What does Approved Limited status mean?

Approved Limited status means that your ad or keyword is eligible for delivery in some, but not all, targeted locations.

Approved Limited is a delivery status related to location targeting. It means two things:

  • Your ad or keyword is approved and eligible to serve in at least one of its targeted locations, and
  • Your ad or keyword is either pending or disapproved in at least one other targeted location.

For example, if keywords in your campaigns target US and Canada, an Approved Limited keyword might be approved for serving in the US, but require review in Canada.

Your ads and keywords are reviewed against the Microsoft Advertising policies specific to each location. This means that sometimes your ad may go online immediately in one of your targeted locations, but require additional review (or be disapproved) in another of your targeted locations. This is what triggers the Approved Limited status.

What can I do if I have ads or keywords with Approved Limited status?

If an ad or keyword is listed as Approved Limited in Microsoft Advertising (see this article to learn how to find the status of ads and keywords), click on the ellipsis icon More information icon next to (or hover over) the words Approved Limited .

If it was disapproved in at least one of your targeted locations, you will see:

  • The reason it was disapproved.
  • The location(s) in which the disapproval occurred.
  • The part of the submission that triggered the disapproval.
Note

Your ad or keyword is approved and eligible to serve in any targeted location not listed here.

You can edit the ad to make it compliant with that location's Microsoft Advertising policies. When you save the changes, it will be reviewed again. Individual keywords cannot be edited, but you can delete them and add new keywords. If you disagree with the decision, you can request an exception directly from the Microsoft Advertising UI. See How do I challenge a disapproval?

When you click the ellipsis icon More information icon next to (or hover over) the Approved Limited status, you may see the message "No rejection data is available at this time. Please try again later." This means that your ad or keyword is pending additional review in at least one of your targeted locations. Most reviews are completed within a day, and at that point, one of two things will happen:

  • If the ad or keyword is approved for all locations, its status will change from Approved Limited to Eligible. This means it is being served in all targeted locations.
  • If the ad or keyword is disapproved in at least one targeted location, you will see the reason and affected location(s) when you click the ellipsis icon More information icon next to (or hover over) the words Approved Limited (see above).

See more videos...