Why Setting Up An Ad Schedule Is Important In Google Ads
by Lucy Greenaway
When it comes to setting up your Google Ads account, things can get complex and daunting very fast. Ad scheduling is an important feature within Google Ads that can assist you in optimising your Google Ads account.
Introduction
Advertising on Google isn't just about setting up Google ads campaigns and writing some compelling ad text and sending your ads off on the Google engine in hopes that it brings you back some sort of return on your investment. The best-performing ads have detailed optimisations made to the account to better reach the company's target demographic. This is where ad scheduling comes into play.
What is an ad schedule and why is it important
The ad scheduling feature in Google Ads is that allows advertisers to run their ads on specific days and times in order to better reach their target demographic at the most opportune times without wasting additional ad spend and therefore increasing your ROAS (Return On Ad Spend).
Ad schedules are primarily important for optimising the Google Ads campaign performance. If your business hours only operate on certain days of the week, you can create an ad schedule or multiple ad schedules to best target users who will be active during these times.
Benefits Of Ad Scheduling
There are many benefits to be had by creating a new ad schedule and allowing it to run.
Ad scheduling not only saves you money by only showing your ads on the days and times that they will best perform but it also allows you to gain more control over the delivery of the ads to result in better campaign performance.
Improved cost-effectiveness by showing ads at specific times
The cost-effectiveness of showing ads at specific times can be a complete game changer when it comes to running Google Ads as part of your digital marketing strategy.
You can use the ad schedule to give you more out of your daily budget while being able to monitor this and optimise your bid adjustments based on what days and times your ads are most successful in terms of clicks and conversion rates.
The scheduled bid adjustments are a key factor in a well-optimised ad campaign as it assists Google in knowing when to push your ads to be seen.
Even if your business hours operate 24/7, creating an ad schedule that runs 24/7 but is broken down into time slots will allow you to assess the data far more accurately as to when are the most popular times for your ads to be interacted with, and these allow for data-driven optimisations to be made to the ad schedule and therefore the account overall.
More control over ad delivery means better campaign performance
Having more control over when your ads are seen is massively beneficial to the delivery of your ads. For example, if your business only operated 9-5 and the conversion methods are only available during these hours (phone calls, live chat etc) you wouldn't then want your ads showing at 2 am, so this results in better campaign performance, by making your daily budget go further.
Increased relevance by targeting specific times or days
There are many aspects that can contribute to increased ad relevance. Using an ad schedule is far more likely to increase your click-through rate and this is a great metric to use that can identify the level of ad relevance within the account.
How To Set Up An Ad Schedule In Google Ads
Being able to set up an ad schedule is crucial in moving forward with this process. To start with you will need a campaign already created.
The guide to creating an ad schedule
Assuming you are looking at the page menu on the left-hand side of your Google Ads account, you will see an icon at the bottom of the menu that says 'see more', click this and select 'ad schedule'.
After this, you will need to click on the pencil icon and select the campaign to which you wish to apply the ad schedule to. Next, you will need to make the selections needed for the specific days and times that you want the ad schedule to run. Click 'save' and the changes will be applied to your selected campaign.
How to use the schedule to target specific days and times
To make bid adjuments on certain days and times you will need to view all the ad schedules in the account, click the pencil icon on the bid adjustment column, and select the increase or decrease percentage that you would like to apply for this period.
Options for scheduling ads
If you want to schedule the ad to run from the end of one day into another, you will need to create an ad schedule for each day and allow the ad schedules to run for those certain hours. It is also important to note that the custom ad schedules are based on the account's time zone, so the new ad schedule based on when your target demographic is most active should be adjusted accordingly if necessary.
Best Practises For Ad Scheduling
Testing the ad schedule
It is important to test an ad schedule before you set bid adjustments. You can do this by monitoring the ad schedule that you have set up for a 30-day period to give Google enough time to identify what works within the ad schedule and what doesn't and to gather enough data to make informed choices when it comes to making bid adjustments.
Monitoring its performance
It is crucial for proper monitoring to take place to identify trends and patterns within the account. This is equally the case for monitoring the performance of the ad schedule. To monitor how the ads perform, you would need to regularly monitor the account and specifically this section of the account so you can see when conversions are taking place.
Considering seasonal or event-based ad scheduling opportunities
Seasons like the run-up to Christmas or events like Black Friday are crucial times to implement ad scheduling if these seasons and events are important within your industry. For example, if you were to advertise the activity of dog sled touring as part of your Christmas holiday promotion, you would only advertise this during seasonal periods as when you consider what makes an activity an all-year-round one, you wouldn't typically include in the list the art of dog sled touring.
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