ScaleyWhy Are My Google Ads Not Working?
Answered 3 November 2026 · Written and reviewed by Christopher Krassnig
When Google Ads are not working, check 7 things in this order: tracking, search terms, product feed, bids, budget, landing page, then the offer. Start at the top, because broken tracking makes every other number wrong. Scaley Media Buyer, which we build, reads your account read-only and checks your search terms, products and campaign settings for you.
Is It Broken, or Just Too Early to Tell?
"Not working" means one of three things. Find yours first, because each one has a different fix.
The first is no impressions: your ads are not showing at all. That is a setup problem, and it has its own section further down.
The second is clicks but no sales: people come, nobody buys. The 7 checks below are built for this one.
The third is sales that lose money: the ads sell, just not for more than they cost. That comes down to your margin and your bids, and the break-even section below shows the math.
Before you change anything, count your clicks. Small numbers lie. Say your store turns 2% of visitors into buyers (a made-up rate, to show the math). Then there is still a 36% chance of zero sales in 50 clicks. At 100 clicks that chance drops to 13%. At 150 clicks it is about 5%. So 40 clicks and zero sales proves nothing yet. 150 clicks and zero sales is a real signal. Go find the cause.
The 7 Checks, in Order
Run them top to bottom. Tracking comes first because every other number depends on it, so a fix lower down means little until the checks above it are clean.
- 1
Tracking
Across the 400+ store accounts ZenoX Media has run, tracking is the check I always do first. Make one real test order. Then open Goals, then Conversions, in Google Ads. Your purchase action should record that order once, with the right order value. Check which actions are set to primary: only primary actions fill the Conversions column and feed Smart Bidding. If an add to cart or a page view is primary, Google is chasing the wrong thing with your money.
- 2
Search Terms
Open the search terms report for the last 30 days and sort by cost. Look for terms with clicks and zero sales: other brands, "free", "how to", "DIY", wrong product types. Add the clear losers as negative keywords. Then do it again every week, because new junk searches keep showing up.
- 3
Product Feed
Open the products page in Merchant Center. A disapproved best seller means the budget goes to whatever got approved. Then check the feed matches the store: same price, in stock, a clear title with the product type and the key detail people search for.
- 4
Bids
Read the bid strategy status. "Learning" means it just changed, so give it time before you judge. A Target ROAS set far above what the account really makes can hold your ads back to almost nothing, because Google cannot hit the number you asked for. Maximize conversions on broken tracking spends hard on the wrong thing. Fix check 1 before you touch this.
- 5
Budget
If a campaign says "Limited by budget", it stops showing part way through the day. Also do the click math. $20 a day at a $1 click is about 20 clicks a day. Split that over five campaigns and none of them ever gets enough clicks to learn anything.
- 6
Landing Page
Click your own ad on your phone. Does the page load fast? Is the price the same as in the ad? Can you see shipping cost and delivery time before checkout? In Shopify, compare sessions from Google with add to carts. Lots of visits and almost no add to carts means the page is where you lose them.
- 7
The Offer
Search your main product on Google and look at the Shopping row. If five stores sell the same thing for less, with free shipping, people click your ad, compare, and buy from them. No setting fixes that. The price, the bundle or the product has to change.
Ads Not Showing at All
If you get no impressions, the 7 checks are the wrong list. Look here instead.
First, read the campaign status. A paused campaign, or one past its end date, shows nothing. Then open the Ads page and read the status column. A disapproved ad does not run. "Eligible (limited)" means a policy is holding it back, so click the status to see which one.
Next, check billing and the account itself. A failed payment stops every campaign. A suspended Google Ads account stops everything too, and Google tells you why at the top of the account.
For Shopping and Performance Max, look at Merchant Center. A suspended Merchant Center account or a disapproved feed means no product ads. The products page there shows which items are disapproved and why.
Last, check who you target. A tight location or a short ad schedule can leave almost nobody to show to. On Search, keywords marked "Low search volume" barely ever trigger. Add broader terms people really type.
Do not keep searching for your own ad on Google to check it. Use the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool in Google Ads instead. It shows whether your ad would show for a search, and why not, without touching your stats.
