Why is my ad not showing in the Google Ads ad preview tool?

Google gives two reasons, and the second is why a search of your own can mislead you.

• It counts. A search that shows your ad adds an impression. Impressions without clicks can lower your clickthrough rate, which Google says can keep your ad from appearing as often as it should.
• Google may stop showing it to you. If you look for your own ad again and again and never click it, you might stop seeing it entirely, because Google’s system stops showing you ads it thinks you aren’t interested in. Your ad is running, and you’re the one person who can’t see it.

The tool has neither problem. It also lets you see the page as someone else would: in another city, in another language, on a phone.

1. 01Go to Tools › Troubleshooting › Ad preview and diagnosis.
2. 02In the text box, enter the search to test. Google asks for a keyword that’s in your campaign, or closely related to one.
3. 03Set the Location, the Language and the Device to ones your campaign targets. A campaign that targets three states has no ad to show for a preview set somewhere else.
4. 04Select Preview.
5. 05Read the result. The tool tells you whether your ad is eligible to appear for those settings. An ad that is eligible to show on the first page is highlighted in green.

Share this search gives you an address for the preview, to bookmark or to send to a colleague or a client so they see the same results page. Google warns that the results may change over time: a preview of your ad may no longer appear once your campaign reaches its average daily budget.

A missing ad in the tool isn’t always a missing ad on Google. Google’s pages name these limits:

• Search only. The tool finds ads on the Google Search Network. It can’t locate an ad on the Display Network.
• The first page. An ad that is eligible and shows on the second page or later may not appear in the tool.
• One format. It shows one way your ad could be formatted. On another device or browser size the ad can look different, and your assets may not show with it every time.
• Gender and age targeting. Ads with some types of gender targeting can’t be diagnosed, and the tool is incompatible with age targeted campaigns. For those, Google says to read the campaign’s own statistics.
• One moment. The tool may not reflect all campaign activity, and a preview taken after the campaign reaches its average daily budget may have no ad in it.
• Reason Unknown. Where the tool says your ad isn’t showing and gives this as its reason, Google names two things to check: a bid strategy changed recently, so the campaign is still calibrating; and a keyword with too little search history, shown by a dash in its Quality Score column or a Low search volume status.

Google also says to check your account before you diagnose anything. No ad serves while an account is going through billing verification or is suspended for a security concern.

Yes. Google keeps a page at ads.google.com/anon/AdPreview, titled Anonymous Ad Preview Tool, that opens with no sign-in. It has the same search box, the same Location, Language and Device settings, and a Share button.

It previews and doesn’t diagnose. After a search the page reads Sign in to view diagnosis information, so it can show you whether an ad is on the results page and can’t tell you why yours isn’t. None of Google’s help pages read for this guide mentions the address: they describe the tool inside your account.

The preview tool reads one search at a time. The keyword table reads every keyword at once, and it’s where Google names the reason.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Audiences, keywords, and content › Search keywords.
2. 02Read the Status column. It says whether each keyword is showing ads, and where it isn’t, whether you paused something or there’s an issue with the keyword.
3. 03Hover over the speech bubble next to a keyword’s status. It says whether the keyword is showing ads, with its Quality Score. If it isn’t, Google explains why.
4. 04To diagnose many keywords at once, select the three-dot icon below the chart, then Diagnose keywords, choose your settings and select Run now. The report takes a few minutes, then lands in your browser’s downloads folder and under Reports.

One thing to know about what it tests. Google says the keyword diagnosis tests a search for the exact match version of a keyword, even if the keyword is phrase or broad match, and that the test isn’t comprehensive. So it answers one question: can this keyword show an ad on a search for its own words?

An ad has the same bubble. On the Ads tab, hover over the speech bubble in an ad’s Status column for more on its status.

These are the reasons Google’s pages give, in the order worth checking, with what to do about each.

