For an advertising campaign to work, the ads must meet Google’s requirements. Below are some of the most common errors that can be an obstacle to the display of Google Ads text ads. At the same time, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that in some cases new ads may be accepted “from the machine” and displayed until Google notes that they are inconsistent with the company’s policy. That is why from the very beginning it is worth ensuring compliance with advertising rules.

Potential errors in the Google Ads campaign

Items that may cause your ad to be rejected or disapproved:

– no editorial requirements met – Google cares about the high quality of advertisements and the message presented to Internet users. For this reason, it may block texts that are not transparent or professional, i.e. texts that:

– they present too short and general ads containing unclear information or abbreviations that are difficult to understand,

– exceed the permissible number of characters,

– they contain too many special characters, punctuation and symbols, e.g. exclamation marks, question marks, etc.,

– contain illegal punctuation in the header, e.g. exclamation marks,

– are a combination of different characters, e.g. 4DID4S,
– use only uppercase letters, e.g. HIGH-QUALITY SILK SHIRTS, RICH COLOR OFFER. BUY NOW,
– they were written contrary to the rules of spelling or grammar
– they contain a too general or mismatched call to action, eg “Click here”,
– they contain emoticons in addition to standard text,
– they have too many or too few spaces between characters / words,
– they have a phones number in the content of the ad,

– no min. 2 headers – Google currently allows (in standard, so-called extended text ads) to use up to 3 headers and 2 lines of text. There is no obligation to use the third heading and the second line of text, but for the advertisement to be accepted it must have at least 2 headers,

– illegal content in advertising text – this is content related to products that cannot be advertised as part of Google Ads, e.g. alcohol, medicines, gambling. Please also note that Google may preventively disapprove content that “associates” with prohibited products,

– illegal content on the landing page – as above, this is content about products that are prohibited from advertising. An example would be the situation of one of our customers who had T-shirts in their offer printed with glasses of champagne. Information about the overprint, which was included in the product description on the page, resulted in the rejection of ads,

– promoting counterfeit products – since Google absolutely prohibits the advertising and sale of counterfeits, all products that only imitate the features of a particular brand will not be accepted or will be rejected,

– shocking, offensive, erotic, promoting hatred, intolerance, discrimination or violence – Google pays special attention to mutual respect and tries not to offend the feelings of Internet users. For this reason, it is not possible to advertise, e.g. firearms, products targeted at a selected ethnic group or use vulgar language in the content of advertisements,

– content impossible to verify – slogans such as: “Manufacturer of the best coffee grinders”, “Running shoes No. 1 in the world”, “Most frequently bought dietary supplements”, “The best diet catering – no competition has any chance with us”,

– problems arising from the landing page – Google very much wants internet users clicking on ads to be satisfied with what they will see after switching to the website. The landing page must therefore first of all work and be useful for Internet users. The following page issues may cause your ads to be disapproved:

– targeting ads to a dead landing page,
– no connection between the displayed URL and the actual website address, e.g. “google.com” redirects the internet user to “gmail.com”,
– it is not possible to display the page in standard browsers,
– no possibility to click the “Back” button in the browser.

The great advantage of the Google Ads system is the fact that after rejecting the ad, there is no need to combine and guess what could be the reason for this. Yes, as you can see in the above screenshots, if the advertisement cannot be accepted at the stage of its creation, the system always gives the reason for the inability to save the advertisement. However, if the system rejects an ad that has been running for some time, its status (in the Google Ads panel) is changed to “Disapproved”, and when you hover over the ad approval status, you’ll be given an explanation of the problem.

In addition, on Google support pages you can find a lot of valuable information and tips on editorial and technical requirements related to advertising, which should be taken into account at the very beginning of the campaign.