I'll use this to briefly add my own AdWords horror story.
I decided on whim to try AdWords for a couple of clickbank products. Apparently one of them was against the TOS though I was not aware of it at the time. I haven't read the TOS but since both of my ads where approved I figured everything was OK. I run these two ads for 4 hours and shut them down. One of the ads got maybe 2 clicks and couple of dozen impressions, the second ad had no impressions and no clicks. I paused the campaign after 4 hours. A year and a half later I receive an email from Adwords notifying me that my account has been suspended for running ads against the TOS.
Talking to support was like talking to a brick wall.
I am fairly certain that the only reason I got banned was because I left these ads on pause and didn't actually delete them. They probably run a scan at some point looking for ads that infringe the TOS and picked me up. It's entirely possible that these ads weren't against the TOS at the time I set up the campaign but well, it's Google so there is no one to talk to.
I didn't need to use AdWords since but I probably will at some point so it certainly sucks for me.
We are an active Adwords advertiser with huge budgets for last 5 years. Our account got suspended last month for an ad that was created 4 years ago and was running for few weeks then we deleted it (yes, the ad was deleted for 4 years). What happened is that the domain we were advertising expired and it was serving 404. We were talking for about 1 month with Google reps that it was 4 years ago, the ad has been deleted, website is not even registered any more. Exactly as you are saying - brick wall. As a last chance out of desperation, I decided to register that domain (luckily it was available), then I put a text on it crafted as an apology to Adwords with a link back to google search results for people landing on this site. In few days our account was reinstated... Go figure...only moral of the story is that nothing with Adwords makes sense... you just have to do what they ask you and shut up :)
My own clickbank/adwords story: I had heard good things about clickbank, despite being filled with spammy stuff. I found a product I had personal interest in and was actually pretty cool, signed up for adwords, and submitted an ad to be ran. A day later and I'm banned from adwords never to have an account with them again because I was advertising this product.
Unlike your experience, it happened to me so fast it made my head spin. I called support, and they said they couldn't even talk to me because my account was banned. I emailed an explanation to start their appeals process, and was shot down incredibly fast.
I really need an account now, but I'm not allowed to... So yep--it does suck to be us.
Got the exact same problem as you. Had Adwords for years and I also didn't know the product was against the TOS but they approved anyway just to suspend the account months later...
I decided on whim to try AdWords for a couple of clickbank products. Apparently one of them was against the TOS though I was not aware of it at the time. I haven't read the TOS but since both of my ads where approved I figured everything was OK. I run these two ads for 4 hours and shut them down. One of the ads got maybe 2 clicks and couple of dozen impressions, the second ad had no impressions and no clicks. I paused the campaign after 4 hours. A year and a half later I receive an email from Adwords notifying me that my account has been suspended for running ads against the TOS.
Talking to support was like talking to a brick wall.
I am fairly certain that the only reason I got banned was because I left these ads on pause and didn't actually delete them. They probably run a scan at some point looking for ads that infringe the TOS and picked me up. It's entirely possible that these ads weren't against the TOS at the time I set up the campaign but well, it's Google so there is no one to talk to.
I didn't need to use AdWords since but I probably will at some point so it certainly sucks for me.