So, your company is paying big bucks for Google Ads, but your Google Ads not showing in search has you wondering what went wrong.
However, this isn’t always a problem.
But if you don’t see them with the Ad Preview tool or Google’s Ad Preview feature, something’s wrong.
Fortunately, there is usually a good reason your Google ads don’t appear.
Below, we delve into the most common causes for Google Ads not showing and what to do about it.
Some of the reasons they don’t show are technical or administrative issues, while others are tied to ad rank, ad auction, or ad visibility issues within your campaign settings that affect whether your ads appear in search results.

Most Google Ads account holders pay for their ads with automatic credit card or debit payments. Google charges the account when you get to your payment limit or threshold. It also will charge your card at the end of the month’s billing period.
For your transactions to be processed, the payment details on your card need to be up to date. If Google can’t charge your card, your ads will stop running — one of the most common reasons Google Ads aren’t showing.
This is one of the most common reasons for Google Ads not showing or not running. So make sure your payment information is accurate when setting up your account. Many account holders also have their credit card expire and they forget to update the information.
Double-check your billing information and ensure your card hasn’t expired. Even small errors in payment setup can pause ad delivery until resolved.
If you see ‘Low search volume’ in your account, you probably target long-tail keyword’s that few searchers are looking for. While targeting long-tail terms can sometimes pay off, keywords with very low search volume can stop your Google Ads from showing.
Your ad rank plays a key role in whether your search ads appear. But this won’t happen if they are stopping your Google ads from showing up. The ad auction depends on multiple factors — low bids, low-quality ads, or poor ad relevance — Google Ads may choose not to display them, and your ad groups might lose visibility.
You can fix the problem by regularly checking your Google Ads dashboard to see if any of your keywords have been marked as low-volume. In some cases, using a broader or more commercially focused keyword can improve visibility in search results. Make sure your keyword list aligns closely with your ad copy, target audience, and ad scheduling preferences. If necessary, raise your bids to stay competitive.
Balancing specific and high-intent phrases ensures your google search ads stay active and eligible in the ad auction.
Remember: ad rank depends on your bid amount, quality score, expected click-through rate, landing page experience, and how well your ad matches the searcher’s intent.
Google Ads also evaluates relevance between your ad and the search query. Relevance is one of the most powerful drivers of your ads performance. If your ad experience or relevance is low, your ad rank will drop, affecting ad visibility.
Focus on strong messaging that matches what your audience is searching for. Use the Ad Preview tool to see how your ads appear in search results and adjust accordingly.
If you’re using exact match keywords, ensure they closely align with your ad message and target intent. This helps your ad groups perform better and improves overall engagement. If your ad doesn’t match what your target audience is searching for, revise the message to better address their needs and intent.
For example, if one ad group focuses on “Google Ads management services,” don’t mix it with unrelated topics like “SEO consulting.” Doing so can reduce your quality score, lower your ad rank, and limit visibility in results.
Each ad group should contain:
This clarity improves performance during the ad auction and boosts engagement over time.

Google evaluates ads based on how relevant they are to what the person is searching for. Google Ads also evaluates your landing page experience and landing page content. But it also judges by how relevant your landing pages is to the ad and keyword. If your landing page experience is poor, not optimized, or if it doesn’t match what users expect after clicking your ad, your Google Ads not showing may result from lower performance.
Solve the problem by examining the targeted keywords you target and thinking about what the searcher is looking for.
What are the questions the searcher has? What is causing their problem? What are they looking for to solve their issue?
A high-performing page should answer user questions, offer value, and connect directly to your ad promise. The stronger the relationship between your ad and landing page, the better your results will be.
Make sure your page loads quickly, uses the same messaging as your ad copy, and is optimized for mobile users.
Some advertisers simply don’t put enough time, effort, and research into the quality of the landing pages. But this an essential part of successful campaigns.
Remember, your landing page is not just a destination — it’s part of your ad’s quality score calculation. The more relevant and user-friendly it is, the better your ad rank and the higher your visibility in auctions.

