Google Hotel Ads Guide: Boost Your Hotel’s Visibility and Booking

What are Google hotel ads? 

These are paid advertising tools that enable hotels to scale up their direct bookings and visibility on Google. They compare property prices throughout multiple OTAs (online travel agencies) and other metasearch platforms. To put it simply, it is paid advertising within the hotel product range of Google. The search engine’s hotel product offers a simple mechanism of browsing and checking hotels wherever they wish to stay. 

Why Hotels Should Invest in Google Hotel Ads

Hotels can invest in Google hotels packages for increasing traffic, brand visibility, and eventual revenue. At the same time, it is essential, since people search on their mobile devices and that too within other Google apps (like Maps, for instance) which link to the same source. 

The top listings here naturally influence customer perceptions of available properties within their preferred price range. Here is a guide to integration with these tools in this article. 

How Google Hotel Ads Work

Google hotel ads have a similar way of working just like other channels that you link your hotel with. There is the additional scope of running your ads for higher visibility. Through creating a hotel profile on Google and updating data in real-time on rates and inventory, you can optimize search results accordingly. 

Here are some key aspects worth noting in this regard. 

• Those looking for hotels in (location) will be attracted towards an advanced sales funnel stage. 

• They can thus either click-through to your site or OTAs for bookings. Bookings may also be generated directly on Google. 

• Using a property management software with in-built channel manager is the best way to keep rates and inventory updated on Google

• You will need the right strategy to run your campaigns and get the top listing positions in search results. This is where building the right profile is important 

• This should include the free booking link and claiming the Google Business Profile. Pay attention to inventory distribution to Google as well

The end-goal is to reach the right customer at the right time with the right rates and bid. 

How Much Does Google Hotel Ads Cost

A Google ad for hotel will cost you variably, depending on the property location, competitors, and your overall involvement in these campaigns. There are factors influencing costs that are both within and outside your direct control. 

Here are some pointers worth noting: 

• The ad cost depends on the campaign budget that you set and the bid value 

• You can control the bidding amounts for campaigns in Google Ads 

• Commissions (per stay) are percentages of each room booking and are paid for actualized stays and not cancellations

• Commissions per conversion are fixed percentages of each booking through the ad (even if cancelled later) based on room booking value 

• Manual cost-per-click (CPC) is a fixed bid when anyone clicks on the ad 

• CPC% is bidding a percentage of the room price (per night) whenever a person clicks on the ad 

• Enhanced CPC means a setting at the campaign level where the bids for clicks are tweaked automatically depending on information with Google. These are known as auction-time signals, indicating time, device type, etc. 

Naturally, if your hotel is in a big city with higher competition, then your Google hotel search blueprint will be different from properties in smaller locations. The lesser the hotels in any area, the higher the chances of visibility and top listing positions. 

Benefits of Having Google Hotel Ads

Here are some of the advantages of partnering with Google Hotel Ads for your hotel business: 

• Google has 90%+ global market share in the search engine segment. This counts since most people now book stays online itself 

• Google works as the middleman/metasearch engine that directs people to hotel sites, OTAs, and other booking channels

• You can get higher visibility by featuring in results when users type hotels in (location) or use other relevant keywords 

• Whenever customers click on your ads, they can directly be sent to your site for bookings. You can thus avoid OTAs and their 15-25% fees. This helps you scale up per-booking profitability while levelling the overall market

• You can also use ads to specifically target terms/keywords for more effective campaign spends. Do keyword research on particular demographics (for instance- words like waterfront, crèche, day spa, etc.) and target particular customers in your category. 

• Control your investments with hotel ad monitoring. The PPC (pay-per-click) system charges you only when someone clicks on your ad. Also, bidding gives you a chance to pay what you’re only willing to

• Remarketing is another area where these hotel ads benefit you immensely. This means showing ads to those who have already visited your site. Such gentle reminders can help foster guest loyalty in the long run 

How to Set Up Google Hotel Ad for Your Property 

Before you do this, the property will have to claim its Google profile. This is an easy process that you can follow on the support pages. Here are the other steps: 

• Accuracy checking for all profile details and links 

• Using the All Options section carefully for full optimization 

• Linking your rates and inventory to Google via APIs or third parties like channel managers 

• Ensuring that your hotel meets all data quality and listing requirements 

• If you have a channel manager, work with the integration partner to build the ad 

• Alternatively, you can use the Google platform to build and manage your ads parallel to your internal system 

You can use advanced and effective tools like aPerfectStay for seamless integration with Google hotel ads. 

Google Hotel Ads Integration Partners

Google has 200+ integration partners listed on its site. However, less than 50% of them are also described as Ads partners. 

Why does this matter? 

Hotel ads integration partners manage both your inventory distribution and connections. This includes pricing to Google and campaigns in a single platform. 

aPerfectStay, one of Google's Hotel Ads integration partners, offers a complete hotel management software that allows you to manage your hotel, including Google Hotel Ads, from one place.Start 15 days Free Trial now!

Google Hotel Ads Management 

From regular reviews to optimizing your ad spends, there are several best practices that you can follow. 

• Test your ads and track your rivals with the Google Ad Preview option. You can enter locations and search terms here and view what your potential customers see 

• Automate budget, ad status, bids, and other aspects depending on specific settings/conditions. For instance, you can set your keyword bid to go up to a maximum limit if your ad drops off the first results page 

• Keep rates at par across your channels. This is because travelers prioritize loyalty whenever there is no major price difference. Many people also know that direct bookings come with added benefits 

• Focus on optimizing your profile along with publishing helpful, engaging, and relevant content on your site 

• Focus your campaign budget majorly for vital dates and also when your occupancy levels are always lower every year

• Keep a tab on changing hotel costs to efficiently move budgetary tweaks to campaigns 

Latest Updates in Google Hotel Ads

Here are some latest updates worth knowing about: 

• The product now comes with two channel listing sections- All Options and Paid Ads

• The latter has always been operational where advertisers shell out money to be featured in the top four listings for results 

•  All Options offers visibility on listings to advertising without paying anything, as long as there is a direct Google integration in place. It will show up to 10 results and customers can expand for more

These updates will help hospitality players and properties to connect with wider audiences and increase their traffic and booking volumes. Guests, on the other hand, can access a more extensive range of property choices.