Campaign shows scheduled or ended when I did not expect it
Almost every scheduling surprise is the store timezone, a blank time defaulting to the start or end of the day, or the short delay before an ended campaign’s status updates.
Campaign times run on one clock: your store’s timezone, set in your Shopify settings. If a status looks wrong, translate the campaign’s dates into that timezone first; that resolves most surprises on its own.
It is probably the store timezone
If you are in a different timezone from your store, a campaign can be live by the store clock while looking early or late on yours. The start and end are single worldwide moments: every shopper sees the campaign start and stop at the same instant, whatever their local time reads.
What blank times mean
| Field | Blank time means |
|---|---|
| Start | The beginning of that day (00:00) in your store timezone |
| End | The end of that day (23:59) in your store timezone |
So an end date of July 20 with no time runs through the whole of July 20 and ends at 23:59. A campaign that seems to have run "a day long" usually just used the full final day, as designed. No start date at all means live immediately on publish; a start in the past also just means "start now".
A lag on the status label when a campaign ends
When the end moment passes, the discount stops at checkout on time, because Shopify enforces the end. The status label in the app is a separate thing: it is refreshed by a background sweep that runs every half hour, so for up to about 30 minutes you can still see a campaign whose time has passed labelled live. Opening or refreshing the page recomputes the label on the spot, so if it looks stale, reload the page and it will read correctly.
"It never went live at all"
- Check the campaign was published, not saved as a draft. The builder blocks an end at or before the start, so a saved campaign always has a valid window.
- Check your plan quota: a campaign over the live-campaign limit shows as blocked and waits for a free slot.