Introduction

Google and Microsoft offer the ability to adjust keyword bids by day-of-week or time-of-day.

These adjustments are entered as a percent of the keyword bid and are used to optimize for conversion rates that vary by time or day. This allows the advertiser to increase volume during periods of higher conversion rates and save cost during lower periods. For example, if you know the conversion rate on Monday – Friday is 10%, but on Saturday and Sunday it is 15%, you can increase your bid by 50% on Saturday and Sunday.

The Ad Scheduling recommendations feature identifies days of week when conversion rates are higher/lower than average and translates these into recommendations for increasing/lowering bids in Publisher Ad Scheduling settings. In accounts that do not track conversions, no recommendations will be provided, as these recommendations are based on conversion rate.

Note: The multi-edit function for Ad Scheduling function is not available for Yahoo! Japan.

Note: If you're using Marin's automated bidding with a Boost Rule, Ad Scheduling will be layered on top of your Boost, as it's a publisher-side adjustment that is independent from your folder settings. Use caution when applying both a Boost and Ad Scheduling. 

Ad Scheduling

The application offers full access to ad scheduling for Google and Microsoft, handled at campaign level for Google and ad group level for Microsoft. 

Note: Below applies to whether the settings are done in the application or in the publisher account UI directly. For example, when setting your lunch special ads to serve from 11am - 1pm every day in your publisher account with Los Angeles/Pacific time zone:
 

• Google: Uses the publisher account’s time zone, not the application’s time zone
  In the above example case, searchers see these ads from 11am to 1pm PDT only, regardless of the time zone of the searcher (Someone searching in New York would see the ads served from 2pm - 4pm, if the ads happen to be targeting New York).
   
• Microsoft: Uses the user’s IP location time zone, not the publisher account’s nor the application’s time zone

  In the above example case, searchers see these ads from 11am to 1pm based on the locality of the searcher - the searcher in New York would see the ad served between 11am and 1pm in New York time, while a searcher in Los Angeles would see the ads served from 11am - 1pm Los Angeles time.
   

Per the publisher settings, bid multipliers for Google Campaigns can be adjusted to between 10% and 1000% of the original bid in increments of 5%.  

Microsoft Group bids can be adjusted to between 10% and 1000% of the current bid in increments of 10%, or placed at paused (equivalent to 0% of the bid).

Note: Ad scheduling cannot currently be managed in bulk. To update your Ad Scheduling, you will need to use single edit or multi-edit modes.
 

See it in Action

Join a member of the Marin Software team as we take you on a guided tour of the Ad Scheduling and Ad Scheduling Recommendations features.  

Click the play button to get started. We recommend viewing the video in full-screen. 
 

Recommendations

• Ad Scheduling recommendations are generated by the application to help you identify opportunities to modify your bid. On a nightly basis, the application analyzes variations in conversion rate over the days of the week, which is then translated into a set of recommendations for bidding.
   
• To show the application's recommendations, follow the instructions for an ad scheduling multi-edit as indicated above. When the multi-edit bubble appears, click the Show Recommendations button. The recommendations will automatically populate as settings into the bubble, allowing you to save them immediately or edit to your satisfaction.
   
• The recommendations for calculations are done at the client level, and thus are not specific to individual campaigns or groups. Note that you may notice some differences in the recommendations for Microsoft Groups versus Google Campaigns within the same client account because of some of the different constraints placed by Microsoft and Google in their ad scheduling settings (see section on Ad Scheduling at the top of the page).