One of the most common questions we see in the PPC (Pay Per Click) realm is: “I just started ads, why aren’t they working!?” We’re going to take a look at why this happens and what you should do:

The “Learning” Period.

When you first develop ad copy, it doesn’t go straight onto Google. Instead, it goes into the system for a “learning” phase. Google needs to verify that your ad is relevant, doesn’t contain any bad stuff, and also figure out it’s performance. It starts small, by delivering the ads and gathering data. The more data it gathers, the more ‘confidence’ it has in the ad and the closer to final approval the ad will get.

The most confusing part is that this learning period can drastically vary in time. For some people, their ads can be live in hours with full approval. For others, it can take weeks. As a rule of thumb: if it’s been 3 days and your ad is still in the ‘learning’ phase with no traffic then something is wrong.

Edit: Google’s learning phase has been extended. It will now last 1-2 weeks on average as of Dec 15, 2021.

Google Analytics Is Crucial

For you to know if your ads are really “working,” you need to make sure Google Analytics is connected to your Google Ads campaign. You also need to ensure that auto-tagging is set up. This is what marks the traffic as “Google / CPC” inside of Analytics. Without this, it will go into Direct traffic which you won’t be able to analyze well.

It’s Been 3 Days And There’s No Traffic, Help!

We offer small consultation packages for anyone just trying to jumpstart their PPC and would be happy to help guide you. If you’re interested, feel free to contact us! As we’re a freelancer agency we don’t have the overhead or high prices that most agencies do, but that also means we don’t have a centralized location to offer a phone number with. Once you’re hooked up with a contractor then you’ll communicate with them directly.

If you’d like to give it a go on your own then use the warning messages Google provides under the “Status” column.

And as mentioned in the previous blog, I’ll be pumping out as much content as possible to help guide new users with various questions. If you have a question you’d like me to answer then feel free to comment on this blog.

Happy Marketing Everyone,