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Amazon PPC Dayparting: The Complete Guide to Scheduling Your Ads on Amazon

Updated: Sep 23

Your Amazon ads are burning budget at 3 AM when no one's buying. Meanwhile, you're missing prime conversion opportunities at 8 PM because your bids are too low.


This is exactly why successful Amazon sellers and advertisers use PPC dayparting - a strategy that adjusts your ad spend based on when customers actually convert. 


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In this guide, you'll learn what Amazon PPC dayparting is, how to identify your most profitable hours, set up automated dayparting rules for your Amazon ads, and optimize your campaigns for maximum ROI.


A quick peek into the article:



Let's dive in...



What is Amazon PPC Dayparting and How Does It Work?


Amazon PPC dayparting is a strategy that lets you adjust your advertising efforts based on specific hours of the day or days of the week. Instead of running your campaigns at the same intensity 24/7, you can increase bids during high-converting hours and reduce them when performance drops.


Here's how it works:

You set multipliers for different time slots. 

A multiplier of 1.5x during peak hours increases your bid by 50%, while 0.7x during slow periods reduces it by 30%. 


Amazon PPC bid dayparting rules
Amazon PPC bid dayparting rules

This ensures you're spending more when customers are most likely to buy and conserving budget when they're not.


Though you have different bid and budget rules on Amazon, the platform doesn't offer dayparting controls, so you'll need third-party dayparting tools like SellerMate.AI or manual adjustments to implement this strategy effectively.


How to Identify Peak Hours for Amazon PPC Dayparting

This is an important action before you set dayparting rules. Finding your best-performing hours is all in the advertising data. Look at your ad reports and analyze metrics like sales, ACOS, CTR, and CVR on an hourly basis to spot when shoppers are most active and most likely to convert.


Instead of combing through raw reports, you can use SellerMate’s Free Amazon PPC Dayparting Tool. It breaks down your ad performance by hour and day, showing you exactly when to scale spend and when to pause ads.


Amazon PPC dayparting peak hour analysis
Amazon PPC dayparting peak hour analysis

This makes it easy to cut wasted spend, focus budgets on high-conversion windows, and boost ROAS — all without endless spreadsheets.



Why Dayparting Matters for Advertisers, Even As a Beginner

Here are a few reasons why you should use dayparting on your Amazon PPC campaigns.


Maximize Your Limited Budget


As a seller/advertiser, every dollar counts. Dayparting ensures you're not wasting money on low-converting hours. Instead of spreading your budget thin across 24 hours, you concentrate it when customers are most active.


Improve Your ACoS


When you bid higher during profitable hours and lower during non-profitable hours, you can improve your Advertising Cost of Sales (ACoS). You're essentially buying cheaper clicks when competition is lower and investing more when conversion rates are higher.


Gain Competitive Advantage


Most sellers run campaigns on autopilot. When you optimize by time, you can outbid competitors during peak hours while they're stuck with static bids. During off-peak times, you reduce spend while they continue burning budget.


Better Campaign Control


Amazon ad dayparting gives you granular control over when and how aggressively your ads run. This level of optimization separates successful sellers from those who simply "set and forget" their campaigns.


Understand Your Customer Behavior


Implementing dayparting forces you to analyze when your customers are most active. This insight helps with inventory planning, customer service scheduling, and overall business strategy.


Prefer watching a video? In the video below, SellerMate's cofounder, Avinash Saproo, gives a complete walkthrough on what Amazon PPC dayparting is and how to schedule your ads using dayparting.




When to Use Dayparting for Your Amazon PPC Campaigns

Before starting dayparting on Amazon PPC campaigns, here are a few things to consider:


You Have Sufficient Historical Data


You need at least 30-60 days of campaign data to identify meaningful patterns. Without this foundation, you're making decisions based on insufficient information.


Your Products Show Time-Based Patterns


Some products naturally perform better at certain times. For example, kitchen appliances might convert better in the evening, while office supplies peak during business hours. If your data shows clear time-based trends, dayparting makes sense.


You're Spending Significant Ad Budget


Dayparting optimization becomes more impactful with larger budgets. If you're spending $50+ per day on ads, the time investment in dayparting typically pays off.


Your Campaigns Are Stable


Don't implement dayparting on new campaigns that are still learning. Wait until your campaigns have stable PPC metrics before adding this layer of optimization.


