Reasons for Suspending Google Ads Accounts and How to Reactivate Them
Your Google Ads account could be suspended due to policy violations, payment issues, suspicious activities, or poor user experience on your website. To reactivate the account, one should first determine the cause of the suspension, fix the issue, and appeal.
What Is a Suspended Google Ads Account?
A Suspended Google Ads Account refers to a temporary restriction placed on your account for violating Google's advertising policies. Suspension may affect your campaigns, billing, and access to advertising tools.
There are a number of signals that Google looks at to make sure your account complies with their policies and requirements such as:
- advertising policies and targeting criteria
- quality and transparency of the website
- payment history
- patterns of account usage
- user safety signals
Suspension does not mean that your account will be disabled permanently. In many cases, advertisers are able to re-enable their accounts by solving the issue and providing all relevant information in the appeal.
Why Google Ads Accounts Are Suspended
The most common reasons for account suspension include policy violations, payment problems, and trust issues. Knowing the common reasons for account suspension may help you to prevent similar issues in the future.
1. Policy Violations
Google sets strict advertising policies to protect users from being fooled by fraudulent ads. Here are some of the most common policy violations:
- false or exaggerated claims
- advertising restricted products/services
- incorrect information about your business
- product misrepresentation
- low-quality landing page
2. Suspicious Payment Activities
Suspension of an advertisement campaign can occur because of issues related to payments, such as:
- Failing payment attempts
- Connection of several payment options to one account
- Non-coincidence of billing information with account information
- Suspicious transactions
Google expects advertisers to provide reliable billing information.
3. Website and Landing Page Issues
It is also essential to keep in mind that websites play a significant role in getting approved to advertise on Google AdWords. Even though the content of your ads looks fine, you still may have an account issue due to:
- Lack of contact information
- Absence of privacy policy/term pages
- Malfunctioning pages
- Too many pop-ups
- Bad mobile optimization
- Pages that do not describe the offer clearly
Good quality website makes people feel more comfortable and decreases the possibility of suspension.
How to Recover Suspended Google Ads Account Step by Step
It all starts with the determination of the true reason of the account suspension. Do not try to fix something blindly; it is important to know what you should actually do.
Step 1. Read Suspension Notice
Google tries to specify the reasons for suspension within the advertiser's account. Make sure you find out the reason yourself and define which policy section applies here.
Possible suspension labels are:
- Circumvention systems
- Misrepresentation
- Payments
- Unacceptable business practices
- Compromised account activities
Step 2. Audit of Your Account and Website
Before writing a letter with your appeal, make sure you check all the elements connected with your account.
Check:
- Advertising copy
- Keywords
- Landing pages
- Business information
- Payment information
- Warnings from policies
- Trackers/redirects
Step 3: Improve Your Website Signals
Improvements of your website could also help in this situation. Make sure that your website includes:
- Business information
- Contact details
- About us page
- Privacy policy
- Returns/Refund policy if applicable
- Product description
The approval process of Google Ads requires a generally positive user experience, not only related to the ad itself.
Step 4: Write a Full-fledged Appeal
Your appeal should contain the following information:
- Why the suspension has been put on your account
- What changes were made
- Why now your account complies with Google Ads policies
Do not send the repeated appeals that contain the same information. Your low-quality appeals will only delay the process.
Protect Your Ads with TrafficSaviour
Once your Google Ads account is active, monitoring your traffic can help you spot unusual activity and protect your advertising budget. TrafficSaviour helps advertisers monitor suspicious traffic patterns and take action against potentially harmful clicks.
Protect Your Ads with TrafficSaviour.
Common Mistakes Made after the Suspension of the Google Ads Account
A number of common mistakes could only make the situation worse. Here is the list of things that you should avoid doing:
- Creating several new accounts immediately
- Making changes only to the ad copy but not fixing your website
- Submitting incomplete appeals
- Providing inaccurate information about your business
- Ignoring warnings of Google Ads policies
It is really hard to change the pattern of account activity, so restoring trust is better than tricks.
Preventive Tips to Avoid Google Ads Account Suspensions
Prevention is much better than cure. Experienced advertisers focus mostly on compliance and hygiene of their account.
The best practices are as follows:
- Consistency in providing business details
- Frequent checking of updates in Google Ads policies
- Account alert monitoring
- Avoidance of overly aggressive marketing statements
- Using secure payments
- Good landing page experience
According to the Google Ads Safety Report 2023, Google blocked or removed more than 5.5 billion ads that violated its policies.
Also, it restricted more than 6.9 billion ads during this period.
FAQs on Suspending Google Ads Accounts
Why did Google suspend my Google Ads account without any warning?
The process of account suspension could have been caused by certain violations of the policies that were discovered automatically or manually. Sometimes, there is no particular reason for that and Google Ads may suspend the account according to its history, payment records, website performance, etc.
How long will it take me to recover my Google Ads account?
The duration of the process largely depends on the reason for the suspension and on how efficient your appeal would be. There are simple appeals that can be processed fast, and there are complex situations that require further investigations.
Can I create a new Google Ads account after being suspended?
Creating a new account will probably not help, as Google can identify all related accounts and suspend them too.
What should I do to avoid the Google Ads account suspension in the future?
In order to avoid such problems, one should obey the rules of Google Ads, update business information and monitor ads and websites.
Can I recover a suspended Google Ads account?
Yes, there are plenty of suspended accounts that can be recovered successfully.
Author Bio
Written by Alex Morgan, a digital marketer specialising in Google Ads account management, SEO, conversion optimisation, and paid search marketing.
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