Quite often, AdWords will notify you that ads aren't showing for particular keywords, as they are being blocked by Negative Keywords at Ad Group or Campaign level.
For example you may have a new Ad Group with ads focusing on ‘Cheap Luxury Holidays’, however the ads are being blocked by the Negative keyword ‘Cheap’.
Whilst this feature is useful, we've found that the alerts never always appear straight away – and amidst a large account this can go unnoticed fairly easily following a large upload or edit.
Short of waiting for this notification to appear – you can run a ‘Keyword Diagnosis’ test and filter out any approval issues – which can be a lengthy process. Instead, we've found a much quicker way to check if this issue is occurring.
Quick Fix
Navigate to the ‘Home’ tab of your account, and the URL should look something like this:
Delete the end of the URL, beginning with the # symbol, and instead add the following:
#doc.CAMPAIGN_DOCTOR_KEYWORD_BLOCKING&app=cm
Your URL should now look something like this:
This will then navigate you to the page which otherwise would only have been accessible through the notification/alert. Bookmark this URL and you can access it even quicker in the future!
