Why can’t I see the Search Terms on Google Ads

Why can't I see search terms on Google Ads?

Summary

Table of Contents

Originally posted on reddit (r/PPC), but deleted since then. Boo.

Question

It says that I have zero in the search terms and keywords tab.

Answer

Do you have Search with Display Expansion enabled? Hundreds of clicks for 15k impressions sounds like that to me.

There’s no search term data with Display Expansion. To clarify, there’s no search term data for ads appearing on the Display network through Display Expansion. You should still get search data if there’s any.

You can easily scroll the “Search Terms” report tab under “Insights & Reports” and check the bottom line, it should read:

  • Total: Search Terms
  • Total: Other Search Terms
  • Total: Campaign

If your Total: Search Terms + Other Search Terms lines aren’t equal to the Total: Campaign line, it means you have ads running on Display.

If your Total: Other Search Terms line has all the clicks and impressions, your problem is the enigmatic privacy threshold.

How to disable Display Network for Search campaigns

Untick the “Include Google Display Network” under Campaign > Settings > Networks > Display Network (see below):

Search with Display Expansion Option
You’ll only see this menu for Search campaigns.

Incidentally, if you’re not sure about Search Partners, disable that too!

This is a very common mistake – if you are not sure what you’re doing, make sure you disable the “Search with Display Expansion” feature.

It may be enabled by default, so double-check that!

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Célestin Hanatsuka

The Pig-in-Chief at PPC.ing (here). Also the head of L’atelier, which sounds like it’s a huge deal but considering his office is one meter away from his bed, he’s just being overly dramatic.

He spends too much time on reddit and, one day, realised he could just recycle the content he posts there, so that he can feel better about participating. And by participating, we obviously mean procrastinating.

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