Where Do My Ads Appear On Google?

Lets look at how you can see where your ads will appear on Google search results and why you should avoid searching for your on ads on Google.

Check Where Your Ads Appear

The Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool allows you to preview where your ads appear on Google search results without any additional impressions being recorded for your ad. This is an easy way to check whether or not your ads are showing for particular keywords. If your ads are not showing, this tool will give you a reason and provide steps to help you get it up and running.

Ad Preview and Diagnosis Tool vs. Google Search Results

Every time you search for your ads on Google, you incur an impression, so if you are searching for your ads on Google, the following will occur:

1. You will decrease the click-through-rate (CTR) of yours ads. This can potentially have a negative impact your account performance because Quality Score looks at your CTR.
2. If you continuously search for your ads and don't click on them, Google might stop showing your ads to you, thinking that you are not interested. This is because Google personalises search results depending on individual behaviour.

The best option for checking your ads is to use the Ad Preview Tool, so you don't affecting your ad performance. It is also a good idea to ask all relevant staff in your organisation to use this tool too. They don't even need access to your account, they can use the tool at https://adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview/ without even needing a login.

If you are already logged into your AdWords account then you can also access the tool by clicking on the 'Tools and Analysis' tab and then selecting 'Ad Preview and Diagnosis'.

From here you can enter the search query you want to check. You can also select the Google domain (e.g. .com, .com.au, .co.nz, .co.uk, etc.), language, location and/or device that you would like to use for your preview.

You can then see whether your ads are showing or not. If your ads are not showing, this tool gives you a reason along with steps you can use to fix the problem. For example:

Other uses of the Ad Preview Tool:

• For additional ideas, you can enter a search query into the tool and change the location to one that you are not targeting in your campaigns in order to see what ads appear. You will now see ads from areas outside your geographic area, check out the ads you see and look for ideas that you can apply to your own ads. This might include new ideas for calls-to-action, promotions or other wording that advertisers are using.
• The tool shows which keyword from your account triggers your ad for a given search query. This can be useful to ensure that user search terms actually trigger the keywords you expect (and not other keywords in your account, which may happen because of broad match).