“Mr. Smith…” a voice says from the distance.
“Would you mind coming here for a second?”
With a swift motion and a slight turn of the wrist, he puts his cigarette out. Knowing the question is a bit of rhetoric, Mr. Smith quickly puts on his overcoat and walks over.
“I’ve been looking through your work and it appears your ad is in disagreement with our current guidelines. Because this is your first offense, I will only be issuing a strong warning, but we will keep a watchful eye on you…If we catch another mistake, we will have to place a hold on your tobacco ration for the next two weeks. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Mr. Smith walks back over to his desk, lights his cigarette and gets back to work.
Having your ads rejected can be a little frustrating at times, but recently it seems like Google has been cracking down on its advertisers with stricter rules, almost with shades of the Ministry of Truth.
Here are 5 quick fixes you make to prevent your ads from getting rejected.
WORDS IN YOUR AD ARE ALL CAPS
If your ad copy contains words all in caps, Google will reject your ad. There are exceptions to the rule however, if you are using abbreviations, brand names, etc. such as NYC.
Symbols Are Running Rampant In Your Copy
Symbols like @, #, $ that are used without their conventional meanings will be disapproved. You are allowed to add $14,000, but adding multiple dollar signs or explanation points is a one-way ticket to the rejection abyss.
The Landing Page Does Not Exist
Your ads can be running to web pages that are not set up properly or have not been set up yet. Always make sure the landing page exists before running ads to that page.
You Wurds Era Mizspeled
If your ad copy contains words that are misspelled, Google will reject your ad. This is probably a good thing though; you wouldn’t want your ads to show if they are misspelled, nor would Google want to put any minuscule blip on their image.
Click Here For More Information
The word “click” used as a call-to-action is a big no-no in the eyes of Google. Possibly the indication is that you may be tricking the user into clicking on an ad they would otherwise not click. There are quite a few work arounds for this, however. Words such as follow, check out, find etc. are easy substitutes for the word click and prompt an action just as well.
Of course, if you’ve been following all the guidelines correctly, you can still ask Google to review your ads directly. If you’ve made the correct edits to your ads but still find them getting rejected, after reaching out to support or your Google rep(s), they can approve your ads or give you a more detailed explanation for the rejection.
Hopefully, these tips offer a way to see beyond the Orwellian oversight of Google, and help maintain consistent, effective activity in the approval of your ads.