On April 5th, Google’s Ads Liaison Ginny Marvin confirmed that Google Ads reporting is experiencing a latency issue.
The issue was originally reported on April 1st, resulting in a large subset of users receiving error messages, high latency, and other unexpected behavior of the platform.
As of April 7th, the issue has seemed to be resolved for a majority of users but is still listed as an ongoing disruption.
Who Is Affected?
A large number of users who rely on the Google Ads platform have been affected by this issue.
Specifically noted in Google’s status dashboard, Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) were experiencing a longer than average approval process for new or updated ads.
Some RSAs were reported to take over 48 hours to be approved.
How Often Does It Happen?
When reviewing the Google Ads status dashboard, it appears issues with Google Ads Manager and Google Ads happen with relative frequency .
For Google Ads Manager, there are typically one to two issues per month. In March there were four issues logged. The longest disruption for Google Ads Manager was 11 days and nine hours.
In Google Ads, there’s typically one to two issues per month. The last significant disruption was December 16, 2021 lasting for 14 days and 19 hours.
Why We Care
While you’re still able to access the Google Ads online interface, it’s possible your account is experiencing latency issues.
This can cause extreme frustration for any marketer; especially those with deadlines or a long task list ahead of them.
Unexpected behavior from a platform you spend hours per day in can disrupt your work schedule, deliverables to your clients, and more.
For example, if your client is expecting new ads to go live while there’s a disruption, you’re not able to meet that deadline. Not only do you have to deal with work inefficiencies, but potentially unhappy clients as well.
Latency can also cause reporting lag times and discrepancies between clicks and sessions within Google Analytics. This is another frustration that marketers have to deal with and educate their clients on.
What Can You Do?
Fortunately, most latency issues or errors in Google Ads are fixed in a timely matter. In the meantime, you can arm yourself with the right tools if you experience these issues in the future.
This quick article defines what conversion lag reporting is and what types of campaigns are available for this type of reporting.
Google also has a helpful resource to explain how latency can impact Google Ads Clicks and Analytics Sessions. It provides reasons why your data may not match from one platform to another.
Use this guide to help educate yourself and be confident when talking to your clients about these issues.
Google can be technical in their terminology, so make sure to frame it in a way that both you and your clients understand. Even if there’s nothing you can do about the issue, it shows that you are actively investigating and taking a proactive approach.
Lastly, bookmark the Google Ads Status Dashboard to track any incident in the future and get real-time updates from the source itself. You can find the dashboard here.
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