I am thinking of trying Ads Scheduling in Adwords as a way to stretch my Adwords budget a little further. I'm interested to learn if anyone has tried/uses Ads Scheduling and if so, what, if any, improvements they have experienced? I run my campaigns geo-targeting English speaking countries, specifically the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia & NZ - I do so based upon the purchase prices of the products I sell. First off I wondered if it is possible to set up Ad Scheduling to run at specific times for seperate time zones. I would imagine somehow requiring three time-zoned groups for my ads, one for the US & Canada, a second for the UK & Ireland and the third for Australia & NZ? But the more I think about Ad Scheduling the more I become confused as to whether or not it is really worth bothering with? After all, your Adwords ads are only every displayed as a result of someone searching one of your keywords - and so no matter where that person is in the world or what time of day or night it is, they are still (hopefully) looking for what you are selling? If that statement is true, then why bother with Ad Scheduling at all - is there actually a point to it? Or am I simplifying things a little too much and missing the point somewhere along the line?
To stretch your budget, you are better off lowering the bids until you don't run out of clicks until the end of day. That way you will get more clicks for less money. I have not had great luck with the scheduler. Then again, I have not had a client where it would be useful - whatever that would be.
To have scheduling different for the different time zones, you need to have separate campaigns for the seperate geographic regions - it's easily done in the Adwords Editor, just copy the campaign, then set it for the countries you want in that group. How useful it is really depends on your niche, and whether you can see strong patterns in the clicks and conversions you're getting - is it a product that only sells during business hours? Some people turn ads off during the early hours of the morning as this is when the most 'abuse' and/or drunken surfing occurs - though if you've got a product that benfits from impulse buys, drunken surfing might be to your benefit!
ad scheduling can be a very effective way to maximize budgets across different markets. If your want the ads to run correctly in those time zones then you will need a campaign for each so that the ads can all be scheduled independently. You are correct that if someone is search they may be willing to purchase as well no matter what time of day it is, however as many businesses find out there are peak conversion hours of the day. Meaning noon avg conversion ratio may be 2% while midnight conv ration might be 1%. So just eliminate slow conv hours so you can maximize your budgets. I think you do need clear tracking and analysis to really make an informed decision. Otherwise your just shooting in the dark, hoping to save money and expand budget
The only "problem" with the scheduling strategy it that quite often people shop and then come back to buy. They may do research at night and then buy the next day at the office. You need to test for how many repeat visitors vs newcomers are converting, and if how is that ration changed after scheduling started. I could see if you were selling an inexpensive impulse item with a short buying cycle, it might be worth it.