Late Thursday night Google unveiled ad scheduling (or dayparting, as many people call it) to its AdWords users around the world at no charge. This new feature will allow a campaign manager to optimize their return on investment by running their ads only at desired times during the week and during each day.
Jon Diorio, senior product marketing manager for AdWords, explains ad scheduling like this, on the AdWords blog:
“Ad scheduling (also known as "dayparting") lets you tell Google exactly when you want your ads to run, and more importantly -- when you do not want them to run. In addition, more advanced users can automatically modify their bids based on time-of-day and day-of-week cycles in campaign performance.
Ad scheduling can also help you improve your ROI by ensuring that your ads run when it makes the most business sense. For instance, a local business may only want to run their ads during business hours, or an online retailer may want to boost their bids during their busier-than-normal lunchtime shopping period.”
The interface is straightforward and easy to use. After logging in, a manager just has to click on “edit campaigns” in a campaign page. On the ad scheduling page a grid is displayed with the days of the week running down the left hand side of the page, and times of the day running across the top. Green boxes with checkmarks in them indicate when an ad campaign will run, while gray boxes with X’s in them indicate times when the campaign will be paused.
All campaigns run 24/7 by default. Ads can also be bulk scheduled and edited by week, weekend, or day. Multiple time periods can be added to the ad schedules.
So, for example, a business that closes during the weekends can choose to run their ads during weekdays only, while a business that targets working adults can customize their ads to run only during after-work hours. This prevents these businesses from competing for clicks during irrelevant times during the week, saving money for times when conversions are more likely and appropriate.
Ad scheduling will allow marketers to plan better, more efficient campaigns with more complexity and added synergy with other campaigns.
Sources:
http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/search-marketing/37167.html
http://www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/007779.html
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/06/introducing-ad-scheduling.html
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