{"id":4545,"date":"2020-08-13T10:28:53","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T10:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clickceasebiz.com\/blog\/?p=4545"},"modified":"2022-12-19T09:17:50","modified_gmt":"2022-12-19T09:17:50","slug":"what-is-dayparting-and-should-you-use-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clickcease.com\/blog\/what-is-dayparting-and-should-you-use-it\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Dayparting and How Can You Use It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Could the practice of changing your ad schedule by time and day, known as dayparting, save you money and <\/em>make your ads more effective?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay per click advertising, when used properly, can be a goldmine for your business. Of course, that one keyword \u2013 properly <\/em>\u2013 can be quite a hurdle. It\u2019s hard to implement PPC advertising in a manner that provides your business with plenty of high-quality leads for a reasonable investment. If you don\u2019t find enough leads, or if those leads cost too much, the whole venture will be a failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the type of thing you can build once and then leave alone to run for months on end. A good PPC campaign will be monitored and adjusted constantly. Running frequent tests to see how changes to your plan will impact outcomes is a cornerstone technique used by ad managers everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in this article, we’re going to look at dayparting and how you can use it to maximise your PPC campaigns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Dayparting?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dayparting is the practice of dividing an online ad campaign to run at different times during the day. For example, you might have a campaign that you have identified works best during work hours, between 10 am and 4 pm, and then after 7 pm until 10.30 pm. Rather than running the ad for the whole day, you turn it off when it is least effective and turn it back on again to run at the optimal time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it would obviously be easier to just run the same PPC ads at the same bid for all 24 hours, research done<\/u> by Service Direct<\/u><\/a> indicates that doing so may be a waste of valuable resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can use dayparting with any PPC ad campaigns, including Google Ads and Facebook Ad campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Intriguing Numbers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Given how many scheduled ads we manage at one time, optimizing bid strategy by using dayparting can improve our bottom line numbers, and also achieve better results for our clients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that in mind, we decided to research whether or not the time of day was an important factor in the efficiency of our ads. When we tallied it all up, the results were conclusive \u2013 using dayparting techniques to alter our ad schedule days and times could save money and get more leads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, we found that there was a dramatic decrease in conversion rate at certain times, especially between business hours and after-hours clicks. We were getting a conversion rate of nearly 12% during the day \u2013 but that number plummeted to only 3.5% after-hours. Ouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact of that drop in conversion rate became very real when we analyzed the cost for us to convert that visitor into a lead. During the best hour of the day for us (10-11AM), that cost was just under $40.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compare that with our worst hour (1-2AM), and that cost skyrocketed to over $180. Ouch OUCH! A 355% increase in cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, it\u2019s important to factor in the cost of those clicks, as cheaper late-night clicks could potentially make up for the hit in conversion rate. But that was not the case. Our after-hours clicks were less expensive, but only 16% lower than the clicks we purchased during the day. And, obviously, that 16% discount doesn\u2019t come close to making up for the massive drop off in conversion rate.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Shut It Down?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After a quick look at the data, you might decide that the best course of action is just to shut down your digital ads after a certain time of day. For instance, once the clock strikes 6 p.m., you may have your ads set to discontinue until the next morning, or the next business day. That is an option, but it\u2019s probably not the optimal strategy for your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are still customers to be found after-hours, and those customers can be quite valuable in the long run. So, you don\u2019t want to miss out on the chance to target those customers, you just want to make sure you aren\u2019t paying a higher CPA than necessary<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that in mind, we have two recommendations for ad scheduling that you\u2019ll want to consider \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n