By default, a Google Ads campaign is eligible to show your ads at any hour of any day. That suits some businesses, but plenty of local firms would be better off with an ad schedule: a setting that tells Google when your ads are allowed to appear.
Whether you need one comes down to a simple question. When someone clicks your ad at 11pm on a Saturday, can you actually do anything with that enquiry?
When an ad schedule makes sense
Say you run a boiler repair firm in Cheltenham and you answer the phone from 7am to 6pm on weekdays. Someone searching “boiler repair near me” at 9pm on a Sunday may well ring the number in your ad, get no answer and call the next company down the page. You’ve paid for that click and gained nothing.
Now take a cabinet maker in the Forest of Dean whose customers mostly fill in a form on the website. Those enquiries can arrive at midnight and be answered the next morning without any harm done. A schedule here could cost you leads rather than save money.
So the first question isn’t “what do the clever people do?” but “what happens to an enquiry that arrives out of hours?” If the honest answer is “it waits until morning and still converts”, leave the ads running. If the answer is “it’s lost”, a schedule is worth looking at.
There’s more on why speed matters in our post on responding to enquiries faster.
How ad schedules work
Google’s help pages cover this properly, but the essentials are short. Once you create an ad schedule, your ads only show during the days and times listed. Anything you leave off the schedule is switched off (Google’s guide to ad schedules).
A few details catch people out:
- The schedule uses your account’s time zone, not the searcher’s. For a UK business with a UK account that’s no problem, but if the account was set up with a different time zone, your hours will be wrong.
- You can create up to six ad schedules per day for each campaign. That’s plenty for something like a morning and an afternoon slot with a lunch break.
- A window that crosses midnight needs a separate entry for each day. Monday 11pm to Tuesday 7am is entered as Monday 11pm to midnight, plus Tuesday midnight to 7am.
Google lists all of this on its page about creating an ad schedule. It’s also worth knowing that campaigns with a schedule are paced differently when it comes to budget. Google has a separate help article on its budget pacing changes for ad scheduling, linked from the main ad schedule page, so check it if your daily spend looks odd after you switch one on.
Two ways to use a schedule
There are really two different jobs an ad schedule can do, and it helps to be clear which one you’re after.
The first is switching ads off entirely when you can’t respond. This is the blunt option, and it’s the right one if you rely on phone calls and nobody is there to pick up. It pairs well with call assets, which can also be limited to your opening hours. We cover that in our guide to Google Ads assets.
The second is adjusting bids at certain times instead of switching off. You might keep ads running all week but bid more during the hours that bring in the most enquiries. Google offers bid adjustments for ad schedules, but its help page says they’re available for campaigns using the Maximize clicks bid strategy (Set up an ad schedule bid adjustment). If your campaigns use a different strategy, don’t assume the option will be there. Check in the account before you plan around it. Our post on bidding strategies for small businesses explains how the main options differ.
Look at the data before you switch anything off
It’s tempting to guess at your best hours. Don’t. In your account, the Ad schedule page has a Day and hour view that shows how your campaigns performed at different times, which helps you spot the slots that bring in results (Google’s guide).
A few things to keep in mind when you read it:
- Judge by enquiries, not clicks. Late-evening clicks can be cheap, and they can also be from people browsing in bed with no intention of calling. Only your own results will tell you which. That depends on conversion tracking being set up properly.
- Give it enough time. A small account might only get a handful of enquiries a month. If you cut Tuesday afternoons because there were two clicks and no leads last week, you’re reacting to noise.
- Count phone calls and forms together. Some trades get most of their work by phone during the day and most of their forms in the evening. Looking at only one will mislead you.
The mistakes worth avoiding
The commonest problem is being too aggressive. Someone reads that evenings are “low quality”, turns everything off after 5pm, and then wonders why enquiries fall. For many consumer services, such as driving lessons, tutoring, pet grooming or private dental work, a good share of research happens after work. Those people may not ring until morning, but they’ll often choose the business whose ad they saw the night before.
Another is forgetting the schedule is there. If you add a schedule to cover a quiet spell, extend your hours or take on a new member of staff, update it. It’s easy for a schedule to stay in place long after the reason has gone.
Finally, don’t use a schedule to fix a campaign that’s wasting money for other reasons. Poor keywords, broad matching and loose location settings cost far more than a few late-night clicks. Start with wasted spend and negative keywords, then tidy up the timing.
A sensible way to start
If you’re unsure, begin with the cautious route. Keep your ads running as normal, review the Day and hour view after a decent stretch of data, and look for hours when you pay for clicks but never get an enquiry. If those hours are also times when you can’t answer the phone, that’s your first candidate to switch off.
If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your account, our Google Ads management service covers this kind of tidy-up, or you can ask for a free Google Ads audit and we’ll tell you honestly whether timing is costing you anything.
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