Google has recently announced a change that’s causing a stir in the advertising community: ad scheduling is no longer compatible with campaigns using Smart Bidding. Adriaan Dekker spotted this change that has left advertisers scratching their heads—was this a mistake, or is this the new normal?
Let’s dive into what this means for your campaigns.
What is Ad scheduling?
Ad scheduling is a feature in Google Ads that allows you to control when your ads appear. It’s a valuable tool for businesses that:
- Want to show ads during specific hours (like business hours).
- Need to align ad visibility with customer behavior or operational capacity.
- Use bid adjustments to increase or decrease bids at certain times of the day or week.
By default, campaigns are set to run ads “All day,” meaning they are eligible to show throughout a 24-hour period. However, with ad scheduling, you could narrow that window to match the times that matter most to your business.
What’s changing?
Google’s announcement states that ad scheduling is no longer compatible with campaigns using Smart Bidding. This change applies to:
- App campaigns.
- Campaigns leveraging Smart Bidding strategies like Target CPA, Target ROAS, or Maximize Conversions.
With Smart Bidding, Google’s algorithms optimize in real-time, based on historical performance and contextual signals like time of day, device, and user behavior. This move suggests that Google believes Smart Bidding can handle timing decisions more effectively than manual ad scheduling.
Find Google’s announcement here.
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