Using negative keywords in your ad campaigns ensures you don’t spend money on undesired search traffic. But be careful when you set up negative keywords with broad match modified. If you add conflicting terms, they might block valuable impressions.
For example, adding an exact match negative keyword can accidentally block a valuable phrase that’s closely related to your target audience.
To prevent this, check the negative keyword list and ensure that you don’t have any that cancel out keywords in any ad groups, and periodically review your search term reports to catch new opportunities. Keeping these clean ensures you’re exclusively advertising to users who are truly interested in your offer.
Your keyword quality score is a key performance metric in every Google Ads account. A low score signals to Google that your ad or landing page content doesn’t align well with searcher intent.
Google assigns a quality score (1–10) based on:
When your score is low, it reduces your ad rank and makes your Google Ads aren’t showing for valuable searches — even if you’re bidding competitively.
To improve, start by grouping keywords more strategically. Each ad group should have a focused theme. Write ad copy that matches the keyword intent exactly, and optimize the corresponding landing page for relevance.
Over time, you’ll notice improved CTR, lower CPC, and better placement in the ad auction.
Sometimes your Google Ads simply aren’t active. They may be paused, disapproved, or removed.
If that’s the case, check your ad groups and look at the ad status in your Google Ads campaign dashboard.
Keeping an eye on your Change History ensures you catch these small but impactful changes early before your Google Ads aren’t showing again.
You may need to review Google’s ad policies.
If your Google Ads focus on a geographic location outside your area or have mismatched language settings, your Google Ads aren’t showing in those markets.
Also, if your campaign focuses on only a specific audience, visibility may be limited. Check your campaign settings and make sure your the ads are targeting the right users.
This is particularly important for businesses exclusively advertising in niche markets — even small targeting errors can mean missing a large portion of your audience.
Sometimes Google will review ad accounts. This is for security, and the search engine will check that your billing information is accurate. During this time, your Google Ads aren’t showing.
Good news – the process only takes two or three days, then your ad status will show again. During this process, your Google Ads not showing is normal.
However, account reviews are part of Google’s business, so there isn’t anything you can do but wait.
If, for some reason, your Google Ads campaign is reviewed for more than three days, you will need to contact them.

Depending on how you have planned your Google Ad campaign, you could run through your ad budget too fast. For instance, some Google advertisers set up their ads to deliver quickly, which can lead to limited ad visibility.
If the ad campaign shows ‘limited by budget,’ it means your ads may not show because of your CPC compared to the allotted budget. Google Ads will try to spread the budget over the day for the best performance. So, your ads will not show each time a person looks for your keywords in Google.
Review the Ad Schedule Tab in your Google Ads dashboard— your search ads may not show at all hours. Adjusting your ad schedule can help you reach users during high-engagement times.
If your campaign shows “limited by budget,” either raise your budget or lower your bids to stay competitive in the campaign.
If you’re using Google Display Network ads, the Display Network Tab in your dashboard provides insights into placements and performance.
Display campaigns operate differently from search ads, relying on contextual placements and audience signals rather than keyword triggers.
To improve performance, ensure your ad groups and ad scheduling align with your brand’s visual campaigns. Target users at the right time and on the right platforms. Misalignment can easily result in your Google Ads aren’t showing across placements.
Regularly analyzing data from both search and display campaigns helps refine your targeting and maximize visibility across all networks.
There are many reasons for your Google Ads not showing — from billing issues and account reviews to ad rank, ad auction performance, or ad group configuration.
The good news? Once you pinpoint the issue, it’s usually easy to fix.
Regularly review your Ad Preview tool, ad status, and Ad Schedule Tab to ensure your Google Ads performing effectively and visible in search results.
Did you know that Google handles about 5.6 billion search queries per day?
If you want your accounting company to get more exposure, it’s essential to get as many visitors to your site as possible.
It helps a lot to have a high Google page rank for major accounting firm and CPA terms, but a pay-per-click campaign for accountants could be just what you need to set your company apart.

