Google Ads · No. 26
Paused Google Ads campaign monitoring
In short
A Google Ads campaign status tells you whether the campaign can show ads right now: eligible, paused, ended or limited by budget. A stopped campaign brings in no impressions and no leads, while a budget-limited one misses part of the impressions it could get. Search lost impression share (budget) shows how many potential customers never saw your ads.
Contents
What is a Google Ads campaign status?
A campaign status is a label in Google Ads that tells you whether a campaign can show ads right now. You’ll find it in the “Status” column of your campaigns list. Google Ads Help lists these statuses (Google Ads Help):
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Eligible | The campaign is active and can show ads |
| Eligible (limited) | The campaign is active, but ads show only occasionally because of budget constraints or a limited bid strategy |
| Not eligible | The campaign has no ad groups, or all its ad groups, ads or keywords are paused or removed |
| Paused | Someone turned the campaign off: ads don’t show and no new costs accrue |
| Pending | The campaign’s start date hasn’t arrived yet |
| Ended | The scheduled end date has passed |
| Removed | The campaign has been permanently deleted and can’t be resumed |
Next to the status, keep an eye on two metrics. Impression share is the percentage of impressions your campaign actually got out of all the impressions it could have gotten. CTR (clickthrough rate) is the share of impressions that led to a click: clicks divided by impressions.
Why monitor campaign statuses?
Because a stopped or limited campaign doesn’t throw any error: the account works, there’s money in it, but your ads show less often or not at all. Here’s what Google Ads Help says about a paused campaign:
“Your campaign is inactive because you paused it. Pausing a campaign means that your ads don’t show or accumulate new costs until resumed.”
The lack of spend is misleading: along with the costs, you lose impressions, clicks and leads. A campaign paused “just for a day” for a test or during a sale is easy to forget to turn back on.
A budget limit is even harder to notice, because the campaign keeps running. But it misses part of its audience, and Google lets you measure that loss. Impression share, in Google’s words, “is calculated by taking the number of impressions your ad received divided by the total number of impressions your ad was eligible to receive.” The loss due to budget has a metric of its own, Search lost IS (budget):
“The percentage of time that your ads weren’t shown on the Search Network due to insufficient budget.”
It has a twin metric: Search lost IS (rank). That one means your ads fell short on Ad Rank (bid or quality), not on money. Telling them apart matters: in the first case, a bigger budget helps; in the second, you need to work on your ads and bids.
CTR shows whether people who see your ad find it interesting. Google says that “A high CTR is a good indication that users find your ads and listings helpful and relevant,” but also cautions: “Note that a good CTR is relative to what you’re advertising and on which networks” (Google Ads Help). That’s why it’s more useful to compare a campaign’s CTR with its own past numbers than with anyone else’s.
Why does a Google Ads campaign stop or get limited?
Most often because of something someone did, or a setting everyone forgot about:
- Paused and forgotten. The campaign was turned off for the weekend, for a test, or when a product sold out — and never turned back on.
- The end date passed. The campaign was set up for a promotion with an end date, and it stopped for good along with the promotion, even though it was supposed to keep running.
- The budget is smaller than demand. The daily budget can’t cover all the searches, so Google shows your ads only part of the time, and the campaign gets the “Limited by budget” status (Google Ads Help).
- Bid strategy limits. Bid strategy targets that are too restrictive also reduce the number of impressions.
- Everything inside is off. The ad groups, ads or keywords are paused or disapproved, and the campaign becomes “Not eligible.”
- Weak ads. Low Ad Rank cuts your impression share, and poor ad copy cuts your CTR.
How do you spot a Google Ads campaign problem?
Most problems are visible in your campaigns list once you add the right columns. Typical situations:
| What you see | Possible cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A campaign with no impressions over the last few days | The status is “Paused,” “Ended” or “Not eligible” | Check the status, turn the campaign back on or change the end date |
| The status is “Eligible (limited),” and the budget is fully spent every day | The budget can’t cover all the demand | Consider the recommended budget or narrow your targeting |
| High Search lost IS (budget) | Ads don’t show part of the time because the budget is too low | Raise the budget or move it over from less profitable campaigns |
| Low impression share, but small losses due to budget | Your ads lack Ad Rank: bids or quality | Review your bids, ads and landing pages |
| CTR dropped noticeably compared with previous weeks | The ads are stale, stronger competitors showed up, or search behavior changed | Refresh your ad copy and check your search terms |
How to check your Google Ads campaigns yourself
You can do all of this right in your Google Ads account. A few minutes every few days is enough:
- Open your campaigns list and look at the “Status” column. Filter for campaigns that aren’t “Eligible,” and make sure every stop is intentional.
