Campaign ended?

Here's another question (slightly edited for length) sent to us by our colleagues on the AdWords Help forum. Since the question comes up a fair amount, they thought it might help a lot of folks if it we answered it here in the blog:

My campaign was going along just fine, but all of a sudden in the Status column, it says something like "Ended July 31, 2006". Why is that? I didn't do anything, and haven't even made any changes at all for at least a couple of weeks. And even more important, how do I get it running again? I'm losing business, and want to get my ads running again!

This occurs when an advertiser has set an 'end date' for their campaign, and then forgets that they have done so. This happens more often than you might expect, but no worries -- the solution is extremely straightforward. You can get re-started in very short order by following the steps right here.

Tip: When you set an end date for a campaign, you may want to make a note of this on your calendar, perhaps a few days in advance of the actual date. This will remind you to reset the end date to a point in the future, if you wish, before your ads come to a screeching halt.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew