Google Ads Ad Groups Start Pausing March 11 due to Low Activity

Starting March 11, 2024 we are rolling out a permanent change that automatically pauses search campaign ad groups that were created at least 13 months ago and have not had impressions in the past 13 months. The rollout is expected to be complete for all production Google Ads accounts by April 30, 2024. This is being done to improve Google Ads experience for advertisers.

Advertisers who are affected by this change will be able to unpause ad groups if they still need them. However, we recommend that advertisers review their ad groups and only unpause the ones you expect to get impressions in the coming weeks. Unpaused ad groups will be automatically paused again if they don’t receive any impressions over the next 3 months.

What do I need to change?

No code changes are necessary, but Google Ads API developers can make changes to improve the transparency to their advertisers as to why the ad_group.status is set to PAUSED. If you keep local copies of Google Ads information in your database, you can keep them in sync by querying change history.

You can query the change event to see if the ad group status has changed with the following query for all API versions. If the change_event.changed_fields contains status, then this is an ad group that Google paused. Make sure to replace INSERT_YYYY-MMM-DD with your own date range.

SELECT ad_group.status, ad_group.resource_name, ad_group.name, 
ad_group.id, change_event.change_date_time, 
change_event.new_resource, change_event.old_resource, 
change_event.changed_fields, change_event.change_resource_type, 
change_event.user_email, change_event.ad_group 
FROM change_event 
WHERE change_event.user_email = 'Low activity system bulk change'  
AND change_event.change_resource_type = 'AD_GROUP' 
AND ad_group.status = 'PAUSED' 
AND change_event.change_date_time >= 'INSERT_YYYY-MMM-DD' 
AND change_event.change_date_time <= 'INSERT_YYYY-MMM-DD' 
ORDER BY change_event.change_date_time DESC LIMIT 50

An example of a change event where the ad group has been paused by Google would look similar to:

{
      "adGroup": {
        "resourceName": "customers/1234567890/adGroups/5432154321",
        "status": "PAUSED",
        "id": "5432154321",
        "name": "Your ad group name"
      },
      "changeEvent": {
        "resourceName": "customers/1234567890/changeEvents/1708648783892610~5~0",
        "changeDateTime": "2024-02-22 16:39:43.89261",
        "changeResourceType": "AD_GROUP",
        "userEmail": "Low activity system bulk change",
        "oldResource": {
          "adGroup": {
            "status": "ENABLED"
          }
        },
        "newResource": {
          "adGroup": {
            "status": "PAUSED"
          }
        },
        "changedFields": "status",
        "adGroup": "customers/1234567890/adGroups/5432154321"
      }
    }

Starting with v16, the API returns the reason as to why the ad group was paused with new fields. You can adjust the change history query to include these fields.

API Version	Query Ad Group Changes
v16.1+	Starting in v16.1, the ad_group.primary_status_reasons will contain AD_GROUP_PAUSED_DUE_TO_LOW_ACTIVITY if ad_group.primary_status is set to PAUSED by Google.
v16	Starting in v16, the ad_group.primary_status_reasons will contain AD_GROUP_PAUSED if ad_group.primary_status is set to PAUSED by Google.

You will still be able to update your ad groups and make changes while they are in a paused state.

Where can I get support?

If you have questions, please reach out to us on the support form or at googleadsapi-support@google.com.

Nadine Wang, Google Ads API Team