AdWords accounts have been set to Pacific Time since their debut, but an update will allow AdWords users to set their accounts to use local time instead.
People who are AdWords and MyClientCenter (MCC) user will no longer have to keep asking themselves “how many hours am I from the Googleplex?” when viewing their account information.
Instead, an invitation arriving in the coming weeks will alert those users of the new change in AdWords. Those users will be able to set their accounts to use local time.
“This means your entire account, including all ad serving, reporting, and billing, will be calculated and managed according to the time zone of your choice,” Google said on the AdWords blog.
However, Google also noted that an account time zone can only be set once. Account holders who do not change their time zone will remain on Pacific time.
The AdWordsAPI team described the time zone change and its effects:
Advertisers and MCC managers will be invited to set their time zones in May, at which point we will release a new version of the AdWords API that includes “set” and “get” time zone functionality. We plan to release more detailed/technical FAQs (via the AdWords API Blog) as we get closer to the launch date.
Advertisers can select any time zone in the world for their AdWords account. All reporting, ad serving, and billing will be based on the time zone set by the advertiser.
For developers who work with the AdWords API, the impact should be minimal, since the interfaces already support local time zones despite everything being reported and submitted in Pacific Time.
“Statistics will be collected at standardized times within each account’s local time zone boundaries,” Google said. In a given example, someone in Tokyo who sets AdWords for Japan Standard Time will have its stats collected from midnight to midnight, JST.
The new time zone feature should begin rolling out in early May.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
