

Don’t have time to manage your PPC campaign and would rather seek help from the experts? Get in touch with the In Front Digital team to discuss our PPC management service and get a free quote ?