PPC campaigns are helpful for the accounting Firms profession for many reasons:
With Pay per click (PPC) advertising, your company’s name will appear above most results on search engine. This helps more potential clients find your business.
If your company doesn’t rank for a critical accounting keyword, you can design an ad that appears when the user types that word. Your company name and site will always get prominence above your competition with PPC ads.
With A successful PPC campaign, you have a lot of control. It’s possible to make campaign changes immediately.
Just choose the keywords you want to focus on, set how much you are spending, and write the ad.
PPC allows you to track people that click your accounting Firms or CPA website. With that data, you know which Google ads work and which don’t. You also learn which pages get the most visitors and the most effective keywords.
All of this information lets you tweak your ads for the most effectiveness over the long term.
Before setting up a PPC campaign, please review these best practices to get the most bang for your buck.

Your Pay per click (PPC) campaign should be regularly updated to ensure they are focused on the right keywords and prospects. That means you or your PPC manager need to look for the latest keyword opportunities to put into the campaign.
You can rely on many ways to find the latest keywords. One simple way is to review Google search results in your niche and look for keywords that you didn’t include in your digital marketing campaign.
Another way is using the Keyword Planner that is included in your account. This is a free tool loaded with ways to find the best and most competitive keywords. You also can review what the average cost per click is for each word. Then you can forecast what you will probably spend and the marketing budget you need.
This is essential for your accounting PPC campaign. Conversion tracking lets you check how many visitors have come to your site from the campaign. This could be through a website form, chat, or phone call.
You also can use micro-conversion that lets you see smaller types of engagement, such as signing up for the e-newsletter or downloading a white paper.
When you set up conversion tracking, you can watch how many contacts or sales have come from a period of time compared to the costs. You also will know which keywords, ads, and landing pages are the best performers. This allows you to fine-tune your paid search campaigns for the most cost-effective results.

It’s easy to get bogged down in your own company and campaign, but don’t forget to check what your competitors are up to. There are reports and tools within Google Ads that help you keep up with competitors.
Some of these tools are free, but you also can pay third parties to analyze your competition. A popular paid tool is Spyfu which shows the keywords your competitors pay for. Another good one is SERanking. Both offer a good look at what other marketers are paying every month for your keywords.
For every accounting ad group, you have in Google Ads, it’s advised to have two or three advertisements so you can test various promotions and variations. Google/search engines have several ad types you can choose from.
Google defaults to showing the best-performing ads the most. So you should watch your ads and continue running tests. Any ad that isn’t performing well should be analyzed and improved for the best digital marketing spend.
It might seem too obvious, but it’s surprising how many accounting firm target areas that don’t matter to their business. After all, if your office is in Seattle, you may not get a lot of traction running ads in Miami. Sure, some clients can be remote, but many people don’t want to use an accountant that isn’t in their town.
You can easily set up location targeting in your Google Ad account by clicking Settings, Locations, and City/Region/Zip Code.

The recommendations page in your Google account offers many helpful opportunities to improve your campaign. Recommendations are created automatically by Google’s algorithm when it sees chances to make your campaign better.
There are lots of recommendations on this page that can help your accounting PPC campaign. Some include dynamic search as, targeting and keywords, responsive search ads, and more.
You also will notice an optimization score. This is Google’s estimate of how well your account is performing. Applying their recommendations helps the campaign improve.
The list of keywords for accountants is often shorter than for other PPC ads advertisers. This means there are fewer search variations even when your campaign targets several geographic locations.
That said, you still might dig up a few long tail keywords that work well for your accounting business.
It’s often worthwhile to use board match keyword versions of other keywords and match types. Experts say it’s ideal to begin with phrase and exact match keywords. Then, put in broad match after a few weeks or months when you want more clicks.
Don’t neglect negative keywords, either. For accountants, this can include keywords that are related to people searching for jobs, careers, resumes, etc.
PPC is one of the most powerful and cost-efficient ways for accountants to grow their brand and practice. Use these tips and your accounting firm will be well ahead of the competition.
If you manage a pay-per-click (PPC) account, you may always search for ‘the best way’ to increase ad performance.
Many different strategies work for various companies, but one surefire way to get better PPC performance is to bid on your branded keywords.
At first glance, this sounds like a waste.
Why should you run ads on branded keywords that already give you a high organic Google/search engines listing?
We’re glad you asked because the reasons we offer in this article should convince you that spending money on branded keywords offers excellent PPC ROI.

