Why You Can't See Your Own Google Ads (And Why It Doesn't Matter)

Can't see your own Google Ads? Don't panic — but also, stop searching for them.

 In this episode of the Google Ads Unleashed Podcast, host Jeremy Young breaks down every reason your ads might not be showing, from budget exhaustion and ad scheduling to geo-targeting, device bid adjustments, and auction dynamics.

More importantly, learn why obsessively searching for your own ads is actively damaging your performance, and what account metrics you should actually be trusting instead. If you manage Google Ads for yourself or a client, this episode will save you time, protect your quality score, and shift your focus to what really matters.

Get your free 30 minute strategy session with Jeremy here: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/

Scale your store with 1:1 coaching: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/1-2-1-coaching

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to Google Ads Unleash guys. I hope everyone is doing fabulously this Monday. And today I want to talk about something that has come across a couple of times now in all of my mentoring calls. So about three four times a week I sit down at least an hour um with various businesses, help them with their Google ads. And something that I get asked now and again and and I thought it's worth doing an episode on is they come up with the following question. So, I'm seeing all of the impressions and all that in the ad account, but why can't I see my own ads? Okay, people are obsessed with searching for their own ads and making sure of course it's important. You need to have a look at what they look like in order to make improvements if something very specific stands out to you or to make sort of sure anecdotally in which auctions are you appearing. against which competitors and all that. However, it is a poison uh that you should not be doing it. There's very good reasons why you shouldn't be doing it and why you shouldn't be worried if you don't see your own ads. And I will also break this down to you what to check for in order to make sure that a uh there's not a legitimate reason why you don't see own ads and b um what you can do to fix it and c why it is not a good practice anyway and why you should stop doing it right now. Let's dive right in. So, first of all, why could your ads not show? There's a gazillion reasons for that. Sometimes it's settings, sometimes it's other things such as bid strategy or uh or competitors. It could be uh a gazillion different reasons. And I want to uh basically go through all of them today, both for shopping and and uh and of course for search if they apply equally. And we can have have a look at all of the various reasons. So, let's dive right in. First, one of the main reasons why your ads isn't aren't showing is no one is looking for it. I've had this this this week where I've had a client who's got a relatively unknown business in the B2B sphere and has recently ventured into the uh D2C space and he started with a brand search ad, right? Because he's running a bit of meta ads. It's working already and he's start with brand search because typically good way to do it, right? So to start generating conversions in the ad account and to make sure that you uh push the algorithm into the right direction, but it hasn't actually been doing anything. And the answer to that is simple. It's because no one is searching for it. It's a very specific weird company name as well. And even on the most aggressive bid strategy, it just didn't uh sort of uh deliver anything. So I said, listen, don't don't worry. Then we'll Start with nonbrand is a little bit more difficult but that is just a simple reason. He was trying to look for ads for himself and he just could not get that sorted and could not see his own ads and that's a simple reason that sometimes people are just not searching for that. Another reason is budget could be run out right so either um you've not set enough budget for the campaign right in terms of uh you start with ridiculously low budgets of seen that as well where people start with 2 or3 pound or euros or dollars a day and think well obviously you're not going to see ads right because there's simply not enough budget and for the couple of impressions that it shows you are not the person it's showing to on that day but it could also be that you're doing this at 6:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m. in the evening and your budget has actually run out for the day, right? So um it's not really delivering any ads anymore and then you won't see your own ads of course anymore. So That's uh a reason that you could check for and uh just exclude that from the possible reasons why it may not show your own ads. Then the second thing uh the third thing is ad scheduling. So sometimes you may have accidentally added an ad schedule or deliberately added an ad schedule and of course you won't see your own ads if you're searching outside of those ad schedules. Right? If your business runs 9 to5 and you're searching at 8:00 in the morning, of course you won't see your own had. So, um that is uh a very common reason that I've seen as well. The fourth reason is geo targeting. So, I've had this with a client which is really funny. Uh he was based in Austria and um was running ads in Germany and said, "Uh, Jeremy, I can't see my own ads. What's going on?" Like, uh I'm spending money and I can't really make sure we're we're seeing it. Well, of course you won't see your own ads, you eda. You are in Austria. You're not in Germany. You have to be in the location. So, If you really want to do that properly, you got to either use the ad preview tool from Google, right, which I don't find as optimal because I feel like it skews sort of the vis the actual SER a little bit or you use a VPN, right, which you can easily do or you pay for to for a tool such as for instance.com which we have as an agency because you can simulate a real life search from all different devices and browsers in real time. Uh, uh in other sort of locations in the world in various languages on various domains of Google. So it's a really helpful tool in order to preview what a a search may look like. Okay. Um the kind of fifth reason sometimes why you may not see your own ads is that you have a device bit adjustment on there. For instance, um we have a client that sells a certain type of software. Um and what was funny is They were saying, "Oh, we can't see our own ads. We can't see our own ads." Well, it's because they actually we deliberately