Have your Google Adwords Campaigns suddenly and for no apparent reason, stopped displaying? Only last week, a good customer of ours contacted the office to ask for our help.

He explained that his Google Adwords had suddenly stopped displaying for no apparent reason.  He tried to get his Ads running again by trimming keywords and phrases that may have been seen as  a bit ‘loose’ by Google and even raised his bid from the usual amount of 50p to around a whopping £2.00 but still his ads did not display.

No impressions, no shows, no clicks…nothing.

So, I logged into my clients Adwords Account and tried to find the problem for them. I began by scrutinising his keywords, his Ads, landing page…everything. Nothing seemed terribly wrong.

I then created a new Ad group in the account and targeted just a very tight group or 6 or so keyphrases, created a new Ad that I know would normally generate impressions and clicks and let it run fow a few days. Nothing. Zip, nada!

Very strange.

So our next step was to contact Google directly and ask them why the campaigns were not displaying when they had been running perfectly fine for sometime.

Here’s what they said:

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Hello Colin,

Thank you for writing in. Your account is under review due to suspected unauthorized activity. We have therefore temporarily disabled your account for security reasons until we complete our investigation. This is causing an interruption in your normal ad serving and account functioning for the Customer ID xxxxx which is why your ads are not serving or accruing any activity.

While I am unable to comment on the triggers/reasons of the investigation, please know that we periodically perform these reviews to verify billing information, as well as to maintain account security. Per our Terms and Conditions (https://adwords.google.com/select/tsandcsfinder), accounts can undergo review at any time.

I appreciate the importance of having your advertising activated and have consulted the Specialist team regarding the status of the review. I will provide you with an update shortly as well as address your concerns. Please be assured that we are working to complete the review as soon as possible.

Please don’t hesitate to reply directly to this email if you have more information to add.

I sincerely appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords UK and Ireland team

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And then a few days later, Google followed up with this:

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Hello Colin,

Thank you for your continued patience while we investigated your account. I’ll highlight the results in my email below.

WHAT WE FOUND

After a thorough investigation we found that your account was compromised 6 June, 2010 via login email. Though ‘Campaign #1′ shows unauthorised changes. No unauthorised costs accrued in your AdWords account.

NEXT STEPS

1. Please delete the compromised ad and campaign and recreate your original ads in a new campaign.

2. All your campaigns have been paused to allow you to make any necessary changes. We also recommend reviewing and making any desired changes to your account settings.

3. We strongly recommend removing any unwanted software from all your computers and changing your Google Account password. Make sure that you clean your system first and then change your password, as malware could capture your password if it’s still present within your computer. If we detect unauthorised access again, your account will be suspended again.

4. Please confirm that you have completed a malware scan and changed the password. We will then reactivate your account. I also suggest that you review any edits that you have made and make any appropriate changes as when your account is reactivated the changes will go live.

Please be assured that your security is a top priority for Google, and we will continue to review accounts to prevent unauthorized activity. Please reply directly to this email with any additional questions or concerns you may have. Thank you once more for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords UK and Ireland team

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Well blow me!! I could not believe what I was reading. I mean, there’s my customer beavering away, minding his own business, throwing money to Google everytime they needed a top from his credit card and without warning, Google simply stopped his account from functioning. Bam!

Now, some of you might be thinking, “Google did the right thing in suspending the account to stop fraudulent activity”…and you’d be right. But what I find amazing is the total disregard for my customers business.

You see, had Colin not gone into his account to check on something else, he still might be non the wiser today. How? Simple because Google did not pause his Ads, they just stop delivering them. Google did not place a notice or warning of the situation in his dashboard or even drop him a boilerplate email. Nope, not Google. They just downed tools until he found it for himself and had to chase Google for the reason as to why.

Not very impressive that Google, if you don’t mind me saying so!

With this, I suggested that my customer write and complain to Google. I thought he had a case. I’d certainly complain if it were my account.

Here’s what they had to say:

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Hello Colin,

Thanks for your reply. I agree that you should have known about your AdWords account been compromised, however, as you may already know that AdWords is a self managed program. We may or may not proactively review accounts to check if they are compromised.

Additionally, I want to inform you that you need to confirm the malware scan and password change, so I can help reactivate your account.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely

The Google AdWords UK and Ireland team

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Basically, what Google is saying is that our accounts are self managed until such times as:

a. You want to hit our pocket by making us put our bid prices up – which starts bidding wars – and you’ll pause our Ads until we do so

b. Our account is compromised (or hacked in plain speak) and you don’t bother to tell us about it

The conclusion? Don’t rely on Google to have your ‘best’ interests at heart but more importantly, if your Google Adwords Campaign suddenly and with no warning, stop running, then maybe you too have had your account ‘compromised’.

If that’s the case, contact Google immediately.