Adwords Ad Display

Rumpelstiltskin

New member
Feb 28, 2010
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This is really bugging me. I set up an adwords campaign for my dad's local business store targeting searchers in the New York area. I set up the landing page, keywords and ad copies and the campaign is up and running with a QS of 7/10. I checked the campaign and saw that there was one keyword, let's call it 'roof repair', which has a high CTR for us. We have a QS of 6/10 for this keyword, but we were only getting a few impressions for it (plenty of other advertisers are showing up on the search page for this keyword), so I upped our bid for this keyword. This was three days ago.

Adwords is showing that we're getting impressions and clicks for this keyword, but when I ran a search for this keyword on google's ad preview tool, our ad doesn't show up anywhere on the page. Ever. I checked the status of the keyword and it's showing up as 'Eligible' and 'Yes' for whether it's being displayed. There are no problems listed for the keyword, or with it's QS or for the ad copy/LP tied to it. But we never see our ad for this keyword when we search for it.

I ran ad diagnostics for this keyword and set the location as New York, and it says "Your ad is not being shown for this keyword" and under reason, it says "Your ads are only set to show to users in a certain geographic location", which is motherfucking New York! I went back to the diagnostics page, deleted the general location of New York area, and entered our IP (a Manhattan, New York IP) and it gave us the same message again - "Your ad is not being shown for this keyword", including the same reason "Your ads are only set to show to users in a certain geographic location"


Any one know why we're not able to view our ad for this keyword even though we're searching from New York? We know the ad is being displayed because it's getting impressions and clicks, but we just never see it. We see our ads for the rest of our keywords like 'roof repair new york', but never for 'roof repair'. It's really bugging the shit outta me :mad:
 


Are you sure your IP is being recognized by Google as a NY IP?
That was my suspicion as well, but our ads are being shown for 'roof repair new york', but not for 'roof repair' and both those keywords are in the same ad group and targeted at the same location.
 
Try using their preview tool?
Yeah, I always use the preview tool and not actual google since that affects the QS adversely (by raising impressions and thereby lowering CTR). I'm seeing my ad for 'roof repair new york' when using the preview tool, but not for 'roof repair'.

This is starting to piss me off now. Both keywords are in the same ad group, have the same QS, show no probs in their keyword analysis field, are targeted to the same location, and yet, I only see my ads for one keyword and not the other.
 
Your Click Through Ratio or Click Bid is too low so you're probably being shown on a deeper page...
That was my second suspicion, so I checked keyword analysis (which normally tells you if your bid is too low for the first page) and didn't see any problems listed there. In fact, the QS (which is based on CTR) is pretty decent. I bumped up my bid anyway to a ridiculous number and still nothing.

Besides, the most important part is this - the ad diagnostics tool is saying my ad is not being displayed for 'roof repair' since I'm targeting a specific location and will only be shown to users in that area (which is where I'm searching from). But my ad is showing up on the first page for 'roof repair new york' which is targeting the exact same location!
 
I'd give it a few days (1-3)... Usually these things fix themselves, if it doesn't, contact Adwords support.

Adwords is extraordinarily buggy and annoying to use, which is perplexing, because usually their applications are pretty much bug free and easy to use.
 
I'd give it a few days (1-3)... Usually these things fix themselves, if it doesn't, contact Adwords support.

Adwords is extraordinarily buggy and annoying to use, which is perplexing, because usually their applications are pretty much bug free and easy to use.
Yeah, I was afraid of that. Since it's been over 3 days, I contacted adwords support and some idiot replied back with a completely unrelated link. I replied back with my original query and added "Please take a minute to read my query correctly - " in bold.
 
same thing exactly happened to one of our local campaings as well; same adgroup, but general kws without geomodifiers did not show up; try separating campains - one for general kws and one for city-modified, both targeting NYC. Support won't help you.
 
Yeah, I was afraid of that. Since it's been over 3 days, I contacted adwords support and some idiot replied back with a completely unrelated link. I replied back with my original query and added "Please take a minute to read my query correctly - " in bold.

Don't bother emailing them -- pick up the phone and call!
 
same thing exactly happened to one of our local campaings as well; same adgroup, but general kws without geomodifiers did not show up; try separating campains - one for general kws and one for city-modified, both targeting NYC. Support won't help you.

Thanks Nefig. I'll try this, hopefully it'll work.


Don't bother emailing them -- pick up the phone and call!

I called adwords support, it asked me to enter my customer ID, after I did that it told me to go look up adwords help online. I guess I'm not spending enough to speak to a human.
 
Yeah, I always use the preview tool and not actual google since that affects the QS adversely (by raising impressions and thereby lowering CTR). I'm seeing my ad for 'roof repair new york' when using the preview tool, but not for 'roof repair'.

This is starting to piss me off now. Both keywords are in the same ad group, have the same QS, show no probs in their keyword analysis field, are targeted to the same location, and yet, I only see my ads for one keyword and not the other.
Stupid question, but do you have this keyword exact matched, or just phrase or broad matched?

Also, when using the ad preview tool, choose multiple cities in the state. Roof repair seems like a very geo-specific keyword, so different cities/towns will get you different ads.