We are still seeing here the messages, that users have problem with the On Hold, On Trial mess.
Still again and again.
Google does his best to get new customers. And the first thing they experience after starting the account is the On Hold, On Trial mess.
No wonder, that there are people who ask:
How to close AdWords account?, like the boy here [webmasterworld.com...]
I will start accounts for 2 new big (for me) customers. I am not newbie (althougt my pro logo still has to show up :-), but I am worried to run into On Hold, On Trial mess.
Why? Because, somebody else did his work bad. So, I am punished.
And my question is why, why, why?
patient2all is absolutelly right ( [webmasterworld.com...] ):
I think Google should rethink this policy.
IF YOU AGREE WITH THIS, JUST REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE AND WRITE "AGREE".
Let's hope that THE RIGHT FOLKS WILL HEAR OUR VOICE.
[edited by: engine at 6:22 pm (utc) on Mar. 30, 2005]
I also have this problem.. but I think there is enough meat here.. to raise hopefully google's eyebrows.. ;) so I'll leave it at that...
anyways, my real question might be a little off topic or maybe not... I have recently entered a particular keyword and after a few clicks from users about maybe 30-40.. I got 2 sales... that means it's really relevant... but after few hours even before it reaches 1000 impressions.. it gets disabled... it seems like the rule "taking into consideration other account's previous history" causes this keyword to get turned off.
Now when I went to goooogle and search on this keyword no one is bidding on it.. most likely everybody else got disabled because of the low ctr history... but in a "users perspective" (as I'm a functional designer in a previous life) it's relevant, so this seems to be a downside to the user community... since something relevant is being turned off because of "old maybe outdated statistics that might actually be irrelevant already"...
and oh yeah.. I have other keywords that has the same issue...
since something relevant is being turned off because of "old maybe outdated statistics that might actually be irrelevant already"...
Exactly my experience. A couple of years back, the keyword was the title of a movie. Went right to disabled even though I was using it in an entirely different context. I've been fortunate to have relatively few go in "Hold", but this one just ruined the campaign!
Keep posting on this topic folks, the "hat" controversy (which I haven't read) may soon beat this one out :)
patient2all
On Thursday I turned on my new website. I turned on my adwoards. I had created them using Google's suggestions so they "had to be right". I used Googles very pleasant traffic estimator and rmeoved the ones that it said woudl be a waste of my time. And it ran.
I was delighted. Ok, smnall beer, but I'm new to this. I happen to be a professional old and ugly marketing consultant, and I "know how to promote stuff". i was overjoyed that my small budget generated business.
Come midnight my most successful adword went "disabled" and my account was slowed. I confess I said a very rude word, one that is not allowed here. It was rather like "firetruck".
I emailed google and the nanobot sent me the standard unintelligible reply.
I researched their firtrucking website and found that "words get disabled when we {gibberish, and untrue gibberish anyway cos, dammit, it was actually performing in the single digit percentages)"
I found that accounts get slowed (gibberish, but actually when we want more money out of you after the third time)
I deleted all the iffy adwords. I dropped from 354 to 92. And all the good ones were either on hold or in trial. Yeah! Odd that those are the ones that their system suggested!
Why was I not surprised that the click thru performance was not good after that?
And at midnight, there he was. The "We have slowed your campaign" fairy arrived again and waved his wand and we were slowed.
Dork-boi (that's me, gang) killed all save for ONE adword. And we've had 2 clickthroughs today.
I have left it like that because I want to see wht the "We have slowed your campaign" fairy does at mnidnight tonight.
What rankles is that I want to spend serious momney with these guys. I have to start small and use a self funding budget because that's what I have. ~permits self a scream~
He looked at the site and made sensible suggestions. "What about adding (word)?"
"Nope. It goes to 'oh hold'"
"What's 'on hold'?"
"It's where Google says one thing and means something quite different."
"That makes no sense at all!"
"The is the first correct thing anyone has said about Google Adowrds to me today!"
The message here is that there is no firetrucking logic here. Me the self styled marketing genius - I can't understand it. And 'Awesome Programming Boy' {league of Superheors comics, get over it!] can't understand it either.
I thought maybe my bids were too low, so I started new groups all with bids in the $1-$5 range and sure enough the searches I tried ended up in the top two or three. Then within a few hours these same keywords become disable even with excellent CTR. I really just don't get this one. It's like certain keywords won't pass the system even with high bids on them. Does this make any sense? It doesn't to me.
I don't think Google intended for this to happen and I hope that someone is working on a program to fix it. The problem with being big like Google is that it's like turning around a giant ship in the ocean. It's certainly not fast. This can't be good for their revenue either and when the bean counters see sales dropping, there will be action to turn this big ship around. Since who ever is responsible will never admit they made a mistake, it will take a drop in dollars or a slowing of increased revenue to alert the people at the top. Until that happens, I guess nothing is going to change. That's too bad.
But frankly I could not get any slower! My ads do not serve.
