Two Reasons Google Ads Lead Form is Rejected

An Investigation on Why the Google Ads Lead Form in My Google Ad Got Rejected.

I just found out two reasons Google Ads lead form is rejected by Google. Before I get to the point, here is the story. [If you are in a hurry, skip to the last paragraph of this article.]

I know from my experience that Communication or rather the lack of it, is the Reason for most, if not all of the World's problems.

Google ads, is a case in example. :-)

We all know Google is making billions through its ads and its communication is impeccable.

But, wait, don't get into hasty conclusions. Enter Google ads.

I do not claim to be an expert in Google ads. But, we generally use it to promote our business. I assume you know more than a little aboug Google ads. Hence, there is no introduction offered here.

So, recently, we created a responsive search Google ad, with a lead form to try and capture some leads.

It was an ad to promote one of the largest wedding venues in Chennai.

What is a Google lead form?

A Google lead form is one of the extensions to a Google ad. Here, a prospect can fill in their contact details, to know more about the product/service on display.

Sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, and one-click calling are other extensions. Like these other extensions, lead forms are also shown directly under search ads.

For each campaign you need to create a lead form, if required. Of course, a lead form thus created could be used in multiple ad campaigns.

Filling the Google Ads Lead Form

Here, the lead form had a "Headline", the "Business name", a "Description".

I filled in all three.

Of the many listed, I chose three contact details, such as name, phone number and city, for the visitor to fill in. These are by default, pre-filled automatically.

Lead Form Qualifying Question

From my earlier experience of using Google lead forms, I found out the disadvantages of a plain form. Without a qualifying question, you generally tend to attract a lot of junk enquiries. I do not know the exact reason, though.

To avoid that I included a mandatory qualifying question, which will ensure that the visitor indeed posted the enquiry. He/she is forced to choose an answer from a dropdown, or fill in a text box with some information. I assumed that just the submit button without the qualifying question was the reason for the junk enquiries.

Most of them we called, would say, "What enquiry? I didn't post any enquiry. Call again and I will report you!". Paying money and inviting trouble :-)

While Google lead forms may appear to be a convenient solution for lead generation, there is a lesson here. It is that the quality of leads collected probably isn't as high as with a personalized post-click landing page. By having a well-designed personalized page experience, we can achieve the same results as Google lead form extensions can. Furthermore, a dedicated page gives prospects a more comprehensive introduction to the offer and your brand. It gives them relevant details to assist in making an informed decision.

Once I filled in all the requisite details, I saved the form. And waited. Google Ads responded after a little while with the message

Not eligible
Disapproved
Ad violates policy and can't run:
Unacceptable spacing

What Did I Miss Out On?

I clicked on "Read the policy". Here's the link to the lead form requirements. I went through it with a fine toothcomb and couldn't find anything untoward in my lead form content.

Now, I did not give any extra spacing or miss a space between words as given in the example in the policy. So, what was the real issue? It looks like Google ads wants us to find out the reasons, the hard way.

Google could have told us that there is a problem with the Headline. Or the qualifying question, or wherever. But, it chose to just limit the response to "Unacceptable spacing", that's all.

I started looking at each word and letter individually, to rule out any error. I checked for a spelling mistake or an extra space that I might have put in there. At the end of this exercise, I found that I was using an exclamation mark "!". Could that be the problem?

Assuming that the "!" could be the culprit, I removed that. And submitted the ad. After sometime, I found the ad was again "Not eligible".

Not finding anything untoward, I clicked on "Appeal" and disputed the decision.

Again no luck. Rejected again. Totally confused now, I assumed that the messaging was grammatically incorrect.

I wrote the head line "Top Wedding Hall 500 Guests", in order to adhere to the 30 character limit. So, I changed it to "Top Wedding Hall in Chennai" and submitted again.

Two Reasons Why Your Lead Form Could Be Rejected

Voila! The ad got through. So, these are the culprits. The insight here is that you cannot use the exclamation mark(!) and the statements you make in your ads, have to be grammatically correct.

And, finally my Google ads lead form finally got approved.