Google Adwords - Validation Check false passes

[Disent Design]

Hi,

I just put together 15 google ads within GWD all set up in the AdWords environment. After spending many hours putting them all together and publishing them they all Passed All Checks in the Validation Process.

However upon uploading them I got an error message as follows -  Your HTML5 ad has modified clickability, which is not supported

I'm positive this is because I have a carousel gallery set up within the ads which has each image linking to a different product page. This is how the gallery should function and according to GWD this is acceptable.

My question is two-fold - How do I go about linking my carousel gallery images to individual pages when using the Exit URLs function returns an error?

Also why does Google web designer tell me creative passes the validation process if it obviously doesn't?

Thanks

[San Khong]

I'm sorry you run into this issue. The reason we did not add the test for modified clickability in Google Web Designer Ad Validator is because even though it's disallowed on image ads, it seems to be acceptable for dynamic ads. We have no way of knowing when the ad will turn into a dynamic ad during ad development. I will bring this up to our PM again because I saw how frustrated it must be to spend time creating the ads that won't be accepted on AdWords.

Have you looked at dynamic ads on AdWords? You can set up the binding to the product image and product url for each item in the gallery through a feed set up on AdWords. Using dynamic ads, you will be able to click to exit to the product page on each gallery page. Check out one of the templates for Dynamic Remarketing for AdWords in our Template gallery (File > New from template...)

San

Google Web Designer team

[Disent Design]

Hi San,

Thanks for the reply I appreciate it & your answer makes sense but it raises more questions. Can you explain why Google AdWords would allow this basic & extremely useful function only within dynamic ads? It defies logic so I can only assume it has something to do with the fact google Adwords charges more to run dynamic ads? My guess this is the same reason google removed the multiple exit functionality on non-dynamic ads, to force the creators to either go dynamic or buy multiple ad spaces....this is concerning and makes me seriously consider moving my campaign over to Doubleclick which does allow this simple functionality.

Yes i have looked into dynamic ads but all that would do is over complicate my creative process by turning my ads into dynamic ads when they have no reason to be, can you confirm that running dynamic ads on google AdWords costs more than running normal ads? Even if it doesnt cost more it will force me to make something a dynamic database driven campaign when it absolutely doesn't need to be.

Thanks again for your response, I really think my best option would be to go with DoubleClick at this stage, however I will play around with turning my ads dynamic, if it doesnt cost me more money or more time then that would be a solution.

[San Khong]

I'm sorry I cannot speak for AdWords. Do you have an AdWords account manager that you can reach out to regrading this issue? You can also go to  AdWords Community Forum and raise your question there.

Thanks,