How to Implement Dayparting in Google Ads for Maximum RoAS?

If you have been running Google ads for quite some time, you will surely agree that not all days or even hours of a particular day bring expected results. Some time slots garner a lot of clicks, which successfully convert, and then there are some slots where all metrics decline sharply, draining your ad budget without meaningful results.

This highlights one important thing: your target audience isn’t always active or ready to take action. Thus, running ads around the clock may not be a good strategy.

To deal with this, you need a smart strategy like dayparting in Google Ads, which helps you ensure that your ads are only displayed when your target audience is active and likely to engage.

But what exactly is dayparting? How does it work, and does it really offer any real-world benefits?

To answer all such relevant questions, we have created this blog. Through this article, we will discuss the dayparting feature in Google Ads comprehensively. We will learn what it is and how it allows you to target specific times and adjust bids. We will also cover some of its key benefits, such as increased visibility and improved performance, along with how to implement dayparting effectively, some limitations, and best practices that will help you make the most of it.

Pro tip: Jump directly to the section where we learn how to set up dayparting in Google Ads.

What is Dayparting in Google Ads?

Dayparting, also known as ad scheduling, is a feature that allows you to choose specific hours or days of the week when your Google ads should appear. Using it, you can also set up bid adjustments to increase or decrease your bids during specific days and times.

This means that:

1. Instead of following the default “All day” Google Ads schedule, which implies that your ads appear 24/7, you can customize ad delivery with dayparting. Essentially, you can run ads when your target audience is active and you believe there is a higher chance of converting them. 
2. Using the feature, you can also make smarter use of your ad budget. How? By limiting spending during those hours that have historically not driven any significant results for your campaigns. And focusing it on time slots that bring better results. 

Example: Let’s suppose you run an e-commerce store where you sell fitness gear. For that store, you have also been running Google Shopping ads for the past 4-6 months. By analyzing their performance, you discover that most sales happen over the weekends during early mornings or late evenings, as that is when most people are either actively exercising or preparing for a workout session.

Midday hours, especially on standard weekdays, bring low engagement and barely any conversions.

In such a case, you can easily use dayparting to schedule your Shopping ads to appear during early morning and late evening hours on weekends. Moreover, you can also set a +10-15% bid adjustment for those slots so that your ads appear higher in search results.

This way, you are simply dedicating your ad budget to those hours where customers are more likely to spot your ad and convert. 

Which Campaigns are Eligible for Ad Scheduling? 

Currently, Google allows you to create ad schedules for the following types of campaigns:

1. Search 
2. Shopping 
3. Performance Max 
4. Demand Gen
5. Display 
6. Video 

App campaigns are not supported for ad scheduling. 

How to Set Up Dayparting in Google Ads?

Let’s now learn how to create an ad schedule and set up bid adjustments.

Creating an ad schedule 

The process that we will cover below is for the ‘Expert mode’ interface in Google Ads.

1. From the left-hand side menu, click on the ‘Campaigns’ icon. 
2. Go to ‘Audiences, keywords, and content’, and click on the dropdown menu. 

3. Click on ‘Ad schedule’. 
4. Then, click on the pencil icon. 

5. You will then be asked to select a campaign for which you want to create an ad schedule. 

6. Then you will be able to view the ad schedule settings that we need to configure. 
7. You can select whether your campaign should run on ‘All days’ or any other specific weekday, such as Monday, Friday, etc.  

8. For your selected day(s), you will then have to define specific time ranges when your Google Ads should appear. 

Moreover, while specifying the range, check whether you are using the 12-hour or 24-hour clock by clicking on the three-dot menu on the right side. 

9. Once you’re done, you can save the changes. If you want to add more ad schedules—Google allows you to create up to 6 per day for each campaign—you can click on the ‘Add’ button and set up another quite easily. 

That’s pretty much it. You have successfully set up an ad schedule for your desired campaign. The process isn’t difficult to follow for advertisers. However, there are certain important points you must note:  

• The ad schedule will work on the basis of your account’s time zone. So if your target audience is located in a different region, ensure that you make the necessary adjustments to account the time zone difference. 
• If you are creating an ad schedule that runs across midnight (e.g., 10:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m.), you will need to break the range into two parts. The first will be for the current day from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., and the second one will be from 12:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
• Additionally, as mentioned earlier, the process above was for Google Ads accounts in Expert mode. However, if your Google Ads account is in Smart mode, the process will be slightly different.

You will have to first navigate to the campaign you want to edit, then find the “Location & ad schedule card” and click on Edit. Then click on ‘Ad schedule’, ‘Edit’, and then configure the settings accordingly. Once done, you can save the changes. 

How to Review and Edit your Ad Schedule?

For reviewing the ad schedules you have created, follow the same pathway: Campaigns > Audiences, keywords, and content > Ad schedule.  