Want the best strategy to control the message of your own brand Or brand keywords? Bid on it! The landing page and advertising copy you want prospects to go to when they look for your brand name can be highly controlled with pay-per-click advertising.
If you don’t use branded clicks and the prospect puts your company name in search, they usually go to the home page/search engine results page. That’s fine but it probably isn’t the page that is most likely to make them take action.
If you can control the message the prospect sees – such as highlighting your most popular product – it’s more likely they will take the action you want.
Say your company sells regulatory webinars and it’s currently offering a discount on an annual pass. When a prospect looks for your company name, you need to be sure they are aware of the discount in the advertisement copy.
When they click the ad, they will be sent to the landing page to learn everything about the yearly discount, which will include a call to action to get them to purchase.

Let’s say you decide to use a branded keyword campaign and it’s doing very well. That’s awesome and it comes with another benefit: It enhances your account’s/social media accounts Quality score.
Having a branded keyword part of your PPC campaigns means the account gets a better Quality Score, and having a higher grade is very important for search placement.
If you own a home or investment properties, you know their location is often more important than anything. Even if the home is really attractive, you could have problems if the neighborhood is so-so.
In a similar vein, using track-branded keywords helps you to own as many of the SERPs as possible. You want to do so with your regular Branded keywords ads, but it’s very difficult to show up in paid search ads and high organically for every Branded keyword.
Spending on branded keywords gives you a bigger boost. Your site will be high in the rankings organically. And, the branded ad also will appear.
A visitor may click either one, but it always helps to occupy more SERP real estate. The more of that space you occupy, the more likely the customer will wind up on your site.
Does it seem like your partners and affiliates present your brand and products well? Great! But don’t take that to mean you should never bid on your brand. The opposite is true, actually.
Working with partners and affiliates is worthwhile; it increases your market reach and potential revenues. But it’s understandable that you probably prefer to sell to your prospects directly.
When you bid on branded keywords, this makes sure the ad shows alongside ads that your partners and affiliates placed.
If you see bidding on your company brand by competitors, then you really need to start doing it.
Using branded keywords means raising your CTR and Quality Score. After all, branded keywords are highly relevant to your landing pages and ads.
Once you lock in that higher Quality Score, you get a lower CPC, too! Branded searches will automatically put branded ads at the top of search results.
No one can guarantee that getting branded clicks to your site is cheaper than others. But many in the industry say this is often true.
Also, the price for non-branded Keyword and branded keywords can be really different. There are some companies that pay up to $20 per click for non-branded keyword but only $2 for branded keywords!
You can track organic searches with a search console, but the functionality is limited. With a paid search/digital marketing campaign and branded keywords, you will gain valuable information about your customers.
You’ll collect branded keyword data from ad licks but you can take advantage of ad extensions to get even more insights and data.
Conversion tracking with a PPC ads campaign also lets you collect information on demographics, and you can find out the days and times you get the most site Organic traffic. With this critical data, you will be able to make improved decisions about your ads and SEO or search engine optimization strategy.
If you try various versions of branded keywords Or Find branded keywords, you could discover search results that give you more insight into your customers.
Some companies say they found new target markets they can target with unique landing pages. And it all comes from just using branded keywords as part of your Digital marketing efforts.
If you aren’t convinced to bid on your branded keywords after reviewing our list, your reluctance is understandable; who wants to spend unnecessary money on ads? However, experience shows that bidding on branded keywords could give you some of the best ROI in your Digital marketing spend.