You Have Resources to Monitor and Adjust


Dayparting requires ongoing attention. You'll need to review performance, adjust multipliers, and refine your approach based on changing patterns. So it’s better to use 


When Not to Use Dayparting


Your Budget is Very Small

If you're spending less than $30-50 per day, focus on basic campaign optimization first. Keyword research, negative keywords, search term harvesting, and bid management will give you better returns than dayparting.


You Lack Historical Performance Data

New campaigns or products without a performance history shouldn't use dayparting. You need data to make informed decisions about when to increase or decrease bids.


Your Product Has Consistent Performance

If your conversion rates and ACoS remain steady throughout the day, dayparting won't provide significant benefits. Some products simply don't have time-based patterns.


You Can't Commit to Regular Monitoring

Dayparting isn't a "set it and forget it" strategy. If you can't review and adjust your settings regularly, you might actually hurt your performance.


Your Campaigns Are Already Underperforming

For any campaign, it’s important to fix fundamental issues first. Poor keyword targeting, weak product listings, or pricing problems won't be solved by dayparting.



How to Identify Your Peak Conversion Hours

Before you set up dayparting, you need to know exactly when your ads perform best.


Start with Visual Data in SellerMate.AI

If you’re using SellerMate.AI, head to the Heatmaps or Daily Charts inside your dashboard.

SellerMate.AI hourly data for dayparting
SellerMate.AI hourly data for dayparting

You’ll see hourly breakdowns for impressions, clicks, conversion rates, ACoS, ROAS, CPC, and more — all color-coded to highlight your strongest and weakest hours. No manual data crunching, no messy spreadsheets.


If You’re Using Amazon’s Console Alone

Download your Amazon search term and campaign reports for the last 30–60 days. Export them to Excel or Google Sheets, then build pivot tables to track performance by hour of day.


Look for patterns in:

  • Conversion rates by hour

  • ACoS fluctuations

  • Click-through rates at different times

  • Cost-per-click variations


Factor in Customer Behavior: Match your ad schedule to your audience’s lifestyle.

For instance, consumer products’ sales often peak in the evenings (6 PM–10 PM)


Watch Competitor Trends: Analyze when competitors ramp up their bids. Intense bidding hours can signal peak buying intent.


Test Time Segments Before Going Granular: Start with broad buckets like morning, afternoon, evening, night, before diving into specific hours. This lets you spot big patterns without getting lost in noise.


Account for Seasonal & Weekly Shifts: Buyer habits change during weekends, holidays, or seasonal events. Revisit your heatmaps regularly to adjust for these changes.


With these insights, you’ll get a clear picture of the most profitable hours, making your advertising dayparting rules far more effective.



How to Schedule Dayparting Rules With SellerMate.AI

Keep in mind, manual dayparting gives you control but is slow, error-prone, and hard to scale, while Amazon PPC automation tools like SellerMate.AI save time, adjust bids in real time, and provide AI-driven insights.


SellerMate.AI offers three types of dayparting: Bid, Budget, and Placement.


Here's how to set up Bid Dayparting:


Go to the SellerMate's dashboard. 

From your dashboard, navigate to Smart Automation → Dayparting.

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You'll see three dayparting options available.


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Create Your First Dayparting Rule:

  1. Click "Create" to start a new dayparting rule


  2. Name your rule descriptively (e.g., "Electronics Peak Hours Bidding")


  3. Click "Add Targets" to select which campaigns you want to optimize


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  1. Choose your time slots - select from 1-hour, 4-hour, or 6-hour intervals based on your data granularity needs


Set Your Multipliers:

  • x1 maintains your current bid (no change)

  • Higher values (1.2x, 1.5x) boost bids during peak conversion hours

  • Lower values (0.7x, 0.8x) reduce spend during off-peak times


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Leverage Data-Driven Insights:

  • Click "Heatmaps" to view hourly performance data, including impressions, clicks, ACoS, ROAS, and conversion metrics

  • Use "AI Recommendations" for suggested bid adjustments based on your historical campaign performance


Activate Your Rule: Once your multipliers are configured, click "Create Dayparting". Your rule runs automatically and can be monitored or edited anytime under "Your Daypartings".