There, you can view a visual chart that displays when your ads have run. In the same chart, you will also be able to see performance metrics, such as clicks, which are visible by default, impressions, CTR, average CPC, etc., for those ads. 

Plus, Google also allows you to choose subtabs and analyze ad schedules and performance by  “Day and Hour”, “Day”, or “Hour”.

For editing any schedule, just check the box against it, click on the ‘Edit’ dropdown from the top, and either remove it or make bid adjustments as per your convenience. 

Configuring Bid Adjustments 

Before we learn how to set up bid adjustments, you must note that: 

• When you set up these adjustments, overall spending on each click may vary, but your average daily budget will not change. 
• If you set up bid adjustments for mobile devices or locations, Google will multiply all adjustments in order to calculate the final bid. 
• The bid adjustments that you configure will affect all bids within a campaign. And when your defined bid adjustment period is over, the original campaign bids will activate automatically until you set a new adjustment. 
• Google only allows setting up Ad schedule bid adjustments for campaigns that use the Maximize clicks automated bid strategy. 

With that knowledge in place, let’s look at the step-by-step process to create bid adjustments for ad schedules: 

1. In your Google Ads account, go to “Campaigns”, then “Audiences, keywords, and content,” and then “Ad schedule.”  
2. Now you have two ways to create bid adjustments.
   • Either you can do it for an individual ad schedule
   • Or multiple ones
3. If you decide to proceed with any single ad schedule, hover over its bid adjustment column, and you will notice a pencil icon. Click on it. 

A small, big adjustment window will open, and you can select whether to increase or decrease the bids and the percentage number. And that’s it. The adjustment will apply to that particular individual ad schedule. 

4. For creating bid adjustments for multiple ad schedules, check the box against each schedule you want to edit. Then, click on the ‘Edit’ dropdown button from the blue bar at the top, and then select ‘Change bid adjustments.’ Follow the same process of selecting whether you wish to increase or decrease bid adjustments, and then define the percentage number.  

Tada! You have successfully learned how to create bid adjustments for ad schedules. 

How to Decide Which Hours to Schedule?

We learned above how to create ad schedules and bidding adjustments for them. But there’s a very important question to answer. 

How to find the best performing time slots for your campaigns? 

One popular way most advertisers discover peak performing hours or days for their ad schedules is by using the ‘When and where ads showed’ report. Here’s how: 

1. In your Google Ads account, go to the ‘Insights and reports’ menu and click on the dropdown. 
2. Select ‘When and where ads showed.’ 

3. Within that report, from the top, select ‘When ads showed.’ 

This report lets you easily view when specific campaigns and their ads were displayed to users throughout the week. 

Not only that, but as you can see in the screenshot below, along with the most beneficial time slots for your campaigns, you will also get to view key performance metrics like clicks, impressions, cost, etc. 

Using this data, you can easily identify when your target audience is most active. In addition to that, you can also discover which time slots are driving the best results for your business.

Pro tip: Look for those slots that delivered the highest number of impressions, clicks, and conversions. These time slots are kind of like your performance sweet spots, and then can help you guide your advertising strategy.

Benefits of Dayparting in Google Ads

Some of the prominent reasons why you should consider using Dayparting for your ads include:

1. Higher Return on Ad Spend (RoAS): With dayparting, essentially, you are concentrating your ad budget on peak demand time slots. Moreover, for those slots, if you also increase your bids, then you can drive more conversions without increasing your average daily budget. And this will result in a higher RoAS. 
2. Increased Engagement: When you align the delivery of your ads to your target audience’s browsing behavior and activity times, you simultaneously increase the chances of your ads getting higher click-through rates (CTR) and conversions. This is because your ads will appear to users when they are most likely to notice and act on them. 
3. Improved Ad Relevance: Oftentimes, depending on the nature of products or services you sell, it is wiser to advertise your products at specific times of the day. And dayparting helps you exactly with that, as it ensures that your ads appear when they are the most appropriate.

For example, if you sell breakfast cereals, then using  dayparting you can choose to display your ads only during morning hours. With this step, you will end up ensuring that your ads become highly relevant to users who are actively thinking about or preparing breakfast.

4. Better Alignment with Business Hours: With the dayparting feature, you can schedule your ads to run only during those hours when your support or sales team is active. This enables your business to offer great customer support and experience, fulfill orders quickly, which further helps to improve the overall shopping experience of your customers.
5. Competitive Advantage: Many advertisers often ignore the importance of running ads during those time periods that have the highest potential of delivering excellent results.

By using dayparting to your benefit, you can capitalize on those peak performance hours or days your competitors are missing out. This will also help you reduce competition, lower your cost-per-click, and perform better in ad auctions. 

Common Dayparting Mistakes and Best Practices to Prevent Them

Dayparting is more than just setting up some time blocks for your ads. It requires a strategic approach so that you can maximize its value. To help you with that, below we will be looking at some of the common mistakes that most advertisers make related to dayparting, and also how you can avoid them.

