Ten minutes.
Madder never touches your payment method — spend goes from Google to your card or invoice as if you ran the ads yourself. Madder keeps every draft paused until you approve, flags a disapproved ad in Needs your call with the policy name, and stops proposing budget increases on a campaign whose ads cannot serve.
Before you start#
- Admin access to the Google Ads account.
- A card, PayPal or bank account in the account's currency.
1. Choose a payment setting#
In Billing → Settings, under How you pay (as of September 2026), Google offers up to three settings depending on country:
- Automatic payments — Google charges "after your ads run", at your payment threshold or on the first of the month. The threshold starts low and rises as you pay. Default for most owners.
- Manual payments — you pay first; "as your ads run and you accrue costs, the credit from your payment will decrease". Ads stop when the balance is gone. Useful as a hard cap.
- Monthly invoicing — a credit line paid by bank transfer. Google requires a business registered for a year, six months in good standing and about $5,000 a month for three of the last twelve months. Not self-serve.
Add the method under Billing → Payment methods; a backup card avoids ads stopping on a declined charge.
2. Read the status column#
Go to Campaigns → Ads and check Status. Policy statuses:
- Under review — just created or edited; Google says most reviews take one business day.
- Eligible — cleared, serving everywhere.
- Eligible (limited) — complies "but limited in where and when they can show": trademarks, alcohol, healthcare, age-restricted content. Ads run, reach is smaller.
- Disapproved — "cannot run; content or destination violates Google Ads policy". Hover the status for the policy name.
- Not eligible — no policy issue: the campaign is paused, ended or incomplete. Madder's paused drafts show this.
Assets (sitelinks, images) use Approved and Approved (limited).
3. Fix, then appeal#
First fix the ad or landing page — most disapprovals are a claim on the page, a missing privacy policy, or a destination that does not load. Then go to Tools → Troubleshooting → Policy manager, tab Policy issues, select the ad and Appeal; or on Campaigns → Ads tick the ad, Edit → Appeal policy decision. Choose Made changes to comply with policy or Dispute decision. Status In progress means "check back in 24 hours".
4. Know the appeal limits#
"Each ad is limited to 3 appeals"; after that only customer support can reopen it. Wait 24 hours between appeals or Google marks them duplicates. From 21 July 2026, decisions older than six months cannot be appealed from the account. Fix first, appeal once.
If it doesn't work#
- Ads stopped, status "Eligible" — a billing problem: Billing → Summary shows a declined payment or an unpaid manual balance.
- Whole account "Suspended" — an account-level policy (circumventing systems, unpaid balance, suspicious payments); appeal from the red banner, not per ad. Madder pauses proposals on a suspended account.
- Disapproved again after the fix — a cached landing page was reviewed; wait an hour after publishing.
- Eligible (limited) on a brand term — a trademark; only the owner or an authorised reseller can lift it.
- Payment threshold too low — it rises with each on-time payment.