April 5thGoogle’s advertising liaison Ginny Marvin confirmed that Google Ads reports are experiencing delays.
This issue was originally reported on April 1stonecausing large numbers of users to receive error messages, high latency, and other unexpected behavior of the platform.
As of April 7ththe issue appears to have been resolved for most users, but is still listed as an ongoing outage.
Who is affected?
A large number of users who rely on the Google Ads platform have been affected by this issue.
Specifically in Google’s Status Dashboard, the approval process for new or updated ads for Responsive Search Ads (RSA) is longer than average.
Some RSAs reportedly require more than 48 hours to be approved.
How often does it happen?
When viewing the Google Ads Status Dashboard, issues with Google Ads Manager and Google Ads appear relatively frequently.
For Google Ads Manager, there are usually one or two questions per month. Four issues were recorded in March. The maximum outage time for Google Ads Manager is 11 days and 9 hours.
In Google Ads, there are usually one or two questions per month. The last major outage was December 16, 2021 and lasted 14 days and 19 hours.
why we care
While you can still access the Google Ads online interface, your account may experience delays.
This can be extremely frustrating for any marketer; especially those with deadlines or long to-do lists ahead.
The unexpected behavior of the hours you spend on the platform every day can disrupt your work schedule, the results you deliver to your customers, and more.
For example, if your client wants to run new ads during the outage, you won’t be able to meet that deadline. Not only do you have to deal with inefficiencies, but also potentially dissatisfied customers.
Latency can also cause reporting lag and discrepancies between clicks and sessions in Google Analytics. This is another setback that marketers have to deal with and educate customers.
what can you do?
Fortunately, most latency issues or bugs in Google Ads are fixed in a timely manner. In the meantime, you can arm yourself with the right tools if you encounter these problems in the future.
This quick article Define what a conversion delay report is and what types of activities are available for such reports.
Google also has a useful resources Explain how latency affects Google Ads clicks and analytics sessions. It provides reasons why your data may not be matched from one platform to another.
Use this guide to help you educate yourself and feel confident when discussing these issues with your clients.
Google’s terminology can be technical, so make sure to structure it in a way that both you and your customers understand. Even if there is nothing you can do about the issue, it shows that you are actively investigating and taking a proactive approach.
Finally, bookmark the Google Ads Status Dashboard to keep track of any future events and get real-time updates from the feed itself.you can find the dashboard here.
Featured Image: lithian/Shutterstock
