To make your Google Ads run only during specific times, such as your UK business hours, you need to set up an Ad Schedule (also known as dayparting). This is done at the Campaign Level and prevents your ads from being eligible to show outside the times you specify.

Using ad scheduling is crucial for service businesses like UTDS Optimal Choice that rely on form submissions or phone calls during staffed hours, as it prevents wasted budget on leads you can’t immediately follow up on.

Step 1: Access the Ad Schedule Settings

1. Log In to your Google Ads account.

2. Navigate to Campaigns (in the left side menu) > Audience, Keywords, And Content > Ad Schedule.

Step 2: Create the Custom Schedule

By default, your campaign is set to run “All day”.You need to create a custom schedule to override this.

1. Click the button      or the + Ad Schedule button to add a new schedule.

2. Select which Campaign you want to schedule

3. In the drop-down menu, select the days and times you want your ads to run.

• For standard business hours (e.g., Mon–Fri, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM UK time):

• Day: Select Monday to Friday.

• From: Enter 9:00 AM.

• To: Enter 5:00 PM.

4. Click Add to enter this time slot.

5. If you have a different schedule for, say, Saturday mornings (e.g., 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM), you must create a separate time slot for Saturday.

6. Click Save to apply the schedule.

Important Note on Time Zones: The schedule is set based on your Google Ads account’s time zone.Ensure your account time zone is set to GMT or BST (depending on the time of year) if you are targeting the UK.

Step 3: Use Bid Adjustments for Optimal Hours (Optional)

Once your schedule is created, you can use the Ad schedule report to set bid adjustments for specific, high-performing hours.This is an advanced optimization step:

1. In the Ad schedule table, review the performance data (like Conversions and CPA) segmented by Day and Hour.

2. If you notice, for example, that Thursday afternoon (2:00 PM – 5:00 PM) yields the lowest CPA, you can Increase your bid adjustment for that specific block of time (e.g., +20%).

3. Conversely, if Wednesday morning (9:00 AM – 12:00 PM) has a very high CPA, you could Decrease the bid adjustment (e.g., 30%) to reduce spend during less profitable times.

Note on Smart Bidding: If you are using a Target CPA or Target ROAS strategy, Google’s algorithm already heavily optimizes bids based on the time of day.However, setting an Ad Schedule to completely pause ads during non-business hours is still necessary if you want a hard cutoff.