The Curious Case of a bug with Google Video Ads

There is something serious going on with Google Ads, and it has been going on for a while now. I only became aware of it quiet recently. About 2 weeks ago I created a campaign in one of my Google Ads account. I had created similar campaign before too for the same YouTube Channel with similar kind of settings. Like always after creating the campaign I waited for it to get approved and then waited for the impressions to show. A day goes by, my ads are approved, I see the green light but no impressions. Another day goes by, no impression, another day with 0 impressions. Finally I think to make the bid adjustment, see the location and demographic settings, change the timings, add networks, language, inventory types, all the usual suspects.

Meanwhile thinking my Google Ads account is banned or something, I create the same campaign in one of my other Google Ads account to see if I was the source of the problem . I wait another 2 days and then finally click on “Contact Us”. Explaining to Google everything in detail.

A few days later I get a call from Google, they ask me for my Customer ID, my email ID for verification. And then they have a look at my account and give me the answer that I already had guessed.

You see in the few days that my ad had not been running I was trying to find some articles on Google or some videos on YouTube as to why this was happening and was I alone. In the few hours that I did my search I was managed to find just one YouTube Channel  who told me the real reason behind this. It almost looked like a conspiracy theory but to be honest it was making sense. 

The Problem 

So what was the problem that both of them told me. They told me that Google was either doing a software update, or trying to fix a bug with Google Ads or something like this and it went south. So basically the developers at Google have been working on this problem since a few weeks now maybe for 2 or more months.

This bug has stopped almost all the new video ad campaigns in almost all the accounts. The old ones might be still running, Only the video ads are affected not search not display. And the biggest thing of it all is that this problem is on Pan India Level.  Think of how much daily revenue loss Google might be facing? Maybe in crores of rupees. 

The Solve

Well to be honest there is nothing much you can do. You can shift your video  ads budget to Google Search ads and Display ads. Or maybe target people on social media. There is still a 1% chance that your account or campaigns are not affected, especially if you have a big budget. If you have a running campaign, lucky you are. Don’t try to make too many changes you will risk losing it all together. The best thing I can think of is if you have an International google Ads account, make a campaign from there. It should work. 

Think About It…

Are anyone of you facing this kind of a problem? Have you noticed a decrease in the YouTube Ads shown in the website? Is Google trying to burry articles and videos of this kind, can anyone of you find some articles realte4d to this or the algorithm of Google is not promoting this kind of stuff. At least for now, and when the problem will get solved it wont be any need for it anyway. But is Google trying to control the outbreak here? Comment below the list of place where you found articles related to this.