excluded mobiles from our ads because all of our customers would be sitting in an office between 9 and 5:00 p.m. Monday to Friday and would not actually order on a different device. So, of course, you won't see any ads on mobile because we excluded them, right? Uh deliberately because we spent like €5,000 without a single lead on it and it was a total disaster. And that's why we stopped. Uh we just looked at the data and made the right decision, right? But yeah, that's sometimes something that you get. So that is something that you could check for if you have maybe accidentally set that. Then the next reason why you may not see your own ads is sometimes just ad dynamics and auction dynamics, right? So of course your ads, your keywords will have a certain quality score which may be too poor and may not uh show as a result. U your shopping ads have a certain quality score as well which is invisible though. It's bit smoke and mirrors. So that may um like damage what is actually going on and may uh uh damage the uh sort of how should I say um the the delivery of the ads but what your competitors are doing is just as important as that right so if they are out bidding you 10x on what you're doing well and you've got 10x the budget then of course you will not see your ad and a lot of these reasons are interwoven so for instance if your um quality score isn't the best anyway and you have quite little budget on the day then you need a lot of luck to even see your ad. Okay, so this is something that um you just have to consider uh quality score, landing page experience, add relevance, all these other things and determine whether you can actually see your own ads or not. Then uh the next thing is ad disapproval. So I've actually had this many times as well where people are like what's what's going on? Why why am I not seeing your my own ads? And it turns out that I don't know for 2 days already the ad account has been suspended because of uh a missing payment method or um uh the ads have been disapproved or whatnot. So all of this has happened to to me as well before. Uh so just double and triple check that that is the case. Um and then finally um uh a very common reason is that your bid is too low. Right? So if you are starting with manual CPC on a brand search and set the CPC to 5 p or 5 cents or whatever. Well, of course, your ad is never going to show, right? So, you have to um sort of bit by bit actually up the um sort of uh bids and then that should repair that. So, to sum it up why you may not be seeing your own ads, um there's a lot of reasons for that. There could be setting issues. So, for instance, wrong bid strategy or um the bid strategy is not strong enough. It could be settings that simply prevent you from showing. Right? So, for instance, ad scheduling or geo settings or stuff like that. There could simply not be enough search volume for your ads that Google even considers to to trigger ads for it, right? Um, you have to have a certain search volume for certain search terms in order for ads even to be delivered on those keywords and on those products. Um, it could be ad dynamics, it could be disapprovals, and it also uh could be some bid adjustments that you made. For instance, device bid adjustments and stuff like that. The issue though why I get this asked this very often is people want to see their own ads and they are obsessed with their own ads right so they are searching for the ad and then come to me and say oh I don't see my own ad is everything okay trust your on platform data if impressions are there if the clickthrough rates healthy healthy and and everything impression share is there click share is fine and everything do not worry if you see your own ads or not because this is something that a lot of people um actually do and with that they are actually damaging their own um uh presence. Okay? Because what you're doing is every time you search for your own ads, you typically will not click on your ad. So as a result, what happens is you are generating an impression without a click, which in Google's eyes is poison, right? That's the worst that they want. They don't want to show ads that people don't click. So if you're searching for your own ads and don't actually click on your own ads, then Google will consider you irrelevant and cons consider this interaction as less relevant and Google lives of relevancy. So if you uh do that you actually damage your own ad performance. So you shouldn't be doing it anyway. But also what also happens is Google realizes over time you are someone who keeps searching for the ad and and but never clicking on it. So over time it's not going to show you your own ad anymore. So if this is a obsessive behavior that you have and and do all the time, especially since you are on your website all the time, right? If you have cookies on uh and uh and and your cash on as well. You're constantly on your site checking your PDP, working on that, working in Shopify, working this and so on, but you never actually purchase from yourself. Of course, Google will not show you your ads, right? So, it's it's meant to um sort of work this way, right? Um and that is I think what um you yeah is kind of the takeaway from this. So you shouldn't be doing it in the first place, but if you do, there could be a gazillion reasons why your ads don't show. So usually it's nothing to panic. If your account metrics look fine, then you should be all fine as well. And with that, um we conclude the episode. Um hopefully this has been helpful maybe for some people to explain to clients when they have clients why this is happening or explain it to their friends who have been wondering what's happening to my ads. Or if this has been yourself, maybe it's been a bit of an eye openener to stop doing that and trusting the experts and having a chat with them. And if you want to do that, I'm always there. Jeremy and Google Ads on LinkedIn, Jeremy.marketing via email or you can simply head to the website youngdigital.marketing and book a one-to-one call with us. We are currently accepting one or two clients more for this quarter. So if you are a good fit, you can always get in touch and uh maybe we can work something out. We also got one or two uh mentoring spots open as well. Currently we are concluding um our last mentoring um position I think next Friday. So after that we should be good to go and um we should have some availability to beef up your Google Ads knowledge. And if it's not been beefed up yet, listen back to all the episodes, give us a subscribe and I'd love to see you in the next episode.