By Afef Ayed
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The short answer
Campaigns serve around the clock by default. Keep that when you sell online at any hour. Add an ad schedule when results depend on someone answering, such as calls and bookings. Judge hours and days only on enough data, and remember that Smart Bidding ignores bid adjustments by schedule.
Around the clock by default
A campaign with no ad schedule can show at 3 a.m. on a Sunday. Online, that is often right: people shop at night. A plumber, a clinic or a call centre is different.
A click from someone calling a closed office costs the same as any other. The missed call also teaches the bidding that the keyword does not work.
How to judge hours and days
Report results by hour of day and by day of week. Compare cost per conversion, but only once each period has enough conversions to compare.
- Days before hours. Seven days give each bucket far more data than the 168 hours of a week.
- Wait for late conversions. A lead from Friday night may become a sale on Monday. Judge a period once its conversions have had time to arrive.
- The same arithmetic as search terms. An hour with no conversion proves nothing until it has had enough clicks for zero to mean something.
What Smart Bidding ignores
With Smart Bidding, bid adjustments by schedule are ignored: the bidding already uses the time of day as a signal. The schedule itself still applies. Hours you leave out are not served at all.
Call buttons can keep their own hours
Call assets can have their own schedule. Set it to your opening hours, so the number only shows when someone can answer. The rest of the ad can keep serving.
What Optizads checks
The audit flags a campaign serving around the clock for a business that answers a phone. It lists hours that take money and return nothing, and a weekday that costs much more per conversion than the rest. A day needs enough conversions of its own before it is compared.