Why Is My Google Ad Not Getting Any Impressions?

You’ve done everything right: you strategized your campaign, carefully selected your keywords, wrote compelling ad copy, and set a budget. You hit "launch" on your new Google Ads campaign, excited to see the traffic roll in, but then… nothing. The dashboard reads zero impressions, zero clicks, and zero activity. It’s a frustrating and common problem, but the good news is that it’s almost always fixable. This guide will walk you through the most common reasons your ads aren't getting impressions and provide a clear checklist to get them up and running.

Start with the Obvious: Are Your Campaigns and Ad Groups Paused?

Before you dive into complex settings, let's check the most common culprit. It’s surprisingly easy to accidentally leave a campaign, ad group, or an ad itself in a paused state, especially when you're setting things up in advance. It’s the advertising equivalent of “is it plugged in?”

In your Google Ads account, look at the status column, which is usually indicated by a green, grey, or red circle. You need to check this at three levels:

• Campaign Level: Look at your list of campaigns. Is there a grey "Paused" icon next to the campaign you’re troubleshooting? If so, click on it and select "Enable."
• Ad Group Level: Click into the correct campaign. Now, look at the list of Ad Groups. Is your target ad group paused? If it is, enable it. An active campaign can’t run ads from a paused ad group.
• Ad & Keyword Level: Finally, click into the ad group. Check the status of both your individual ads and your keywords. Make sure they are enabled and not paused accidentally.

If everything is enabled, it's time to dig deeper into other potential issues.

Are Billing Issues Holding Your Account Hostage?

Google won't run your ads if it can't charge you. Even a small billing problem can put your entire account on hold, causing all your ads to stop serving. This is a quick and easy check that can save you a lot of headaches.

Head over to "Tools and Settings" (the wrench icon in the top right corner) and select "Billing" > "Summary" or "Transactions".

Look for any of the following red flags:

• Declined Payments: If a recent payment failed, your account might be frozen. Update your payment information or resolve the issue with your bank.
• Expired Credit Card: Check that your default payment method is current and hasn't expired.
• Account Budget Reached: If you are using an account-level budget (common for larger advertisers or agencies) and it has been depleted, no ads will run until it is renewed.

If you see a red banner across the top of your Google Ads interface warning you about a billing problem, that's your starting point. Resolve it, and your ads should be eligible to run again shortly.

Is Your Bid or Budget Too Low?

Google Ads operates as an auction. Every time someone searches for one of your keywords, you're competing against other advertisers for that ad spot. If your bid is too low, you'll constantly be outbid, and your ad will never get a chance to be seen.

Check Your Bids

A common mistake for beginners is setting manual cost-per-click (CPC) bids that are far too low for the industry. A bid of $0.10 might sound nice, but if the average click in your market costs $3.00, you have no chance of entering the auction.

How to Fix It:

• Check Keyword Status: Navigate to your keywords list within an ad group. Look at the "Status" column. If you see a message like "Below first page bid estimate", it's a clear sign your bid is too low. Google is telling you directly that you need to bid more to get on the first page of search results.
• Use Automated Bidding: If you're new to Google Ads, trying to guess the right bid is difficult. Consider starting with an automated bid strategy like Maximize Clicks. This tells Google to get you as many clicks as possible within your daily budget. It’s a great way to start gathering data and let the system find the right bid levels for you. After you gather some conversion data, you can switch to a more advanced strategy like Maximize Conversions or Target CPA.

Evaluate Your Daily Budget

A low daily budget can also stifle impressions, especially in competitive verticals. If your average cost-per-click is $5 and you set a daily budget of $10, Google might see that it can only afford one or two clicks. The system might choose not to show your ads at all rather than burn through your tiny budget in a few minutes.

How to Fix It:

• Be Realistic: Use the Google Keyword Planner to research the estimated top-of-page bids for your main keywords. A good starting point for your daily budget is at least 5–10 times the average cost-per-click you expect. If clicks cost $4, a budget of $20–$40 per day will give the algorithm more room to work.
• Check Budget-Limited Status: In your campaign view, look at the “Status” column. If it says “Limited by budget,” this isn’t necessarily why you have zero impressions, but it indicates your budget is too low to capture all available traffic. Increasing it can significantly help.

Is Your Targeting Too Narrow?

Detailed targeting feels like you’re being smart and efficient, but it’s possible to go too far. If you layer on too many restrictions, you can shrink your potential audience down to almost nothing.

Imagine you are targeting:

• Location: A small 5-mile radius around one specific zip code.
• Keywords: A handful of very specific, long-tail exact match keywords.
• Demographics: Only males, ages 35–44.
• Audience Layer: And they must also be in the "In-Market for Luxury Vehicles" audience.

