Last week, Yahoo announced enhancements to their search marketing platform. Part of that announcement was that they added the day parting option, giving advertisers the ability to say they want to show their ads on specific days and different times or even increase their bids at different times.

The one option Yahoo has added that the other engines do not have, is that they give you the ability to specify if you would like the day parting settings to be based on your time zone or the searcher's time zone. I was fairly confident that Google set it based on you (the advertiser's) time zone.

I confirmed that today by asking that question in a Google AdWords Help thread. The response lead me to a answer at Google help that read:

Ad scheduling for your AdWords campaigns is based on the time zone you have set for your account. Your ad will appear during the hours shown in your account -- not in the time zone of the regions you have targeted.

For example: Assume your account time zone is set for Amsterdam, but your ads are targeted to Bangkok, six hours ahead. When you schedule your ads to run from 1:00 until 3:00 pm, the ads will run from 1:00 until 3:00 pm Amsterdam time. That means that in Bangkok, six hours ahead, they will be running from 7:00 until 9:00 pm.

So there you have it. Even features such as day parting can get very granular in its targeting options. Google doesn't give you the detailed level of control Yahoo gives you, but do advertisers need it?

Here is a poll, let us know what you think:

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

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