The question we probably hear the most from advertisers is 'Where is my ad?' and unfortunately there is no straight forward answer. Read on for some easy diagnostics and tips on how to find your ad:

First of all it’s important you identify which stage of the ad lifecycle you’re in.

  1. You are about to upload your new campaigns and want your ads to go live as soon as possible.
  2. You recently made a new upload and are not sure if you ads are live or not.
  3. Your ads are not delivering or have no impressions.
  4. Your ads are delivering (they receive impressions) or have in the past.

 

1. You are about to upload your new campaigns and want your ads to go live as soon as possible this is what you can check to speed up your ads review process:

  • Make sure you have relevance for all keywords and your destination URL brings users directly to the relevant content. As well as easing editorial review it provides a better user experience.

2. You recently made a new upload and are not sure whether your ads are live or not this is where you can start:

  • Allow 48 up to hours for manual review on any sensible keywords that might be related to editorial restricted content, this will show in AdCenter Desktop/ API application as ‘Pending Editorial review’. See tips on getting ads live faster.
  • Check for editorial rejections, if an ad doesn't meet our advertising policies, it will be rejected at the review stage. In AdCenter Desktop tool /API application look for any alerts or rejections and reach your account manager to appeal the decision if you are not satisfied with it.

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  • Check that your campaigns are complete: Are your ads associated with keywords in each ad group? Keywords can only deliver if they have corresponding ad copy to serve with them. When ad groups are populated with keywords only, the keyword status remains in “Pending” until the ad group inventory is complete.
  • Always allow a few hours before seeing new campaigns live; although AdCenter has a fast load-to-live time, you shouldn’t expect your ads to begin delivering immediately.

3. Your ads are not delivering or have no impressions

  • Are your account, campaign, ad group, ads and keywords active?
  • The Accounts & Billing page shows the status of your accounts. Select a campaign or ad group to check its status. Campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords that are live have a status of Active. Check status for inactive, disapproved or paused.
  • Does your ad campaign still have budget? Are you dividing your campaign budget across the month? Review the ‘Change campaign settings’ page to see how much budget you have available or whether an ad group has the status Budget Paused because you reached your budget limit. If you are dividing your budget across the month, your ad is unlikely to be displayed with every search. To see your ad, you might have to search multiple times. Be aware of seasonal peaks as well as your limit might be reached quicker depending on the month.
  • Have you checked your negative KWs? In adCenter, do not place a minus sign (-) before a negative keyword. Doing so can result in your ads not displaying. Check that the query you are searching for isn’t part of your negative keywords. See more about negative keywords here.
  • Do you have editorial rejections? Keywords and ads may be disapproved for not complying with the AdCenter editorial policy, even if they were once live, so make sure you regularly check for rejection alerts in AdCenter Desktop or web user interface.
  • Is your bid too low? You might be outbid on your keywords by other advertisers, so make sure your bid allows you to appear in the mainline. You can check the estimated default bids needed to reach position one when creating your keywords. See more about Bids here.

4. Your ads are delivering (they receive impressions) or have in the past

  • Check your geo targeting and the rest of your settings: You might not see your ad if you don't meet the same geographical criteria, time of the day and language you have set for your ad group. For example, you might be in a different country than the one you're targeting. Some web services offer public proxy servers, making it possible for you to switch your location and see your ads by using their servers. For more information, see our page About targeting.
  • Does your search return any organic search results? Organic search is a good indicator of the results your keyword would trigger. If a keyword does not trigger any organic search results, it will not trigger paid results either. Try improving your keyword relevance for better results.
  • Does your search use the same keyword search match types that you defined for the ad? Make sure that you search for your ad using the same match type than the ones you choose. For more information, see more About search match types.
  • Have you checked successive search results pages? Be sure to check the second, third, or even fourth page of Bing results.

To find your text ad on Bing or Yahoo! Search results pages, use the Ad Preview Tool. You can also check our tutorial on this topic. I hope that you have found the above information useful.

Best regards,

Leslie