Campaigns and budget
Basically, Google Hotel Ads campaigns allow you to set specific budgets and reach users based on their country of residence and the device they are using. In a campaign, ad groups can be used to set specific bid adjustments depending on the user's travel plan (searching guest).
Be noted:
Hotels today face a variety of challenges when it comes to digital advertising, especially when it comes to running effective campaigns on Google Hotel Ads.
While there's a lot to be said for managing your campaigns yourself, there are compelling reasons why working with a metasearch management software partner is a better approach. By working with experts in this field, you as a hotelier can concentrate on your core business and leave the intricacies of advertising and performance optimization to the professionals.
Factor this into your budget. Nevertheless, I have listed some key points for a successful campaign:
Price bid
Hotel campaigns allow you to bid for someone to book a room or click on your ad.
- Commissions (pay-per-conversion or PPC):
You only pay when a traveler books your hotel, depending on the payment model selected.
Please take care: The commission model at Google cannot be compared with the common commission models of the OTA platforms. Subsequent or short-term cancellations by the guest do not lead to the cancellation of the Google commission, because you pay for the successful “Conversion”! - Commissions (Pay-per-Stay or PPS):
You only pay when a traveler actually stays at the hotel they booked through a hotel ad.
Please take care: This variant is only available for selected partners via a special interface. - Max. cost-per-click bid also called CPC (fixed or percentage):
You pay when a user clicks on your ad. CPC bidding strategies allow you to adjust your bid based on factors such as device type, traveler country of origin, or length of stay. - Auto-optimized CPC:
This applies bid adjustments for the “Max. CPC” automated. 
Free booking links:
Even though Google rarely talks about this option in its overview pages and its advertising presentation for Google Hotel Ads, it does exist:
Since the beginning of 2021, Google has also been offering “authorized partners” the opportunity to use free booking links. When the searching guest is shown price details of a hotel, there is a list below the paid advertisements "All options“ or also referred to as “xx show more“. If the guest clicks on this, he will be presented with a list of the so-called organic results, i.e. free booking links.
The question arises as to whether these entries are even taken into account by the searching guests. You can find out more about this in the following section “Ad Rank”.
Ranking position of ads
Ad rank is determined in an auction where Google bids from partners and the ad quality includes.
The quality of the ad is influenced, among other things, by how accurate the partner's pricing information is and the extent to which the ad meets the needs of the users.
The rank of free organic links is based on an algorithm that takes into account user preference, hotel price, landing page experience and historical accuracy of prices.Commercial relationships with Google are not taken into account!
This means that hotels and searching guests cannot change the display order of the entries. Nevertheless, the free booking links help hotels to increase visibility and be more present in the competition with the OTAs, because many guests now know that the “cheapest offer” is not always at the top.
Free links can also appear in the upper window if Google determines a correspondingly high number of clicks and classifies your free booking link as “attractive” classified.
Which model is best for my hotel campaign?
It's worth taking a look at your objectives in order to create a successful Google Hotel Ads campaign for your hotel.
Therefore, check which of the target criteria has priority for you:
- Visibility
You want your hotel to have maximum visibility and in the first positionstands? The cost-per-click (CPC) model gives you the ability to dynamically manage your visibility and control costs by adjusting CPCs. With commission models, however, you are less flexible because you give Google complete control over your visibility. - Flexibility of the business model
With the commission models, you can usually only adjust the commission and thus the click price once a month, in contrast to the CPC model. This means you have less flexibility in a dynamic marketplace. Ultimately, this means that with a commission model you may be paying too much for good visibility, or paying little but losing visibility and therefore direct bookings. - An organic ranking with free booking links is a good alternative
Free booking links combined with an SEO-optimized website and the corresponding integrated booking platform is, in my opinion, the most cost-effective option and at the same time the most sustainable approach for your online success.
Conclusion:
- Ensure good organic ranking for your website
Read our articles and tips in our news blog: https://www.masch.com/de/news-blog/label:seo/ - As a hotelier, you should have a partnership to run your online advertising campaigns build with an experienced software provider. The partner must understand the technical processes of META search and the connections between SEO and Google Hotel Ads campaigns and provide you with a recommendation that is optimal for your business. This allows you as a hotelier to focus on your core business and guest experience while actively participating in strategic discussions and holding your partners accountable.
- Start with free booking links, Because your guests know from other META search portals such as Tripadvisor and Trivago that it is not the best offer that is at the top, but that you can often find the real “jewels” in the list of all offers.
- In the second step, use Google Hotel Ads as a real campaign tool - not constantly, but from time to time. A successful campaign should be time-limited and tailored to a specific offer and not communicate standard prices!
About the author:
Matthias Liedtke is a senior content and support specialist at MASCH Software Solutions and has been successfully developing websites for more than 8 yearsmore integrated Booking platform. His daily work portfolio includes SEO-optimized campaigns for hotel businesses in Switzerland andGermany.
MASCH Software Solutions is a provider of content management software for SEO optimized websites. Our experience, including over 15 years of SEO automation in software development, helps our customers develop their products and services 'Google & Co.’ to make it more visible.
If you have further questions about the organic ranking of 'Google & Co.’ for your company, my colleagues and I will be happy to provide you with advice and assistance.
Contact:
E-mail:support@masch.com
Tel. in Germany: +49 (0)2203 806 8405 or in Switzerland: +41 (0)33 511 2135
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