This is not a document check. Google is asking what your business does and how it makes money, and it is assessing the answer. Businesses that describe themselves vaguely fail this, and vagueness is usually a habit rather than a cover-up.
No cost. A straight answer within one business day on what is missing.
Before you submit
Google is asking for the business model, the registration information, what you sell and how you operate. Answers written in positioning language rather than operational terms read as evasive, even when the business is entirely ordinary.
What you submit is assessed against what is publicly visible. If the form says one thing and the site implies another, or the site says almost nothing at all, the two do not reconcile. This is the same opacity that produces a suspension under the unacceptable business practices policy, caught earlier and more gently.
The entity name, the registration number and the address are checked against the record. Close is not a match.
Thirty days to answer the initial questions, thirty more to complete what is requested, and the account pauses at the end of it. Google's review takes up to five business days on its own.
If this has already been rejected once, the reason is usually the first two.
Get it reviewedHow this works
Questions about the verification you have been asked for and what has already been submitted. Answered within one business day with a read on whether the route is still open.
The notices and the documents already sent, rather than account access. What was submitted, in whose name, and how it was rejected.
What the legal entity name has to match, which document establishes it, and what has to be corrected before another attempt is spent.
Prepared and submitted once the documents genuinely match, then managed through to the decision.
Get it reviewed
What you were asked for, what you sent, and how many attempts have been spent are usually enough to tell you where you stand. No account access needed to answer these, and you get a reply within one business day.
Thanks — that's come through.
I'll come back to you shortly.
That didn't send. Something went wrong at our end, not yours.
Email me directly at rob@leftclick.co.nz and I'll pick it up from there.
A reply within one business day, from me. No cost, no obligation, and if it isn't worth pursuing you'll be told that plainly.
Prefer email? rob@leftclick.co.nz
Nineteen years in search marketing. Eight of them running my own agency, sold in 2021. Four years managing seven-figure United States advertising accounts in consumer credit, a category Google scrutinises hardest.
In that industry, compliance, suspensions, disapprovals and verification reviews are a frequent occurrence and a condition of operating.
You deal with me directly, from the first reply through to the decision.
Questions
No. Google decides. What can be committed to is an honest read on whether the route is still open, the specific reason the last attempt failed, and a submission that addresses it rather than repeating it.
Identity verification asks who you are. Business operations verification asks what the business does and how it operates. They were separate programmes and Google merged them into one advertiser verification process, so you may be asked for either or both.
No, it pauses it. Google documents account pausing as a separate policy from suspension, and a paused account can be unpaused by completing the verification, even after the pause has taken effect.
Selection is not published. In practice it often follows a change on your side, particularly to the payments profile, the billing address or the business information. It is also more common in categories where Google applies extra scrutiny.
Then that is the work, and it is worth doing regardless. If an assessor cannot tell how you make money from your own materials, neither can a customer. The businesses that fail this are rarely dishonest; they are usually just unclear.
Review runs up to five business days, and in rare cases up to thirty. Appeals against a pause are reviewed within five to seven business days.