Lessons Catalog

Lesson 6c: Your Account

On the Ad Scheduling page you'll see the seven days of the week with 24 hourly blocks for each day. Green blocks indicate that your ad is scheduled to run during that hour. Gray blocks mean your ad will not run during that hour. Click Edit next to any day of the week you wish to edit, and use the pull-down menus to select your time periods.

To make changes to many days at once, find the line marked Bulk edit and select all days. Then use the pull-down menu to edit the times your ad will run on all days. For instance, if you select 1:00 to 4:00 pm, your ad will run at that time on all seven days of the week.

Ad scheduling also includes an advanced mode, with a bid multiplier feature that lets you raise or lower your bid during certain time periods. For example, if you find that this campaign gets the best results between 8:00 and 11:00 am, you can bid more for impressions or clicks during that period by entering a percentage higher or lower than 100%. For instance, if your default bid for a campaign is $1.00 CPC, and your bid multiplier entry for Tuesdays is 120%, then your CPC bid for Tuesdays only would be $1.00 * 1.2 = $1.20. By contrast, a bid multiplier entry of 50% ($1.00 * 0.50) would lead to a $0.50 bid during that time period. The bid multiplier may be as little as 10% or as much as 1000% of your usual bid.

The bid multiplier affects all ads in any campaign, including ads with separate search and content bids. When the time period for a given multiplier ends, your campaign will revert to your normal campaign bids. To enable advanced mode and use the bid multiplier, click the switch to advanced mode link near the top of the Ad Scheduling page. Then click 'Edit' next to any day as normal. You'll see an input box for the bid multiplier next to the usual pull-down menus.

When you are satisfied with your ad schedule, click Save Changes. Your changes will take effect almost immediately. To adjust your schedule for this campaign in the future, return to the Edit Campaign Settings page as described above. Click Edit times and bids to visit the Ad Scheduling page.

Once you enable Ad Scheduling, a small clock next to a campaign name on the All Campaigns page will indicate that ad scheduling is enabled for that campaign.

Here are a few more things to know about Ad Scheduling:

• Ad scheduling, whether in regular or in advanced mode, will not raise or lower your budget. The AdWords system will still try to reach your usual daily budget in whatever number of hours your ad runs each day.
• Ad Scheduling does not guarantee your ads will receive impressions or clicks. The usual AdWords rules still apply, and your ads will compete for impressions with other ads as they normally do. If you schedule a campaign for very short periods of time, or only at times of great competition for the keywords or placements you have chosen, your ads may not get the chance to run very often.
• Ad scheduling can be used on campaigns that use keyword targeting and placement targeting.
• Ad scheduling will not work with the AdWords Budget Optimizer™. In order for the Budget Optimizer to best serve an account, it must have the freedom to show ads at all times.