Each layer reduces your audience size. Combine them all, and you might be targeting an audience of just a few dozen people who happen to rarely search those exact keywords.

How to Fix It:

1. Start Broad, Then Refine: Launch your campaign with broader targeting first. Target a whole city instead of a zip code. Use "phrase match" or broad match keywords instead of just [exact match]. Avoid layering too many audience segments initially.
2. Remove Targeting Layers One by One: If you suspect your targeting is the issue, try removing a single restriction. For example, remove the demographic targeting first and wait a day. If you still get no impressions, try broadening the location targeting. This process of elimination will help you find the setting that’s causing the problem.
3. Check Your Ad Schedule: Have you set your ads to only run during very specific hours? Navigate to the Ad Schedule tab for your campaign. It's possible you set it to run on Tuesdays from 2–3 a.m. and then forgot about it. Ensure your schedule covers the times when your audience is actually searching.

Are Your Ads Disapproved or Limited?

Google has an extensive list of advertising policies covering everything from ad copy to landing page content. If your ad violates one of these policies, it will be disapproved and won't get any impressions. Sometimes, an ad is “Limited” rather than fully disapproved, meaning it can only show in certain regions or to certain age groups, which can also heavily restrict impressions.

How to Check:

Go to the "Ads & assets" tab within your campaign. The "Status" column will tell you the state of each ad.

• If it says Disapproved, hover over the status to see the specific reason. Common issues include using trademarked terms, making sensational claims, or a mismatch between your display URL and final URL. You’ll need to edit the ad to comply with the policy and resubmit it for review.
• If it says Eligible (limited), it means your ad is running, but its reach is restricted. This often happens in sensitive categories like gambling or alcohol. Hover over the status to understand the limitation.

How to Fix It:

Follow the instructions in the ad policy rejection details to modify your ad so it complies. Once you fix the issues, resubmit for review.

Are Your Keywords the Problem?

Your entire campaign relies on the keywords you choose. If you've picked keywords with little to no search traffic, you won't get any impressions because nobody is searching for them.

How to Check and Fix:

• Check for "Low Search Volume" Status: Look at the "Status" column on your Keywords page. If Google marks a keyword as "Low search volume," it has determined that very few users are searching for that specific term. These keywords are often inactive and won't generate impressions. The solution is to pause or remove them and target broader, more popular terms.
• Use the Keyword Planner: Don't just guess your keywords. Use Google's Keyword Planner to research their monthly search volume. Focus on terms that have a healthy number of searches, but are still relevant to your business.
• Review Your Keyword Match Types: If all of your keywords are set to [Exact Match], you are severely limiting your reach. Exact match only shows your ad for searches that perfectly match your keyword. Start with a mix of "Phrase Match" and Broad Match (with a strong list of negative keywords) to capture a wider range of relevant searches.
• Low Quality Score: Quality Score is Google's rating of the relevance and quality of your keywords, ad copy, and landing page. A very low Quality Score (e.g., 1/10 or 2/10) can prevent your ads from showing. Ensure your ads and landing pages are highly relevant to the keywords you're bidding on.

Give the System Time to Learn

Finally, a lack of impressions can sometimes just be a matter of timing. When you launch a new campaign, especially one that uses an automated or Smart Bidding strategy, Google's algorithm enters a "learning period." During this time (which can take a few days up to a week), the system is gathering data to understand how to best place your ads to achieve your goal.

During the learning period, performance can be erratic. You might see zero impressions for a day or two, followed by a sudden spike. It's crucial to be patient and avoid making major changes to the campaign during this phase, as that can reset the learning period.

If you've launched a brand new campaign within the last 48 hours and have gone through every other check on this list, the best course of action may be to simply wait. Let the system do its work, and impressions will often start to appear on their own.

Final Thoughts

Seeing zero impressions on a Google Ads campaign is alarming, but it's typically due to a handful of common issues. By systematically checking your account settings - bids and budgets, targeting parameters, keyword selection, ad approvals, and billing status - you can almost always diagnose and fix the problem. Work through this list methodically, and you'll find what's holding your campaign back.

Once your ads are running and gathering data, the challenge shifts from getting impressions to making sense of performance. Piecing together information from Google Ads, Google Analytics, Shopify, HubSpot, and other platforms can feel like a full-time job. With Graphed, we automate that entire process. You just connect your sources and can instantly ask questions like, "Which campaigns are driving the most sales?" or "Create a marketing dashboard comparing ad spend vs. revenue for the last month," and get a live, automated dashboard in seconds. This lets you get a clear view of what’s truly working without getting lost in spreadsheets, allowing you to focus on strategy instead of manual reporting.