In these economic hard times, finding ways to make every click count in PPC advertising is increasingly important. Dayparting has helped many small businesses maximize their return on paid advertising.

Dayparting allows the advertiser to control when ads are delivered by time-of-day and day-of-the-week. The advertiser can turn off paid advertising during periods of low conversion and turn ads on during times when conversions are best. Often this technique can produce higher ROI because it allows you to restrict displaying your ads to times when customers are most likely to convert.

If you're a small or local business, it may not make sense for you to run ads and drive traffic during periods when you're not open. Dayparting could be tailor-made for you. How To Determine Dayparting Periods

The first step is to examine the relationship of ad delivery times to the online behavior of your target customer. This requires a solid understanding of your target audience. Among other things, you'll need to know who the target audience is and have an understanding of their searching and buying behaviors. Run analytics for a month or two so you can acquire a baseline understanding of customer behavior.

Now, set up the ads to display only during the times times you've identified as high conversion periods. For example, if your analytics shows that most conversions occur during lunch hours or after 5 pm, then set your ads to display during those times.

There's an old saying that "nothing good happens after 3 am." For many businesses this might mean no advertising converts in the wee hours of the night. But if you run a bail bonds company, the middle of the night may be your best time. And for services with long latency before purchases or in market sectors where consumers do extensive research prior to purchase, you may want to be less restrictive in your approach to dayparting. How to Set Up Dayparting in Google AdWords

Google and Microsoft both support dayparting. Here are the steps for setting it up in Google AdWords:

1. Determine what time zone you want.
Remember, dayparting is relative to account's time zone, not the visitor's.
2. Log into your account and select "Edit Campaign Settings."
3. Click the link to turn on "ad scheduling," Google's name for dayparting.
4. Select the days and times you desire.

You can also use Bulk Edit to set days, weekdays, or weekends all at once. Track Performance and Refine

Dayparting has proven successful for a number of our small business PPC clients. Because every industry and market segment is unique, you should always track your performance to ensure that it is working for your company. Use analytics to determine whether dayparting is actually helping the bottom line. Hopefully, this straightforward technique will put your ads in front of your more willing customers and improve your PPC ad performance.