[PPC] – Google Hotel Ads, more reservations in your hotel

Google Hotel Ads is the extension of ads that Google offers us in relation to the hotel sector. They were slow in coming when companies like Booking, Trivago and a long etcetera were more than present for the searches related to the topic and offer a powerful search engine.

As time goes by we understand the importance of search engines. More and more people are using Google searches as the first step in making a purchase of a good or service, and in the case of travel to book a room or buy a plane ticket it is even more so. As you know: nowadays everything is sold in the online channel.

So if you’re a hotel, hostel or guesthouse… what are you waiting for to take advantage of Google Hotel Ads? Read on if you’re interested in the topic.

What is Google Hotel Ads?

I’m sure that when you’ve been planning a trip with your friends, partner or family and you’ve decided to do your bit by finding a place to stay (unless you’re the one who’s always organizing the trips). You have gone directly to your browser and searched in Google: hotel barcelona or hotel madrid or hotel wherever you go. You have seen a thousand and one pages like Booking, Trivago, Kayak or Expedia among others. Well, Google wanted to get into the game too.

The good thing about these websites is that within them they have a very powerful search engine with various filters to segment to your liking and if you want “x” stars, if you want it central, with free parking, if you only want breakfast or full board, with or without swimming pools and an infinite number of possibilities. This, in my opinion, was and still is the most powerful thing within these websites.

Well, Google’s got its hands full with this. In Shopping you already had a specific tab for this type of campaign where you could filter the product by various variables. So taking advantage of the old Google Hotel Finder they gave birth to Google Hotels Ads. These types of ads appear within normal searches.

So Google Hotels Ads is the old Google Hotel Finder remodeled to improve its usability to get even more out of it.

To help you understand it better, we’re going to give you a demonstration. Next week I’m going with my friends to Madrid for the weekend. I opened my laptop and then Chrome to Google: “hotel madrid”. And the following has come up:

First the Search ads appear and then below, with a much more visual and descriptive aspect. Remember that these two things customers, like you and me, love to have as many descriptions and details as possible added to the search with purchase intent we are doing.

As this type of ad caught my attention so much, I decided to click on “Discover x hotels”. Then it redirects me to the next landing:

As you can see your search can be further filtered if possible; in a specific place, dates, people, price range, valuations and endless other options. Also if you click on the hotel that you think is the most suitable, you can see the customer ratings, images of the hotel, additional services among others. Yes, Google has created a great price comparator for the hotel sector.

If you want to mess around a bit more on the platform, click here.

How do Hotel Google Ads campaigns work?

Seeing the clear benefits that can be obtained with this type of campaign we will proceed to what you must do to be able to mount the campaigns with total guarantee.
As with Google Shopping, Google Hotels Ads also requires a data feed. Well… you need three feeds on this one. And it needs the bids to work properly. If you don’t have these two things right, you can’t advertise your hotel rooms.

You can do the data feed yourself or you can outsource the service to a third party to do all these jobs for you. But if you’re one of those who likes to do everything himself I’ll explain why and what you need three feeds for:

1. Room data feed. You will have to do it every day, because every day you will have more reservations or less reservations and in times of high occupation your prices will go up. So in this feed you must put the price for each room, as well as its availability. Here you have it more detailed
2. Other Data Feed based on accommodations, but in this case with more information about them such as room description and ratings. If you don’t fully understand, stop by here.
3. The last data feed will refer to the points of sale in the country where the publication is being made and also by device. In case you don’t quite understand, Google can help you

As always, when we upload a feed to Google, it needs to make an evaluation to verify that everything is in order with your policies, as well as check the landing pages in relation to the price indicated for the room. and that everything is ready and in order to be able to advertise on the platform.

On the other hand, as for the bids, you will have to establish bids based on groups or individually. The types of bids that are set within Hotel Google Ads are quite simple, and more than one you should already be aware of. Either because you will be using them in your Google Ads campaigns, because the platform offers manual bidding and smart bidding strategies to make the algorithm work more “at will”.

For manual bids you can make these two types of bids:

1. CPC Maximum. This is already a mythical one inside Google Ads. As its name suggests, it refers to what price you are willing to pay per click.
2. CPX Maximum. Bids for the percentage price of each room, interesting and to be taken into account. Here you have to know quite well the rooms you offer and mount this campaign around it.

For the smart bids you will find three types to choose from. These are as follows:

1. ROAS. For those who want to control their investment in the smallest detail, Google will do it automatically.
2. CPA. Quite simple and actually very useful and profitable in the sector.
3. Commission for the reservation of a room.

With all these requirements it must be said that to start advertising (with total guarantee) in this type of ads you need the help of a partner. Simply because it is quite complicated at first due to the Feeds you have to upload as to select the most suitable bid for you, in order to get the best possible commissions.

If you are going to do it yourself, you will have to fill in a request form to have a direct integration with Google Hotel Ads services. And being quite proactive at all times and investigating your competition incessantly. The tourism sector, within Spain, is the sector that contributes the most money to the GDP so it is where there is the most market. With this what I mean is that there is a very high competition and therefore you must know how to implement on the one hand the three feeds as required (and if you give more thought to try to improve it better) and then select the bidding offer that best fits your budget and objectives you hope to get out of this campaign.
Although… if you don’t see it clearly, we’ll give you a hand.

Benefits and advantages of Hotel Google Ads

There are several benefits you can get if you are a Hotel and decide to hire PPC services from a marketing agency

For Hotel Google Ads we highlight the following benefits and advantages;

• It attracts quality traffic. People who go to your website through your ad are really interested in making a reservation.
• Improve your hotel’s visibility with these types of ads. You will show your rooms in a more graphic and eye-catching way for the customers.
• If you bid efficiently you will get great benefits in every reservation that is made. So you have to adopt the best bidding strategy.
• Pay per reservation. This is really useful. Until the client makes the reservation of the room you will not be charged.
• Increases the volume of reservations. There are many hotels that thanks to Google Hotel Ads manage to hang the sign that there are no more rooms available.

There are few advantages and benefits to be gained, but… what more do you want? if they’re giving you more visibility, quality traffic, pay per book and have them increase.

Tips and tricks

As in most of our articles about PPC we count some “tricks” we know about the platform as some important tips. For Google Hotel Ads are as follows.

Target your ads

You can target your ads by location. If you are a hotel chain you can analyze for each hotel the number of visitors from each country. Where there is a large group of the same nationality, you should consider targeting the advertisements of that hotel to that group of tourists. I’m sure the reservations come easy.

Combine it with your PPC campaigns

In the end it’s all part of a joint strategy, and if it’s not at home it should be. In the end all shares, even if issued by different means, must go to one.

For example, you can combine this type of campaign with remarketing lists or RLSA.

Reduce commissions
With the right bidding strategy for your budget and goals you will start to reduce your commissions and get more profit for yourself.

Conclusion

It seems that Hotel Google Ads has come to stay, and very strongly. Its search engine is so visible in Google searches that it almost overlaps with Trivago, Booking, Kayak, etc. In my humble opinion I prefer it because you avoid entering any page and from the first search you already have the powerful search engine that it offers. So little by little it’s going to eat up the land of the other buyers/hotel room seekers.

So if you are a hotel you should take full advantage of the opportunities offered by paid advertising and in particular Google. By merging Google Ads, either search or display ads together with Google Hotel Ads you are sure to have a great tourist season.

If you are sure, contact us and we will do the rest. Besides offering you this service if you include the CRO services in your pack you will see a considerable increase in your bookings.