Hours of the day that take money and return nothing

Hour of day is easy to get wrong. Most hours on most accounts hold too little data for a pattern to be real. So the bars are high, and the check is silent on most accounts.

When an hour does pass them, the finding is solid: night hours on a call business are the usual example, taking money while nobody answers.

The check reads spend, clicks and conversions by hour over recent weeks.

Checks that weigh money or clicks judge what they find on your own account's numbers, not on one figure applied to every account, so what counts as a problem on a small account is not the same on a large one. Checks on settings read how the account is set up.

When there is too little to go on, the check says so instead of guessing. A finding always comes with the rows behind it, so you can read the evidence before you decide.

1. In Google Ads, open Campaigns for the last 30 days and segment by Time, then Hour of day.
2. Add up cost, clicks and conversions per hour.
3. Keep hours that take a real share of the day's spend, with enough clicks that you would expect conversions at the rest of the day's rate.
4. Note those with no conversion, or a cost per conversion far above the rest of the day.

For a business that takes calls, compare those hours with when the phone is answered. If they match the closed hours, schedule ads or call assets for opening hours only.

Otherwise, on manual bidding, lower bids in those hours with a schedule adjustment rather than cutting them, and check again after a month. On Smart Bidding the adjustment is ignored, so narrow the schedule instead.

• Ad schedule
• Bid adjustment

The checks next to this one in Location and scheduling, each with its own page.

• A device paying much more per conversion than the rest of its campaign
• Places taking money and returning nothing
• A day of the week costing much more than the rest
• Serving around the clock
• No language chosen, so every language is chosen
• Local Services and Search running side by side