Clicks but No Sales: Match the Symptom to the Cause
Your numbers already point at the problem. Read the pattern before you guess. This table comes from running ZenoX Media, my Google Ads agency, not from a study.
| What you see | Likely cause | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Sales in Shopify, zero conversions in Google Ads | Tracking is broken or not installed | Goals, then Conversions, then the status of your purchase action |
| More conversions in Google Ads than orders in the store | A sale counts twice, or a non-sale action counts as a conversion | Which conversion actions are set to primary |
| Lots of clicks, high click-through rate, no sales | The wrong searches, or the page loses them | The search terms report, then your landing page on a phone |
| Spend sits on one or two products that never sell | Google found cheap clicks on the wrong products | Products report in Google Ads, sorted by cost |
| Add to carts, but no checkouts | A surprise at checkout: shipping cost, delivery time, payment options | Your store's checkout, as a buyer would see it |
| It worked, then stopped | Something changed | Change history in Google Ads, plus any theme or app change in your store |
Selling but Losing Money? Find Your Break-Even ROAS
If the ads bring sales and you still lose money, work out your break-even ROAS before you touch a setting. It is 1 divided by your gross margin. Gross margin is what is left from a sale after product cost, shipping and fees.
At a 40% margin, break-even is 2.5. Each $1 of ads has to bring back $2.50 in sales just to stand still. A ROAS of 2.2 on that store loses money on every sale. The same 2.2 on a store with a 50% margin makes a small profit.
| Gross margin | Break-even ROAS |
|---|---|
| 30% | 3.33 |
| 40% | 2.50 |
| 50% | 2.00 |
| 60% | 1.67 |
Under your break-even number, raise the price, cut the product cost, or move budget to the products that clear it. Above it, the account works and the job is to grow it. Google Ads reports ROAS as conversion value divided by ad spend, so check 1 has to be clean before you trust it.
When to Fix It Yourself, and When to Get Help
Do it yourself first. The 7 checks cost nothing, and on a small account you can run all of them in an afternoon.
If you want a second pair of eyes, start with Scaley Media Buyer ($99/mo + 1% of total ad spend). We build it, so weigh that. It connects to Google Ads read-only. You ask "why are my ads not selling?" and it reads your live campaigns, search terms and products, and shows you the waste right away. It covers the account side of checks 2 to 5: the search terms, which products eat the spend, and your campaign settings like bids and budget. Checks 1, 6 and 7 are yours. Your tracking setup, your landing page and your offer sit outside what it reads. It never changes a setting and never runs on its own.
Two other levels sit next to it. Scaley Consultant ($99/mo flat) answers from screenshots and CSVs you upload and connects to nothing. Scaley Suite ($199/mo + 4% of total ad spend) finds the fixes and queues each one with the reason. Only the Scaley Suite writes to an account, and only after an individual yes from you. Every level starts with a 3-day free trial, card required.
Some jobs need a person. If tracking was never installed, someone has to set up the tag, often a developer or your theme's support. If Merchant Center keeps suspending you, read the exact reason it gives and fix that first. Bids will not help until the account is back. And if you want the whole account run for you, ZenoX Media is our ecommerce Google Ads agency, and that is the job it does.
Common Questions
How long should I wait before deciding Google Ads are not working?
Go by clicks. If your store converts around 2% (an example rate), around 150 clicks with zero sales is a real signal, and under 50 clicks tells you very little. After a big change, like a new bid strategy, give it a week or two before you judge. Google itself says a bid strategy needs time and enough conversions before you can judge it fairly.
Why did my Google Ads suddenly stop working?
Something changed. Open Change history in Google Ads first. If nothing changed there, look outside the account: a new store theme or app can break tracking, a feed update can get products disapproved, and a failed payment stops everything.
Why are my Google Shopping ads not converting?
Shopping lives on the feed and the price. Check that your best sellers are approved in Merchant Center, that titles say what the product is, and that your price holds up next to the other stores in the same row. Then check the search terms, because Shopping matches searches mostly from your titles and feed data, not from keywords you chose.
Should I turn my Google Ads off?
Not before you run the 7 checks. An account that looks dead can come back from one fix, like repaired tracking or a junk search term you block. If tracking is clean, the search terms are relevant, the page converts from other traffic, and it still does not sell after a few hundred clicks, then pause it and look at the product and the price.
Keep Going
- Run the free Google Ads audit
- See how Scaley Media Buyer reads your account
- How to set up Google Ads conversion tracking
- 5 places Google Ads quietly wastes money
- What is PPC tracking?
- What are negative keywords in Google Ads?
- What is Google Merchant Center?
- What is a good ROAS?
- How much does Google Ads cost?
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