Not Creating Ad Schedules Based on Data

Many advertisers make the mistake of creating schedules without looking at real data. Always base your schedules and bid adjustments on actual campaign performance. You can easily identify this data using the process shared in the section above. Avoid relying on assumptions or instincts, as they often waste your crucial ad budget.

Don’t Block All Off-Peak Traffic Hours

Another common error that most advertisers make is that they start to use dayparting and advertise only during peak conversion hours or days. They turn off their ads at all other times. 

While there is no harm in prioritizing certain specific time slots that are helping you meet your advertising and business objectives, remember that off-peak slots can still help you assist in driving clicks or conversions. For example, a visitor may click your ad late at night and convert later. 

Thus, the recommended best practice is to dial down your bids during off-peak hours. That way, your presence will not be eliminated entirely. 

Note: However, if you notice that there are certain hours or days that yield no results at all based on the past 3 or 6-month data of your campaign, then there is no harm in using ad scheduling to not display your ads during that period.

Avoid Creating Overly Narrow Schedules at the Start 

If you are just starting out with Google Ads and dayparting, avoid creating schedules that are very narrow. Rather, we recommend that you start with relatively broader chunks of time and gather performance data for some time. 

For example, if you think that your ads will garner the maximum engagement during morning hours, then don’t limit their appearance to a specific slot like ‘9-10 a.m.’ Rather, start with ‘8 a.m. – 12 p.m.’ Over time, check if there are certain hours within that 8-12 block which consistently outperform others. When you spot that trend, only then narrow down your ad schedule to focus on it. 

Not Monitoring and Updating Regularly

Remember that dayparting is not a “set it and forget it” strategy. Your target audience’s behavior, browsing habits, and even advertising trends will change over time. Thus, even if some slots perform well initially, ensure that you monitor their performance regularly. That’s because there is a high chance that a previously scheduled peak performance slot starts to underperform, and some other weak slots start to deliver great results.  

That’s why you should stay flexible and be ready to add, remove, or edit schedules based on fresh performance data. 

You might also like to read: 9 Google Ads Best Practices for Shopify Merchants Google Ads Campaign Status Explained What is Customer Match in Google Ads?

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Dayparting in Google Ads can be your powerful ally if you use it properly. 

Some key takeaways from this blog include: 

1. Using ad scheduling you can actually control when your ads appear and even make adjustments to their bids for those specific schedules. 
2. This can help you allocate your ad budget to those days or hours where you can actually benefit from running ads. 
3. All campaign types, such as PMax, Shopping, etc., support ad scheduling, except for app campaigns. 
4. Setting up ad schedules is easy. From your Google Ads account, go to ‘Audiences, keywords, and content’ and then ‘Ad schedule’. Click on the pencil icon, select a campaign, and then configure the schedule accordingly. 
5. Once you set the schedule, hover over the ‘Bid adjustment’ column, and by clicking on the pencil icon, you can increase or decrease bids for specific time slots based on their performance.
6. When setting up these ad schedules and bid adjustments, we recommend that you always check actual performance reports and not make assumptions. 
7. Lastly, even if you currently have high-performing ad schedules and bid adjustments, keep reviewing their performance. If the situation warrants removing or editing any ad schedule, be flexible with that.

Good luck! 

FAQs

1. What is dayparting in Google Ads?

Dayparting, also called ad scheduling, lets you pick the exact days and hours when your ads should run. Using it, you can also adjust your bids for those times. This means you can increase your bids during busy hours and lower them when fewer people are active. This helps you get more value from your budget.

2. How do I change my ad schedule in Google Ads?

Go to ‘Audiences, keywords, and content’ in your ads account, click on ‘Ad schedule’. Select either one or multiple existing ad schedules by checking the box against them, and click on the edit dropdown button from the top. You can then either remove that schedule or adjust its bids. 

3. How long should I run my campaigns before having enough data for effective dayparting?

Ideally, you should run your campaigns for at least 3 to 6 months to gather enough data. This helps you spot reliable trends and avoid making decisions based on short-term spikes.

4. How frequently should I revisit and update my ad schedule settings?

It’s best to review your ad schedule at least once every month. Look at updated performance data to check if your scheduled time slots are still driving good results. If not, adjust bids or change the schedule accordingly.

5. Will my ads pause automatically outside my scheduled times?

Yes, ads will not run outside the set times. However, if no one searches for your selected keywords during scheduled times, your ads may not appear even within your schedule.

Check Out These Related Articles:

• Google Ads Landing Page Optimization Tips
• Google Ads Search Terms Report
•  Google Ads Optimization Score for 2025
•  Smart Bidding in Google Ads
• Optimizing Google Ads Audience Targeting in 2025
• Ultimate Guide to Google Ads A/B Testing