• A negative keyword. A negative that overlaps one of your own keywords stops the ad showing. Google’s page of keyword statuses lists none for it, so read the speech bubble, which says A negative keyword is preventing your ad from showing. Then find the negative: on the ad group, on the campaign, in a negative keyword list or at the account level. Google’s own list of reasons a Search ad isn’t running says to review your negative keyword lists for ones blocking relevant traffic. The worked example below traces one.
• Below first page bid estimate. The keyword is active, and its ad isn’t reaching the first page of results, likely because of Ad Rank. An ad under the estimate can still appear, but it’s less likely to be on the first page, and the tool may not show an ad that isn’t. The keyword bidding guide works out what the bid should be.
• Low search volume. Google holds a keyword with very little search history out of the auction until its searches increase. Bids, Quality Score and ads don’t change the status. Wait, or use a keyword that is less specific.
• Rarely shown due to low Quality Score. The keyword isn’t showing ads often. The low Quality Score guide covers which of its three parts to fix.
• Disapproved. A disapproved keyword is inactive, and a disapproved ad can’t run until it’s fixed and reviewed again. Hover over the status for the reason. The disapproved ads guide covers fixing it or appealing.
• Something paused, ended or empty. A keyword reads Not eligible where its campaign or ad group is paused, removed, ended or not yet started. A campaign reads Not eligible where it has no ad groups, or all of its ad groups, ads or keywords are paused or deleted. An ad group reads Incomplete where it has no keywords or no ads.
• Budget. A campaign that reads Eligible (limited) is showing ads only occasionally, because of its budget or a limited bid strategy. The Limited by budget guide says when a raise pays.
• Ad Rank, some of the time. An ad that shows on some searches and loses others isn’t broken. The Search lost IS (rank) column gives the share of the time it wasn’t shown because of low Ad Rank, which the search impression share guide reads.

Cedar & Pine sells a leather sofa in antique brown, and nobody at the store has seen its ad on the search antique brown leather sofa. To trace a search like that:

1. 01Preview the search in Tools › Troubleshooting › Ad preview and diagnosis, with the location, language and device set to ones the campaign targets. If your ad is highlighted, stop: it shows.
2. 02Find the keyword that should answer the search, in Campaigns › Audiences, keywords, and content › Search keywords, and hover over the speech bubble next to its status. If no keyword of yours matches the search, that is the answer.
3. 03Where the bubble names a negative keyword, open the Negative search keywords tab of the same page and look for a negative made of words in the search. A list applied to the campaign shows there too. Your lists themselves are under Tools › Shared library › Exclusion lists, and the account-level negatives in the Negative keywords section of Admin › Account settings.
4. 04Preview the search again with that word left out. If your ad appears, you have the cause.
5. 05Decide which of the two is the mistake, then remove the negative or pause the keyword. Campaigns › Change history shows the date a negative was applied.

The keyword is there: "antique brown leather sofa", phrase match, enabled, in the ad group Leather sofas. It has had no click in 30 days. Its speech bubble says a negative keyword is preventing the ad from showing, and adds that the ad may be showing on other searches the keyword matches.

The Negative search keywords tab has the cause. Sofas — Phrase keeps four negatives of its own, and one is antique, broad match. A broad match negative blocks every search that holds its words, so it blocks antique leather sofa, which is what it was written for: the store sells no antiques. It also blocks the color. The other three, commercial, "custom made" and outdoor, and the list it carries, Not for sale, hold no word of the search.

The help pages read give no way to let one keyword through a negative, so the choice is between them. Remove the negative, and the campaign can show on every search with antique in it again, so add narrower ones first, such as the phrase match negatives "antique sofa" and "antique leather sofa": a phrase match negative blocks only a search that holds its words in that order, so neither blocks the color. Or keep the negative and pause the keyword, and give up the searches that name the color.

To remove a negative, tick its box on the Negative search keywords tab and select Remove. To pause a keyword, tick its box on the Search keywords tab and use the Edit drop-down.

Google may raise the same conflict itself, as the recommendation Remove conflicting negative keywords. It offers one of the two fixes, so read what the negative was for before you apply it. The negative keywords guide covers how each match type matches, and the negative keyword lists guide a list that belongs on some campaigns and not others.

The tool answers for one search you thought to try. Every day Goldbeater reads every enabled keyword against every negative keyword in force on it: its campaign’s own, the negative keyword lists applied to the campaign, the account-level list, and its own ad group’s. It raises a keyword whose own words a negative blocks, read by Google’s rules for a negative: the words themselves, by the negative’s match type.

An exact match negative is raised only against an exact match keyword. A phrase or broad keyword behind one still shows on every other search, and that is how an account sends one search to another campaign on purpose. Google’s keyword diagnosis does report that case, since it tests the keyword’s exact match version.

