If you have any AdWords ads that you have filed away as “removed” simply for decluttering, without actually wanting them gone for good, you should be aware that Google is making changes so that these removed ads will truly be removed.

However, some people are so used to removed not really meaning gone forever that could be caught in this new change.

One of the pain points many people have of AdWords is that ads never really get deleted. They just kind of sit in limbo. Previously you could “delete” campaigns, but they remained within the account, with all the associated data, so they weren’t truly deleted. AdWords change the terminology in from deleted to “removed”, because there was confusion about the fact they were never really deleted.  But no longer, ads meeting specific criteria will be removed for good.

Sometimes people will set ads as removed, but know that they can still access the information from the ads or campaigns even though it cannot be reactivated, which can make it quick and easy to recreate these ads. People even been known to use these are campaigns as a note taking area of sorts, serving as reminders for various creative to test in the future.

But Google has finally changed how this works, so these removed ads will truly be removed entirely from your accounts if they meet certain criteria.

Once ads have been removed for more than 100 days without any impressions, Google will completely remove them from the account and they will no longer be accessible.,

Google also notes that they will be cleaning up and use advertising campaigns as well using the same criteria.

Will we ever see a true delete functionality for ads and campaigns that do have impressions and financial data attached to them? Chances are no because there is financial information tied to these campaigns and Google wants users to be able to determine exactly where there ad spend went, something that would be impossible to do if campaigns were deleted.

The “not really deleted” for ad campaigns with impressions also would prevent any shenanigans, such as a PPC consultant running personal AdWords ads from within the client’s account or an employee doing it on their company’s business account. That data would always be available within the account, so there is definitely reasons why Google hasn’t implemented a true delete.

So if you do have any ads that you set to remove, even if you don’t really want to see them go away forever, you’ll need to get the data from them before the 100 days is out, or run them to get a few impressions.