How to schedule Facebook ads: start date, end date and dayparting in Meta Ads

Quick answer

To schedule Facebook ads, set a start date and time on the ad set: it waits and starts on its own. To run ads only at certain hours, the ad set needs a lifetime budget and an end date; with a daily budget, ad scheduling is unavailable. Ads Editor can also schedule the start when you duplicate campaigns.

Where does Facebook ad scheduling live?

Meta keeps scheduling on the ad set, not the campaign. The Marketing API reference, checked on October 17, 2026, describes three fields:

• Start time (start_time): when the ad set can begin delivering.
• End time (end_time): required when the ad set has a lifetime budget. With a daily budget, the ad set can run continuously.
• Ad schedule (adset_schedule): the days of the week and hours the ad set runs. Only for lifetime budgets.

In practice, a campaign with three ad sets can have three different start times. It starts spending when the first ad set starts, and an ad schedule applies to every ad inside that ad set.

How do you schedule a start date in Meta Ads Manager?

1. Create or open the campaign and go to the ad set.
2. In the budget and schedule section, pick the start date and time.
3. If the campaign has a fixed end, set the end date. With a lifetime budget it is required.
4. Publish. The ad set waits for the scheduled time and starts on its own, as long as the campaign, ad set and ad are active and approved.

How do you run Facebook ads only at certain hours?

That is ad scheduling, also called dayparting. Meta's Pacing and Scheduling documentation, checked on October 17, 2026, sets the rules:

• Only use ad scheduling with lifetime budgets.
• Each block starts and ends on the hour and lasts at least one hour.
• The schedule applies to every ad in the ad set.
• Pacing takes the schedule into account when calculating your bid.

When it pays off: a business that only answers the phone or chat during office hours and does not want to buy conversations nobody replies to at 3 a.m. When to think twice: a conversion ad set with little volume, where cutting hours also cuts the data delivery learns from. Test it on one ad set before rolling it out.

Why is Facebook ad scheduling not available?

Almost always because the ad set uses a daily budget. Switch to a lifetime budget, set an end date, and the schedule becomes available. If you need a daily budget, pause and resume with a rule or by hand instead.

How do you duplicate a campaign with a scheduled start in Ads Editor?

Since October 14, 2026, Ads Editor's duplicate flow has a field for when the copy starts. It solves the case Ads Manager handles poorly: the same launch across several client accounts, all starting at the same minute.

1. In Ads Editor's Meta manager, select the campaign or ad set and click Duplicate.
2. If the copy goes to other accounts, tick the destination accounts: one, several, Select all or a saved group.
3. Open the Schedule start (optional) row and pick a date and time at least 5 minutes ahead.
4. Confirm. The copy is created active and only delivers from the scheduled start.

Three details the duplicate handles for you: if the source end date falls before the new start, it is dropped and the ad set runs continuously; with a lifetime budget, which requires an end date, the end becomes start plus 14 days; and the source ad schedule is copied too. The Create campaign wizard has optional start and end fields as well. Through MCP, the clone campaign tool accepts a scheduled start; the copy is created paused and, once activated, delivers only from that time.

When should you schedule instead of publishing now?

• Launch dates (cart opening, Black Friday, a store opening): publish days earlier with a scheduled start, so ad review happens before the launch and not during it.
• Offer switch at midnight: the new campaign starts at an exact minute and the old one stops at its end date.
• Same launch across accounts (franchises, store networks, clients in the same niche): one duplicate with a scheduled start instead of ten manual setups. See how to copy a campaign to another ad account.
• Fixed-term campaigns: a lifetime budget with an end date guarantees the money stops on time, without anyone pausing it.

What are the most common scheduling mistakes?

• An end date in the past on a copy. Meta rejects ad sets with an expired end. Ads Editor drops it or, with a lifetime budget, moves it 14 days ahead.
• Expecting dayparting on a daily budget. Ad scheduling only exists with lifetime budgets.
• Forgetting the time zone. The ad schedule follows the viewer's time zone unless you switch it to the account's.
• A paused campaign. A scheduled start does not activate anything: campaign, ad set and ad must be active.
• A lifetime budget that is too small. A few days and a small budget tend to make delivery unstable. See budget and the learning phase.

Media buyers with many accounts usually pair scheduling with a fixed weekly routine per client; the guide to managing multiple Facebook ad accounts lays it out, and the frequency cap guide covers the other half of a dated campaign: not showing the same ad too often to the same person.