There are moments in Google Ads where everything looks correct—
the campaign is approved, keywords are active, budget is fine—
yet the system simply refuses to deliver a single impression.
I recently ran into this exact situation.
- Campaign created
- Auto-bidding (maximize clicks)
- Partial match keywords
- All ads approved
- More than enough daily budget
And still: 0 impressions. Completely silent.
I waited hours. Nothing changed.
It genuinely felt like the campaign wasn’t participating in the auction at all.
So I tried something simple:
I paused the campaign → waited a few seconds → turned it back on.
And just like that, impressions started appearing immediately.
This wasn’t a one-off glitch. It turns out this behavior is surprisingly common.
Here’s what actually happened behind the scenes, and how you can prevent it.
■ What Actually Happened in My Case
In my environment, the symptoms were:
- All green checks (eligible, approved)
- Keywords fine
- No warnings
- Still zero delivery
The moment I paused and re-enabled the campaign, it suddenly woke up.
Impressions flowed in, clicks started happening, and everything became “normal.”
This made me dig deeper into why Google Ads behaves this way.
The answer lies in how Google evaluates new campaigns.
■ Why Does “Pause → Enable” Make Google Ads Start Delivering?
There are three common internal reasons for this exact phenomenon.
1. New campaigns often sit in an internal “learning wait” state
Google doesn’t fully enter auctions right after a campaign is created.
Before pushing your ads, it first gathers:
- CTR predictions
- Landing page quality
- Keyword relevance
- Expected performance signals
During this phase, your campaign may hardly participate in auctions at all.
When I toggled the campaign off and back on, it triggered a fresh evaluation,
and Google finally decided to release it into auctions.
2. Auto-bidding was being overly cautious due to low data
Strategies like:
- Maximize clicks
- Maximize conversions
- Target CPA
- Target ROAS
all require some performance history.
With no data, Google sometimes chooses
“It’s safer not to enter auctions yet.”
That’s why delivery stayed at zero.
Toggling off/on forced a mini-reset, causing the bid strategy to re-evaluate and finally enter auctions.
3. Internal quality score issues prevented the campaign from entering auctions
Even if your campaign is “Approved,”
Google may internally decide your ads won’t win enough auctions to justify serving.
This can happen when:
- Landing page loads slowly
- Predicted CTR is low
- Competition spikes suddenly
- Keyword-to-ad relevance is weak
When paused and resumed, Google re-scores the campaign.
This re-scoring is often enough to push it into auction participation.
In my case, this was likely part of the story.
■ How to Avoid This Problem in the Future
Here are practical steps that reliably reduce “no-delivery” scenarios.
● Use higher bids for the first 24 hours
New campaigns desperately need data.
A strong initial bid helps Google collect early signals.
● ECPC is the most stable starting bid strategy
Among all auto-bidding types,
Enhanced CPC is the least likely to cause a “no delivery” freeze.
Once data accumulates, you can switch to tCPA or ROAS later.
● Make small edits to force re-evaluation
These all help trigger Google’s optimization pipeline:
- Slight tweaks to ad text
- Adding a few related keywords
- Adjusting max CPC
- Modifying the landing page URL (even by adding UTM parameters)
These changes encourage Google to “re-learn” the campaign.
■ Conclusion: It’s Not a Bug—It’s Typical Google Ads Behavior
If you experience:
“My campaign won’t deliver at all.”
“No impressions for hours.”
“Everything looks approved but nothing moves.”
You’re not alone.
This is simply how the system behaves during early or uncertain evaluation.
My experience—zero delivery for hours → pause → enable → instant impressions—
is an extremely common path out of the issue.
Before panicking or rewriting your whole campaign,
try toggling it off and back on.
It’s simple, fast, and surprisingly effective.
