Google Ads will automatically pause keywords with little activity starting in June, according to an email sent to advertisers by the Google Ads team.
What is low activity? Campaigns that were created more than 13 months ago and have had zero impressions in the last 13 months.
Why we care Navah Hopkins explained it well on LinkedIn: “Keywords with no impressions in your account are dragging down your account performance. We’ve seen documentation from the DOJ test highlighting an account’s Quality Score: What do you think is hundreds /thousands of keywords with zero impressions in the account?”
Reactivating paused keywords. If you reactivate a paused keyword in Google Ads, Google will automatically pause it again if it receives no impressions for the next three months.
Why the change? So advertisers “focus on the keywords that drive results,” Google said.
Ad group pause. As a reminder, Google Ads started automatically pausing ad groups with low activity in March.
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About the author
Danny Goodwin has been the editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo – SMX since 2022. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as a senior editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s Subject Matter Expert (SME) program. Also helps schedule US SMX events.
Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He was previously executive editor of Search Engine Journal (2017-2022), editor-in-chief of Momentology (2014-2016), and editor from Search. Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at numerous major search conferences and virtual events, and has brought his expertise to bear in a wide range of publications and podcasts.