- For paused and ended campaigns, check the dates: was the campaign supposed to keep running?
- Use the column settings to add “Search impr. share” and “Search lost IS (budget)” to the table (Google’s instructions).
- For campaigns with the “Limited by budget” status, open the budget recommendation. Google’s instructions: “Select a recommended average daily budget, or enter your own” (Google Ads Help).
- Compare the CTR of your Search campaigns with the previous period. A drop with no changes to the campaign is a reason to review your ads.
- Or use the FullCheckApp “Paused Google Ads campaign monitoring” check (available on paid plans) and get the results in a clear visual format.
Impression share data updates with a delay, so look at it over several days or a week, not just today.
If you chose the last option, you’ve already made the right call: the check runs automatically, and you’ll be the first to know about any warning or critical issue.
What FullCheckApp checks
FullCheckApp shows the state of your campaigns on the Google Ads tab. This group has four checks, all at the “warning” level:
- “Campaign stopped” — the campaign has stopped showing ads.
- “Limited by budget” — the campaign loses 10% or more of its impressions due to budget.
- “Low Search impression share” — Search impression share is below 50% for a campaign with at least 100 impressions.
- “Low Search CTR” — CTR is below 10% for a campaign with at least 100 impressions. Google doesn’t define a “normal” CTR, so this is FullCheckApp’s benchmark for flagging ads worth reviewing.
The 100-impression threshold filters out campaigns with too little data to draw conclusions.
Search — Wholesale coffee: ads didn’t show part of the time because the budget was too low.
If all your campaigns stopped at once, the cause is usually money — see Google Ads balance monitoring. How cost per click and cost per conversion change in running campaigns is covered in CPC and cost per conversion monitoring.
Google Ads monitoring is available on FullCheckApp paid plans.
FAQ
What does “Eligible (limited)” mean for a Google Ads campaign?
The campaign is active, but its ads show only part of the time because of budget or bid strategy limits. If the budget is the cause, Google Ads marks the campaign as “Limited by budget” and may suggest a recommended average daily budget. To see how many impressions you’re losing, check Search lost IS (budget).
Does Google charge you for a paused campaign?
No. According to Google Ads Help, a paused campaign is inactive, and its ads don’t show or accumulate new costs. But along with the costs, you lose impressions, clicks and leads. You can turn a paused campaign back on at any time — a removed campaign, however, can’t be restored and has to be rebuilt from scratch.
What is Search lost impression share (budget)?
It’s a Google Ads metric that shows the percentage of time your ads weren’t shown on the Search Network because the campaign ran short of budget. For example, 30% means your ads could have shown almost a third of the time but didn’t. Losses due to rank are a separate metric, and a bigger budget won’t fix them.
What is a good CTR for Google Search ads?
Google doesn’t name a single “good” CTR value and says it depends on what you’re advertising and on which networks. So the best comparison is a campaign’s own past results. As a benchmark, FullCheckApp flags Search campaigns with a CTR below 10%, as long as they have at least 100 impressions.
Why did my Google Ads campaign stop if nobody paused it?
Most often the scheduled end date passed, all the ad groups or ads inside it were paused or disapproved, or the account ran out of funds. Check the “Status” column in your campaigns list: “Ended” points to the date, “Not eligible” to a problem inside the campaign. If all campaigns stopped at once, check your balance.
Sources
- Google Ads Help — About campaign statusessupport.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722131?hl=en
- Google Ads Help — Fix “Limited by budget” statussupport.google.com/google-ads/answer/6385220?hl=en
- Google Ads Help — Get impression share datasupport.google.com/google-ads/answer/7103314?hl=en
- Google Ads Help — Clickthrough rate (CTR): Definitionsupport.google.com/google-ads/answer/2615875?hl=en
Keep Google Ads under control
Google Ads monitoring is available on paid plans — from $5 a month.
See pricing