The finding reads low, and medium where the keyword still spent at least a thousandth of what your account spent in the last 30 days: a blocked keyword can go on buying searches the negative doesn’t reach. For a campaign’s own negative, Goldbeater offers both fixes, removing the negative or pausing the keyword. For a negative in a list, at the account level or on the ad group, it offers pausing the keyword alone, since a list reaches every campaign that carries it.

It recommends the pause only where another campaign that covers this one’s locations and languages, or another ad group of the same campaign, bids on what the negative keeps out, and the keyword took no click in 30 days. Then the negative is sending those searches there. Otherwise it recommends neither, because it can’t tell which of the two is the mistake.

That is the search previewed above, with the keyword and the negative the table names. Its three figures are what the keyword took in 30 days, which is nothing, so it reads low. Remove the negative is the first fix it offers. Pause the keyword is offered beside it, for a negative that is deliberate. No other campaign bids on a search with antique in it, so Goldbeater recommends neither.

The other reasons an ad doesn’t show are read the same way, every keyword and campaign, every day:

• A bid under the first page. A Manual CPC keyword whose maximum CPC is under Google’s first page bid estimate, in a campaign at least as efficient as your other campaigns’ median over 30 days that already pays the estimate or more for its average click. It isn’t raised where the keyword itself converted worse than that median, or spent what a conversion costs its campaign and brought none. Goldbeater drafts the bid at the estimate, and the keyword bidding guide shows the finding.
• A disapproval. An enabled ad Google disapproved or a policy limits, a responsive search ad’s own headline or description it disapproved, and an enabled keyword its policy review disapproved or limited, each with the policies Google names. The disapproved ads guide shows the finding.
• A campaign that stopped. An enabled campaign with no impressions yesterday, after impressions on each of the 14 days before, where its usual day spends $20 or more and a day with none is unlikely by chance. The finding’s advice comes from Google’s own status for the campaign, and the alerts guide shows it.
• Nothing to show. An enabled campaign Google reports isn’t serving because it has no ad group, or every ad group is paused. And an enabled ad group with no enabled ad that isn’t disapproved, or a standard Search ad group with no keyword and no AI Max finding its searches. The keywords per ad group guide covers both.
• Shown some of the time. A campaign that loses 20% or more of its searches to ad rank, more than to its budget, while it buys more conversions than your typical campaign’s rate would, beyond chance, and has a target or manual bids to change. And one that loses 20% or more to its budget, more than to rank, while it is at or above its own target. Those are the search impression share guide’s and the Limited by budget guide’s.

The audit checklist has every other line Goldbeater reads.

Where is the ad preview tool in Google Ads?

Under Tools, then Troubleshooting, then Ad preview and diagnosis. Enter a search, set the location, language and device to ones your campaign targets, and select Preview.

Is there an anonymous ad preview tool?

Yes. Google’s page at ads.google.com/anon/AdPreview opens with no sign-in and previews a results page for a search, a location, a language and a device. It doesn’t diagnose: after a search it says to sign in to view diagnosis information.

Why shouldn’t I search Google for my own ad?

Each search that shows your ad adds an impression, and impressions without clicks can lower your clickthrough rate. And if you keep looking for your ad and never click it, Google may stop showing it to you, so you’d see no ad while everyone else does.

Why does the tool show no ad when my keyword is eligible?

Check the preview’s settings first: the location, language and device have to be ones the campaign targets. Then hover over the speech bubble next to the keyword’s status. A negative keyword, a bid under the first page estimate and a spent daily budget all leave an enabled keyword with no ad in the preview.

Does the ad preview tool work for Display ads?

No. Google says the tool finds ads on the Google Search Network only, and can’t locate an ad on the Display Network.

Can I send a preview to a client?

Yes. Share this search gives you an address for the preview that a colleague or client can open. Google warns that the results may change over time, so what they see later may differ from what you saw.

Can a negative keyword block my own keyword?

Yes. Google’s help says to make sure your negative keywords don’t overlap with your regular keywords, because that causes your ad not to show. Google’s keyword diagnosis reports it for a search of the keyword’s own words, and says the ad may still show on other searches the keyword matches.