I started a new project in the weight loss market. It's a sensitive category, so I was expecting extra scrutiny. And that's fine.
But I'm hitting a brick wall here.
My ads keep getting disapproved for "Misleading content".
Usually, when people complain about ad disapproval, it's about them not liking or not wanting to comply with the policy. But in my case, for almost three months now, I've been getting my ads manually reviewed and approved. And then, the system automatically disapproves them... after they had been approved by humans... repeatedly.
I can create and ad. Get it disapproved. Call it in. Get manual review. Get the ad approved. Then make a copy of the ad (identical ad and landing page), and then that ad would become disapproved.
Humans at Google review my ads/landing page/site, and approve the ads. Then the system disapproves them. Humans approve the ads again, and the system disapproves them. Humans approve.... well, imagine three months of this.
I have three distinct case numbers. All of them end the same way. "Congratulations, we've been able to review and approve your ads." Only for me to get the ads disapproved soon after. Either when I start running them or when I copy them or create identical ads just as a matter of test.
One rep said she would try to escalate it to the technicians to place some sort of "flag" or "marker" to prevent this from happening. But that didn't happen. And she closed the case and no longer responds.
So far, I'm in this weird patten: A new case is created. A new rep from the reactive team evaluates the situation. After giving me a few boilerplate suggestions and learning that's I've already implemented them they say they are going to escalate it to the technicians. Then, they come back with a few other boilerplate suggestions from the technicians. After seeing that I've already implemented those too (or they aren't applicable to my situation), they take another day and then message me "congrats, we've approved your ads". And they close the case. And ads are approved... until they turn back to disapproval status.
When I try explain that the issue isn't about getting my ads manually approved but about figuring out why my ads are getting disapproved by the system, they suggest I start a new ticket.
More than one rep already walked away from this issue. They spend two-three weeks trying to figure out why ads are automatically disapproved. And then, they get me manual approval and close the case, as if they've lost recollection about why I contacted them in the first place.
Currently, the person who've been working on this for the past two weeks, sent me the same e-mail "congrats, your ads have been manually reviewed and approved." Even though the problem is not in getting the ads manually reviewed. It's about the system then automatically disapproving them, even after a manual approval.
So I'm guessing this rep is also about to wash his hands of this case too, by claiming that "the case has been resolved" and ads are approved and be done with it.
I keep asking them to escalate it further. If the classifier is mistakenly flagging me for disapproval -- then it's a false positive, and it needs to be deal with internally by AdWords technicians.
And if the classifier is right and I'm really non-compliant, then I need to deal with this on my end. And I'm willing to make whatever changes necessary.
But as things are progressing now, we keep going in circles. And I'm worried that eventually they might get tired of me and declare that my "site/ad/business/whatever is not compatible with AdWords and I'm not eligible to use this services" just to get rid of me. This really worries me since on at least two occasions while dealing with this problem, reps when unable to fix the problem, were increasingly shifting towards attitude of "well, your site seems gimmicky and my personal trainer doesn't agree with what you are telling me now over the phone" (I'm not kidding you about the last part)... so that's why you keep getting disapproved, let me close the case now, and call us back with any other issues. (All while manual review keeps approving me, and I'm more than willing to comply with AdWords policies and make whatever changes are necessary.)
So, is it possible to somehow escalate this?
I've been using AdWords since around 2003-2004, and I've seen The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Google. But this is just unreal.
I understand when people don't agree with AdWords policies or when they try to cheat in some way and then get frustrated when they are caught.
But in my case, it looks like humans at Google who are in the first tier support have less power than the algo. (And that's fine.) But they seem to lack either willingness or authority to actually escalate it further. To actually diagnose the issue and find out why exactly the classifier marks me as disapproved. So that either the classifier can be adjusted or I can make changes.
When they escalate to a "technician", those technicians aren't actually doing anything technical. They just recite the policy. And when the rep sees that all the suggestions by the technicians have been met, they send the ads for manual review. And they get approved.
And as soon as those reps realize that they can't fix the issue, they pretend that the case is only about getting those particular ads manually reviewed. So they send them for review, get an approval, report back "congrats" and then close the case.
And as soon as I take that approved ad with that approved landing page and make a copy (everything identical), it gets disapproved. And the rep claims that it should be a new case, since the old one was about the ads that are currently approved and not about this systemic issue.
So, any ideas on what I can do?
