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Adwords account frequently getting paused

what can I do?

         

GearShark

12:41 am on Oct 29, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I'm still figuring out Adwords. Six or so times a day my account gets paused and I need to hit the "restore full delivery" button to turn it back on. However, my account's all-time and daily CTR is always close to 1%. There are a few adgroups below 0.5% CTR, but they aren't getting many impressions (they will do better once I get enough impressions to weed out the weak keywords). Does my account get paused when my account CTR falls below 0.5% for any sequential set of 1000 impressions? I used to believe that Adwords used a larger number of impressions to determine when to pause accounts. Should I just get the overall CTR even higher, so this will happen less often? That means weeding out more keywords, as I can't spend more per click--and I would like to avoid that if possible. Even if I do that, will I probably not be able to permanently avoid having my account paused? Or are a few bad adgroups to blame? I have already contacted Adwords several times, but they have not been helpful. Any advice?

GearShark

6:58 pm on Oct 29, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Well, I guess I'll answer this myself. Buried in the Adwords Support pages I found:

If the last 1,000 ad impressions served to the campaigns in your account receive fewer than five clicks (on Google search pages), we notify you via email. We also slow the delivery to your ads on the poorly performing keywords so you don't have to pay for additional untargeted clicks that are unlikely to convert to sales. To restore full delivery, edit your ad and keyword list and click the "Restore Full Delivery" button at the top of your campaign summary page. [...] If you need to restore full delivery a third time, you will be charged a nominal reactivation fee.

Does anyone think this is a little ridiculous? Even if you have, say, a 5% historical CTR across your entire account, there is a chance that you'll get an unlucky sequence of 1,000 imps that result in fewer than 5 clicks.

AdWordsAdvisor

7:52 pm on Oct 29, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Welcome to WebmasterWorld, GearShark!

I think the reason that replies have been a bit few and far between here is that this is actually a pretty 'big' topic, that boils down to how to be successful with AdWords.

And it has been hashed out literally dozens of times in this Forum in recent months. So, doing a site search (on terms like 'account slowed', etc.) will net you a ton of insight, opinion, and basic information.

Does anyone think this is a little ridiculous? Even if you have, say, a 5% historical CTR across your entire account, there is a chance that you'll get an unlucky sequence of 1,000 imps that result in fewer than 5 clicks.

To speak to this particular point, if an account has a solid performance history, a really bad day won't hurt it at all, and it won't be slowed. The most recent 1000 impressions are weighted most heavily, but the entire past history is also looked at. So a solid history will prevent a bad day from working against you.

Six or so times a day my account gets paused and I need to hit the "restore full delivery" button to turn it back on.

To hit a few highpoints, the line quoted above tells me that, most likely, you are using a large number of very general keywords, or that you are making no changes to your account before 'Restoring Full Delivery'. If you just hit the restore button without making the needed changes, your account will just be slowed again in very short order.

When an account is slowed, it is a message that you'll need to review your keywords and ads to make sure that the keywords are specific rather than general, and that they are highly targeted to the ads that appear.

Even if I do that, will I probably not be able to permanently avoid having my account paused?

The account standard that must be met to avoid slowing is not at all high. In fact, the standard is far less than average. So, if you create well targeted Ad Groups, you'll almost certainly never have your account slowed again.

It's just a matter of taking the time to understand how AdWords works, then creating targeted Ad Groups, then experimenting/monitoring/improving within your account.

If you hang around this forum for a bit, you'll learn a lot from some of the most sophisticated AdWords advertisers around. So, welcome!

AWA