The Best Time to Run Meta Ads for Maximum Impact

Meta Ads prove to be a dominant channel for online business owners, mostly due to its precise targeting, deep analytics and multimodal ad formats, all within one platform.

With access to billions of users across the internet, it's easy to promote your product or service to the right people at the right time. However, launching a Meta Ads campaign without thinking about when it runs should stop.

Because the timing of your ads might break or make them.

As a marketing agency, we’ve helped 100+ brands become profitable and scale further with Meta ads. And through all these years, we tested, curated, and improved all the advertising strategies you can think of.

If you’re interested, we can set up and implement for you the same Meta ad strategy that’s worked for 100+ businesses online.

Book a FREE 30-minute discovery call with us to explore how we can help you grow your sales. 

Make sure to book your slot before we’re full. We only work with a few clients at a time.

Why does timing matter in Meta Ads?

Before getting into a specific timing approach, we need to understand how Meta’s ad delivery system works. 

Meta’s algorithm is designed to show your ads when the target audience is more likely to take your desired action. The platform uses the data to automatically optimise to your interests.

But it’s not wise to leave everything to the algorithm. Strategic timing decisions can provide sound counsel to Meta’s system and help you achieve better results with budget pacing and maximising ROI. 

Peak Engagement Times

Studies have shown that during a certain period, higher engagement rates are generated across most demographics. Generally, the peak hours are:

• Weekdays: 9 AM to 10 AM and 3 PM to 4 PM are often seen with high traffic. The evening slot of 7 PM to 9 PM also shows strong performance, hinting the activity of people unwinding by scrolling their feeds.

• Weekends: Saturday and Sunday mornings (10 AM to 12 PM) tend to perform well, as do Sunday evenings (6 PM to 8 PM).

These patterns exist because they correlate with natural human behavioural patterns. However, keep in mind that these are general guidelines and may oppose your specific audience data.

Industry-Specific Timing Considerations

Different industries have varying optimal performance times based on when their target customers are most likely to engage and convert:

• eCcommerce and Retail: Online shopping peaks during lunch hours (12 PM to 2 PM) and evenings (7 PM to 10 PM) on weekdays, with weekends showing strong performance throughout the day. Thursday through Sunday often see the highest conversion rates as people prepare for weekend activities or plan upcoming purchases.

• B2B Services: Tuesday through Thursday, 10 AM to 11 AM and 2 PM to 3 PM typically perform best, aligning with business hours when decision makers are most active.

• Entertainment and Events: Evenings and weekends generally see the best performance, particularly Thursday through Sunday, when people are planning leisure activities.

• Fitness and Health: Early morning (6 AM to 8 AM) and evening (6 PM to 8 PM) slots align with typical workout times. Monday campaigns often perform better as people set weekly health goals.

• Food and Restaurants: Timing should be kept in a way that it coincides with the mealtime of the audience. Generally, weekends perform best for food related campaigns.

Seasonal and Holiday Timing

The way you strategise your ad timing in correspondence to the Holiday/Seasonal timing can skyrocket your brand’s performance. Let's understand this in depth.

• Holiday Seasons: Black Friday, Christmas, and other major holidays require adjusted timing strategies. Start campaigns earlier than usual to capture early shoppers, but also maintain a presence during peak shopping days. Give additional perks and offers to attract more shoppers.

• New Year Period: January sees increased activity for fitness, finance, and self-improvement products as people pursue New Year’s resolutions.

• Back-to-School Period: August and September are crucial for education-related products and services. Timing should align with parents and students when they are actively preparing for the new school year.

Ad Scheduling

Ad Scheduling is the approach of choosing in advance the dates and time for the ads to run.

This is particularly useful if:

• Your audience is active during a certain time.

• You want to avoid low-conversion hours.

• You’re promoting limited-time offers or seasonal campaigns.

Here's a deeper look at how it helps you:

• Maximise ROI: Showing Ads when your audience is most active increases the click-through rates and conversions, leading to a better return.

• Control Ad Spend: Scheduling allows you to manage your budget by ensuring ads are only active when they are most likely to be effective.

• Reduce Ad Fatigue: By deliberately spacing out your ads, you can avoid overexposure and reduce the chances of audience fatigue.

• Target Specific Events: You can schedule ads to overlap with specific events or promotions, ensuring that they are visible to the audience at the right time.

A/B Testing to discover a Brand’s own Ideal Timing

Finding the best time to run an Ad through general speculations is not tailored to the audience; this is when A/B Testing becomes invaluable for data-led decision making.

A/B Testing or Split Testing involves running the same ad at several time slots to determine which yields the best performance for your brand:

• Define your primary KPI.

• Choose the creatives to test.

• Choose the different time slots to test.

• Schedule and launch the ads.

• Review the results and identify what time worked the best for you.

Notes that you must keep the creatives, audience targeting, and budget identical for the test. The only variation should be the ads' running time. This ensures a fair comparison.

Avoiding Mistakes that can Collapse your Scale-Up

As Henry Ford said, ‘A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.’ 

This clearly demonstrates how crucial ads are for scaling any business venture. However, doing it without a proper strategy and research can lead to even more resource drainage.

So, let’s see some common mistakes to avoid, which may potentially erode your business:

• Neglecting Client Experience: Growth can strain customer experience. When onboarding, communication, or delivery falter, churn rises. Prioritise client satisfaction even as you scale.

• Ignoring Systems & Automation: Manual processes often crumble growth, since they come at a great cost of time and money. Incorporate AI marketing into your business to keep thriving.

• Poor Budgeting: Rapid growth often creates cash issues. Without a clear budgeting strategy for scaling, your ads might just end up burning your money.

It's important to know despite getting your timing right, there are many other factors that can directly impact the performance of your ads. And you'd most likely want experts to nail those factors.

That's what we do day in and day out for brands. We’ve helped 100+ brands over the last 5 years, and we’re now open to working with new brands again.

Interested? You can book a FREE 30-minute discovery call with us to explore how we can help you grow your sales. 

There’s no catch, but we only work with select brands at a time. So book your slot before we’re full!