You can copy elements of your Google Ads account such as keywords, negative keywords, ads, ad groups, campaigns, and audiences. But, sometimes, you may see "Paused due to system errors" while copying and pasting these account elements.
Note: If you have a Google Ads manager account, you can also copy and paste ads, ad groups, audiences, keywords, and campaigns across multiple accounts.
This article provides general guidance for troubleshooting these errors and assumes that you're already signed into your Google Ads account when these errors appear.
How to fix errors in copying and pasting elements of your account
- In the "Paused due to system error" message, read the description of the error.
- Click View details.
- On the "Details" page, look in the "Change" column for the copy-and-paste action you attempted for a specific ad group.
- In the "Status" column, read the information for clues to what should be fixed in your campaign.
- In the "Campaign" column, click the linked campaign name.
- Address the issues in that campaign, or review the copied entity to ensure it reflects what you intended.
If you think the error is minor, you can go ahead and enable your lower level entity.
Example
Let's say that you copy and paste one of your campaigns, but then get an error message, explaining that a deprecated audience list is associated with that campaign, which can't be linked to the newly pasted campaign. Here's how you could address the error:
- In the "Paused due to system error" message, read the description of the error.
- Click View details.
- On the "Details" page, look in the "Change" column for the copy-and-paste action you attempted for the audience of that campaign.
- In the "Status" column, you see that the audience linked to your original campaign has been deprecated and can't be associated with a pasted campaign. At this point, you can either create a new audience or link an existing audience that would work for your pasted campaign.
- In the "Campaign" column, click the linked campaign name.
- For your campaign, either create a new audience or link an existing audience that can be associated with a new campaign.
- Enable the paused campaign.
