ABAKUS

* We are releasing this ad scheduling functionality at the request of advertisers and agencies who have asked for greater campaign management control.

* AdWords' new ad scheduling functionality will enable advertisers to drive greater returns from AdWords by providing them with more granular control over when their ads run and how much they bid.

* Ad scheduling allows advertisers to run their ads and modify their bids based on time of day as well as intra-day and intra-week cycles in campaign performance.

* Small business and local advertisers can now schedule their ads to run only during business hours.

* More sophisticated advertisers can now better capture & exploit intra-day and intra-week cycles of buyer behavior.

* We are planning to role it out to all advertisers next month.

Ad Scheduling is Google's word for 'Day Parting'.

This is a feature where one can list the time of day and days of the week they wish their ads to run. Google will automatically start and stop the ads based upon advertiser settings.

In addition, one will be able to change Max CPCs based upon time considerations.

This feature will be released in June.

This feature is tied to the Time Zone Settings of an account.

How businesses are expected to use the feature:

Small Businesses: Set their ads to run during normal business hours. This will ensure that their phone doesn't ring at hours when they aren't in the office.

Sophisticated advertisers: Measure ROI based upon Time of day and day of the week. Then ads can be paused or CPCs changed based upon ROI considerations.

It's a very welcome release from Google, and should allow many a new level of control.