Expand to Other Dayparting Types: Repeat the same process for Budget Dayparting or Placement Dayparting directly from the main dayparting menu.


Common Amazon PPC Dayparting Mistakes to Avoid


Setting Too Aggressive Multipliers


New users often set extreme multipliers like 3x or 0.3x. Start conservative with 1.2x-1.5x for peak hours and 0.7x-0.8x for off-peak. You can always adjust based on performance.


Making Changes Too Frequently


Resist the urge to adjust multipliers daily. Give each setting at least 7-14 days to generate meaningful data before making changes.


Ignoring Time Zone Differences


Amazon data reports data in Pacific Time, but your customers might be spread across multiple time zones. Factor this into your analysis, especially if you sell nationally or internationally.


Forgetting About Mobile vs. Desktop Patterns


Mobile and desktop users often have different browsing patterns. Mobile traffic might peak during commute hours, while desktop shopping happens more in the evening.


Overlooking Day-of-Week Variations


Don't just focus on hourly patterns. Weekend behavior often differs significantly from weekday patterns, especially for consumer products.


Best Practices for Amazon PPC Dayparting


Start Conservative and Scale Gradually


Begin with modest multipliers (1.2x for peak, 0.8x for off-peak). Aggressive changes can disrupt campaign learning and lead to poor performance.


Monitor Performance Weekly


Review your dayparting performance every 7-14 days. Look for shifts in peak hours, changes in competition, or seasonal pattern adjustments.


Segment by Campaign Type


Different campaign types may have different optimal hours:

  • Exact match campaigns often perform consistently throughout the day

  • Broad match campaigns benefit more from dayparting due to varying search intent

  • Product targeting campaigns may follow different patterns than keyword campaigns


Consider Your Product Category


Tailor your dayparting strategy to your product/category type:

  • B2B products: Focus on business hours (9 AM - 6 PM)

  • Consumer electronics: Peak in evening hours (6 PM - 10 PM)

  • Home and garden: Weekend mornings often convert well

  • Fashion and beauty: Evening and weekend patterns typically stronger


Account for External Factors

Adjust your dayparting for:

  • Seasonal changes (holiday shopping patterns)

  • Promotional periods (Prime Day, Black Friday)

  • Industry events that might shift customer behavior

  • Competitor promotional activities


Use Dayparting with Other Optimization Strategies


Dayparting works best when combined with:

  • Negative keyword management

  • Bid optimization based on performance

  • Ad copy and creative testing

  • Landing page optimization


Limitations and Risks of Amazon PPC Dayparting Rules


Reduced Learning Data

Limiting when your ads run reduces the data Amazon's algorithm receives. This can slow campaign optimization and potentially hurt long-term performance.


Over-Optimization Risk

Too many bid adjustments can create instability in your campaigns. Amazon's algorithm performs best with consistent data, and frequent changes can disrupt this process.


Time Zone Complexities

If you sell across multiple time zones, your "peak hours" analysis becomes more complex. You might miss profitable opportunities in different regions.


Competitive Response

As more sellers adopt dayparting, competition during identified "peak hours" may increase, potentially negating some benefits.


Seasonal Pattern Changes

Customer behavior shifts throughout the year. Your optimal dayparting strategy for summer might not work during holiday seasons.


Next Steps After Dayparting

Expand to Budget and Placement Dayparting

Once you've mastered bid dayparting, explore:


  • Budget dayparting: Allocating more budget during high-converting periods

  • Placement dayparting: Adjusting bids for top-of-search vs. product pages based on time


Implement Cross-Campaign Coordination

Ensure your dayparting strategy aligns across different strategies:

  • Sponsored Products, Brands, and Display campaigns

  • Different match types within the same campaign

  • Various product categories in your catalog


Analyze Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) by Time

Look beyond immediate conversions. Track whether customers acquired during peak dayparting hours have higher lifetime value.


Test Advanced Segmentation

Consider dayparting by:

  • Device type (mobile vs. desktop patterns)

  • Geographic regions (if selling in multiple markets)

  • Customer segments (new vs. returning customers)



Final Thoughts


Dayparting is a powerful optimization technique that can significantly improve your Amazon PPC performance when implemented correctly. Start with the basics, monitor your results closely, and scale your approach as you gain experience and confidence with the strategy.

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