If you’re using AdWords, you have most likely run into the dreaded ad approval queue.
Does the following sound familiar?
Weeks after creating your new AdWords ads, you phone Google to ask why it is taking so long for them to become active.
Google say, “The amount of time it takes for your ad to be reviewed may vary depending on current ad volumes. Once you create an ad or edit an existing ad, it will be submitted to the queue for approval. The AdWords Specialists review the ads in our program. Please be assured that we are working hard to provide high-quality service.”
You explain to Google that you created the ad over two weeks ago.
Google’s reply:
“Insert canned response here”, “Add some links to Google analytics or some other service” and “We apologize for any inconvenience”.
If you find yourself in this situation, when all you want is to change a landing page URL, you might want to consider setting up a server-side redirect until your ads get approved.
As we’ve mentioned before, using tracking for your destination page URL leaves you in complete control. For example a destination URL of:
www.example.com/my-landing-page.html?source=adwords&campaign=campaign-name&adgroup=ad-group-name&adnum=ad-number
This approach allows you to isolate specific types of traffic within your log analysis software. It’s also ideal for if you need to redirect AdWords traffic from one page to another.
Depending on how your server is set up, there are various methods for redirecting traffic to new pages. However it’s important that you do not redirect traffic to a new domain. All display URLs must match the destination URLs as per the AdWords ad policy.