Ok, I am a dating site. So you would expect me to use dating stuff as adwords. But google disables words like 'penpal', 'dating', 'partner' for me. The phrase '"match maker"' has served 24 times in the past 24 hours.
Google suggests I put in as adword the name of my competitors. So my best ever word 'faceparty' is the first word they ever disabled. If I use google to search for me, 'partnermine' my site is there, but pretty obviously it has not been spidered yet because nothing about me is present, so no-one would ever be able to find me without adwords (well we only went live last Thursday). So I am reliant on this technology.
The word 'soulmate' is "in trial"
This thing seems "odd" in the extreme.
I have sent Google support a desperate message. I anticipate a standard reply.
In desperation I have signed up for Overture. Maybe they'll work. They have my money in advance, though.
Now you could argue that I am using poor adwords. I agree. But the good ones are "In trial", "on Hold", or "Disabled".
i think something is wrong because i have never had a campaign do this, :(
I have described On Hold problems with new campaign here (msg 26 and 27):
[webmasterworld.com...]
The core of the problem was:
I spent hours convincing the client, creating the keywrod list, finalizing the list, agreeing to go live ... then this ... I started the campaign and now about 60% of keywords (BIG PART OF IT ARE EXACT MATCHES!) are ON HOLD immediately - including phrases like [small blue flying widget].
I thought that the problem was solved, I decribed it here (msg 50):
I can confirm, that after several days, the "on hold" status disappeard and the campaign works well.[webmasterworld.com...]
I looked through the campaign today - I guess 70-80% of all words have On Hold status.
I am QGAP but I still have to learn, so I am open to any advice how to improve the quality of phrases like [blue wood flying widget] or [small iron round widget] to get rid of On Hold status.
however let me ask you this, what is your avg ctr on the words before they went on hold, and are u sure they are actually on hold? just because it says on hold doesnt mean it actually is on hold ;-)
what is your avg ctr on the words before they went on hold
are u sure they are actually on hold? just because it says on hold doesnt mean it actually is on hold ;-)
Yes this is another nice part of this game - you never know... Sometimes REAL ON HOLD, sometimes NONREAL. This was REAL earlier, it seams NONREAL now. Is not it great?
keyword status clicks ctr ave-cpc cost ave-pos
[some keyword] Disapproved 1 56 1.7% $0.05 $0.05 1.8
hey guys... anyone seen the disapproved status before
Yes, several times. No apparent reason. Usually 3-4 words in an AdGroup when it happens. Not sensitive words by any stretch because other almost identical variations of the same phrases are "Normal". It's not even a valid status on the reports.
When I've inquired, I've been asked are you sure it isn't the ad that is "Disapproved"? Yes I'm sure.
Just another bug, it appears.
patient2all
hey guys... anyone seen the disapproved status before?
'Disapproved' keywords are not system-generated. Rather, they have been disapproved by an actual human being during the review process.
Disapproved keywords are comparatively rare, but when it happens, an email will typically be sent out within a few seconds of the disapproval, letting you know why it's occurred.
Just another bug, it appears.
If a keyword has been disapproved incorrectly, while it could be an error in understanding or judgment, it isn't a 'bug'.
As always, if a keyword has been disapproved, and you feel that it was incorrectly judged, then by all means reply to the disapproval email and succinctly state why you feel that an error was made. I think you'll find support very willing to make a change and apologize if we've made an error.
In these cases, it's important to reply directly to the disapproval email, or at the very least identify the keywords in question, and their location. A really surprising amount of email comes in saying something like "My keywords have been disapproved. Why?!" but which doesn't identify the account in which the keywords are to be found, let alone the Ad Group or Campaign. Needless to say, this makes things a bit difficult to re-review. ;)
AWA
Looked back at an email and there was the apology for disapproving a set of words in error. I knew something was amiss because only one match type was "Disapproved" which really didn't make sense.
The other times I've found "Disapproved" words, I simply deleted them since again they had counterparts with a different matching option. "Disapproved" must be a relatively rare phenonemon for a keyword because I recall bringing it up on the forum and people were like "Are you sure it isn't the ad that is disapproved?"
I've also learned to choose my battles wisely to conserve energy - mine :)
patient2all
-ER
I've set up an account and 99% of my keywords are on hold. I get maybe 20 impressions a day, so you can guess how many clicks that comes out to.
I'll stick with AdWords in hopes that all our frustrations will be dissolved with an improved system. I'm also very concerned about general keywords outranking specific phrases. For example my keyword phrase of "cheap yellow waterproof widgets" will be outranked by an advertiser paying $30 a click for - widgets.
Today, I work for a different company within the same space. I just started an ad words campaign for them, less than 5K keywords (all of which I KNOW to drive volume and high CTR) and would you believe about 90% of the keywords went to on hold?!
Does this mean advertisers with bigger budgets get more traction? I'm seriously confused, because -- as others have posted here, I convinced my new employer that I knew how to drive volume...and it's now a week later and I'd say 80% of the keywords are now onhold.
have you tried check to see if the words truly are on hold? ive seen accounts with hundreds of on holds, but the ads were working like champs.
