Management won’t stop searching for our ads.

★★ signal-medium r/ppc · ↑ 78 · 💬 44 · 2025-06-19 · kw: PPC management · open on reddit ↗

Tool

Google Ads

Issue

PPC manager repeatedly receives false alerts from non-target-audience management staff searching for keywords manually every 1-2 weeks, claiming ads are 'down' when they simply don't match targeting criteria, creating recurring support burden and distrust in campaign performance reports.

Cost

unstated

Recommendation

Block company IP addresses at campaign level (disputed: also suggested as 'babysitting' campaigns targeting office IPs to always show ads); automated boilerplate response template; Google Ads Ad Preview Tool; IP-level blocking with stakeholder notification

extracted with

anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5 · 2026-05-08

Body

This is going to be partly for advice and part rant to see if anyone else has dealt with this??? Currently doing ppc for a very large company that owns smaller subsidiaries - about every other week I get an email saying something to the effect of “John Doe tried to search this key word and the ad didn’t come up for him the one time he searched it so the ads are down” I have - Explained to my manager and upper level corporate management multiple times they don’t need to be searching for the keywords as they are not the target audience. - Been very diligent in creating and sending out reports. - Gone as far as to explain things like google ads conversion targeting as well as the ppc auction space. - Reviewed all campaign settings and targeting with them both in person and on Zoom. I’ll be damned if a two weeks after I have a conversation like this I don’t get an email saying ads aren’t showing up for me to ask them why they think this is the case for them to go “I tried searching it on google” Has anyone dealt with this? If so please give any tips. I am starting to think the marketing managers at a fortune 200 company just don’t understand advertising/ppc. Any help/stories appreciated.

Top comments (6)

[score=54] PortlandWilliam

I would create a boiler plate document that explains why they don't see the ads and include details on audience targeting, budget, and location. Have it automated as a response to any emails with the words "Ads showing".

[score=43] [deleted]

[removed]

[score=72] kontrolleur

gather their IPs and block them on campaign level. tell them about it. fixes two problems at once.

[score=16] s_hecking

You can try using this tool ad [preview](https://ads.google.com/anon/AdPreviewAnonymousAdPreviewTool). It should show without impacting campaign. Also you could have a script check ad status and display a page for them to always view as “enabled”. Kindly explain that searching for their ads and not taking click or conversion actions will force Google to block them from displaying as they’re no longer a good target. Also it’s generally a best practice to block the company IP addresses.

[score=11] thejamielee

i have been down this road. it’s a culture issue at the company. education and demonstration is pretty much the only path forward, with the bulk of the effort coming on your end. explaining we are optimizing around SQLs using conversion data on $120k equipment purchased and lookalike audiences, etc. and then pointedly making it clear a sales rep meets NONE of that criteria so they should not be seeing them is a sign the account is performing correctly. at most they should only be seeing TOFU brand campaigns

[score=8] mtlnobody

Not that I'm recommending this but a few years ago, it got to a point where we made separate "babysitting" campaigns to target the office IP (and immediate surrounding neighborhood) so that the client _always_ saw their own ad. We even told them that this was what we were doing and that it's a stupid waste of money and ... they didn't care