Choose your time zone to troubleshoot ads

You can temporarily change the time zone Campaign Manager 360 uses to display dates/times in the interface. This can help you check the local time in a particular region when you manage ads and creatives.

The time zone menu is just for display purposes. It doesn't affect your ads, it just translates dates/times into the time zone your select.

• Choose a time zone: Click the settings icon in the upper right (looks like a gear). Click Time zone beneath your time zone to view the time zone menu. Choose a new time zone. Your setting affects many fields across the application. See the FAQ below for a full list.

• Example: Say you change your Campaign Manager 360 time zone from New York -05:00/-04:00 to Paris +01:00/+2:00. The Paris time zone is 6 hours ahead of New York, so all affected fields shift forward 6 hours. E.g., ad start times in all your accounts shift forward 6 hours. Any ad start time of 12:00 pm changes to 6: 00 pm — that's the shift from New York time to Paris time. Same time, different time zone.

Keep in mind that time zone selections don't change when ads start/stop serving, when creatives rotate, or any other kind of scheduling. When you change your time zone in Campaign Manager 360, all you really change is how the interface displays Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), or world time: it translates GMT into the corresponding local time you set with the time zone menu. GMT is the same all over the world. That's why changing time zones doesn't affect when your ads serve.

Your time zone selection changes the display across your entire interface, regardless of account. If you sign out, Campaign Manager 360 will remember your selection when you sign back in.

FAQ

How are time zones ordered in the menu?

They're ordered by proximity to the GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) time zone. Each time zone lists the region followed by the hours the time zone is ahead or behind GMT, both in and out of Daylight Saving Time.

For example, the time zone in Accra, Ghana, is the same as the GMT time zone, so Accra is at the top of the list: Accra 0:00/0:00. By contrast, New York, USA, is four or five hours behind GMT, so it’s farther down: New York -05:00/-04:00.

Note that the regions in this list are grouped by continent (and areas such as the Atlantic).

What fields are affected?

The time zone you set applies to every account in Campaign Manager 360. It affects these details:

• Ads

  • Start/End date and time
  • Creative Start/End date and time (under Creative assignments)

• Creatives

  • Created date and Modified date

• Placements

  • Created date

• Change log

  • Date/time in the change log list (Admin > Change log or Admin > Account > Change log)

Note: Time zones changes do not affect unsaved entries into your date/time fields. If you have an item open, save it before you change your time zone.

How do time zones affect dates?

Changing your time zone can affect the date as well as the time displayed for ads, creatives, and change logs.

For example, 10:00 pm in New York is 4:00 am in Paris: the 6-hour time difference means that local time in Paris is already in the next day. Campaign Manager 360 accounts for this difference when you change your time zone, updating the time six hours later and the date to the next day.

In the case of New York and Paris, 9/1/2012 10:00 pm New York City time changes to 9/2/2012 4:00 am Paris time when you change the time zone from New York -05:00/-04:00 to Paris +01:00/+2:00.

What about campaign or placement dates?

The start of each day for campaign and placement dates is 12:00 am in the time zone specified in your contract. You cannot check or change this time zone in Campaign Manager 360. Campaign and placement dates do not display differently when you change your time zone in Campaign Manager 360. That’s because these dates are not tied to a specific time. Instead, campaign and placement dates follow the time zone specified in your contract.

Is there a more detailed example?

Yes! Right here.

In this example, your primary audience for an ad is in Paris, France, and you want the ad to start serving at 6:00 pm, Paris time, on 3/1/2013. Looking in Campaign Manager 360, you see your current time zone is New York -05:00/-04:00 (the default in Campaign Manager 360), and your ad is scheduled to start serving at 11:00 am, 3/1/2013. What next?

1. Select Paris +01:00/+2:00 from the time zone menu. Now you can see your ad start time represented in the Paris time zone. This makes it easier to check what time it will be locally in Paris when your ad starts serving.

2. Once you change the time zone to Paris +01:00/+2:00, all dates/times on your ad properties page change to reflect the corresponding local time in Paris. This includes your ad, which changes from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm, as Paris time is 6 hours later than Paris time. For a list of the fields display differently based on your time zone selection, see the section above: Fields affected by your time zone selection.

   Keep in mind that some date/times may be pushed into the next day. For example, 9/1/2012 10:00 pm New York City time changes to 9/2/2012 4:00 am Paris time.

3. Now that your time zone is set to Paris time, you can schedule your ad to start serving based on Paris local time. If you set your Start time to 6:00 pm, the ad will start serving when it is 6:00 pm in Paris on your start date.

   Note that it will be 12:00 pm in New York and 6:00 pm in Paris when your ad starts serving: they are the same times, just adjusted for different time zones.