Client account, $40k/mo spend, suspended with no warning. Reinstated on the third appeal after 19 days. Posting the structure because the first two appeals were me guessing.
What not to do
Appeal one was 600 words explaining that we had done nothing wrong. Rejected in four hours, automated. Appeal two added screenshots and more insistence. Rejected in a day.
What worked
Appeal three was short and structured like an incident report:
- One sentence stating what they likely detected, in their language, not mine
- A list of every domain, redirect and tracking template on the account, including two I had forgotten about
- What we changed, with timestamps — specifically removing a third-party tracker that did geo-based redirects, which was almost certainly the trigger
- What we put in place so it cannot recur
- No argument about whether the suspension was fair
The actual cause
A tracking tool the client had added nine months earlier was serving different landing pages by country. Entirely mundane, exactly matches the definition of circumvention, and nobody on either side knew it was there.
Lessons
Audit every redirect on the account before you appeal. Do not argue. Write it like you are helping them close a ticket, because you are.
Paid search. I will read your appeal letter and tell you why it failed.