Turning ads off at night is usually a mistake
"Nobody's there to answer" sounds logical. But people search when they have time — often evenings and weekends — and they don't come back.
A common request from service businesses: switch ads off when the office is closed. The reasoning is fair — no one can answer the phone, so why pay for clicks?
The problem is that a lot of research and booking happens outside office hours. Someone with toothache searches at 10pm. A business owner looks for an accountant on Sunday afternoon. If you're not showing, a competitor is — and that person is unlikely to come back on Monday to look for you.
What to do instead
- Keep ads running, but send out-of-hours clicks somewhere useful: online booking, a short form, or a callback request.
- Schedule call assets to business hours only, so you don't drive calls to an empty phone — while the ad itself keeps showing.
- Look at your conversion data by hour and day before deciding anything. Often evenings convert as well as mornings.
- Make sure someone follows up on overnight leads first thing. Speed of reply matters more than the hour they came in.
When scheduling does make sense
If data shows certain hours consistently waste spend — or for B2B offers where buyers only act during working time — adjust bids for those hours rather than switching off completely. Let the data decide, not the office hours.
Your ads should be open when your customers are looking, not only when your office is.
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