Google Ads has recently encountered a reporting glitch that has caused major disruptions to its reporting tools and product management features. 

This issue, which began on July 30, 2024, allowed a fraction of advertisers to view and report on products from other Google Merchant Center accounts. Although the glitch was resolved by July 31, 2024, some reporting functionalities remain affected.

What Happened?

On July 30, 2024, Google Ads experienced an issue that caused a small subset of advertisers to access and view product data from other merchants. 

This breach affected the accuracy of reports in Google Ads, including the Report Editor and Products tab. Google resolved the serving issue by July 31, 2024, but the reporting problems persisted, leading to temporary suspensions of specific reports.

Current status and impact of the Glitch

The glitch has made several critical components of Google Ads inaccessible, including the Report Editor, Dashboards, and Saved Reports. 

Advertisers are facing difficulties in managing their campaigns due to the unavailability of these tools. Additionally, pages related to products, product groups, and listing groups across the web, API, and Google Ads Editor have been affected.

Ginny Marvin, Google Ads Liaison confirmed this in a Tweet: “The Products, Product Groups, and Listing Groups pages are down across the web interface, API, and Google Ads Editor.”

Also, the glitch in Google Ads has caused a data breach, exposing sensitive information such as unrelated item IDs, product titles, and Merchant Centre details to competitors.

Google's response 

Since the data exposure incident, Google Ads has acknowledged the glitch.

Marvin tweeted that Google is working to rectify the issue. According to her “We’re actively looking into an issue with Google Ads. Report Editor, Dashboards, and Saved Reports in the Google Ads web interface are currently down…..Thank you for your patience. We will provide an update as soon as we have more information.”