If your company is operating a pay-per-click or PPC campaigns, you should spend some of your ad budgets on branded keywords. Some experts say you should dedicate about 15% of your ad budget to branded keywords.
This is an effective strategy because it’s some of the least expensive web traffic you can get. Also, by targeting branded search terms:
Running online ads is about getting the most bang for your buck. If you aren’t getting a return on your ad campaign, it’s a waste.
Obviously, more sales will help increase your return. But lowering the cost of running an ad campaign/PPC Campaign will increase your return as well.
That’s where PPC (pay-per-click) automation comes in. It helps you save time and money by streamlining manual processes on the backend.
PPC automation refers to managing and optimizing your multiple PPC campaigns through technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
The more PPC campaigns you have and the bigger they are, the more important/Best PPC automation becomes.
There are two types of PPC automation software:
Both types of PPC automation software help you scale your Google ads campaigns.
But where do you start?
Well, here are 12 PPC automation tools you can try today:
Custom builds are rule-driven automations that allow you to customize just about anything on an ad. It’s also the most complicated form of automation and will take an experienced coder to build.
Artificial intelligence for PPC can play a significant role in custom builds.
Scripts are data-driven automations that use javascript code. They tell ads to follow certain functions based on how they perform. For example, you can have scripts for ad schedules that determine when it’s best to run a particular ad.
Though you can custom program ad scripts, you can also choose scripts from Google’s library of code scripts for free. No coding required.

Google Ads Editor is a free downloadable program that helps you create, track, and edit Google Ads. It also lets you make bulk changes across multiple accounts at the same time. For a free program, it’s hard to beat.

Semrush’s PPC Ads Toolkit helps you track and assess google ads across search engines and social media platforms. With it, you can perform keyword research and see how your google ads perform against your competitors. Subscriptions start at $119.95/month.

Swydo provides automated ad reporting and monitoring. It integrates data sets from different ad platforms like Facebook Insights and Google Ads so you can have it all in one place. You can try Swydo for free, after which the pricing starts at $39/month.

Optmyzr is a PPC automation tool you can use with Bing ads and Adwords. It uses AI to help you add and remove keywords, change placements on display networks, change bids, and more. They offer a free trial, after which subscriptions start at $208/month.

Spyfu is a competitor keyword research tool that gives you keyword ideas. But it also helps you do backlink outreach, run custom reports, and more. As of this writing, they have a limited-time $9/month offer. But their regular basic plan starts at $33/month.

AdEspresso is a one-stop solution for managing and optimizing your ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google. It helps you save time from switching between different platforms and channels.
Plus, AdEspresso lets you collaborate with client accounts if you run Google ads for others. You can test it with a free 14-day trial, after which pricing starts at $49/month.

Google Data Studio isn’t strictly a PPC automation tool. But it helps you visualize data with custom reports. This is nice for importing ad campaign/PPC Campaign data and sharing it with others in meetings. Importing Google ad data is especially easy. And best of all, it’s free.

Zapier isn’t just a PPC automation tool either. But it can save you time on your PPC ads campaign by automating workflows. Any manual tasks that you find yourself doing repeatedly, you can automate through a “zap.” Try it out for yourself with a free trial and then pay as little as 19.99/month.

Adzooma helps you manage your ad campaign across Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. What’s unique about this tool is its ability to check accounts every 30 minutes to automatically adjust ad budgets and improve performance.
You can also set up custom alerts to react to changes immediately. Try it for free for limited features and then upgrade to a paid plan later.

Smec is geared toward ecommerce ad campaign. It helps you manage and automate ad campaign across multiple platforms and provides retail insights about shopping behavior so you can identify opportunities to grow your business. If you’re in the retail space, Smec is a must.
Whatever PPC automation tools you choose, be prepared to invest some time into learning how to use it.
You may not see results immediately, but eventually, your ad campaign will perform better, and you’ll need to ad spend less time on them.
If you’d rather not bother with tools at all, consider partnering with PPC.co. We provide comprehensive PPC Campaign management services /PPC Managers with proven results.
Our expert team can optimize your google ad campaigns across Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more. Whether you’re struggling with display ads or Google Ads retargeting, we can help.
We can also help you combine your SEO and PPC strategies so they effectively match!
Contact us today to get a free proposal!
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