Why Hotel Ads are different from Search Ads
When someone searches for a hotel by name or for hotels in a place, Google shows a booking module with rates from several sellers. Without a hotel campaign, the only rates in that module for your property are the OTAs’, and every booking that starts there costs you commission. Hotel campaigns put your own rate in the same list, matched to the guest’s dates and party size, and link to your booking engine. Bids are not on keywords; they are on the property, adjusted by the guest’s country, device, check-in day, length of stay and how far ahead they are booking. The data comes from Hotel Center, fed by your booking engine or channel manager, so the price shown is the live price.
Who this is for
- Hotels, resorts and boutique properties in Nepal with a booking engine and a meaningful share of OTA bookings they would rather take direct.
- Properties in Australia, the UK, the USA and other markets where OTA commission is the largest marketing cost.
- Small groups and hospitality brands that want one specialist across Search, Hotel Ads and remarketing.
Properties without a booking engine, or whose engine cannot feed Hotel Center, start with Search Ads and a booking-engine change; I say which on the first call. Chandragiri Hills is among the hospitality clients I have worked with in Nepal.
What Hotel Ads management includes
Hotel Center and booking engine connection
A Hotel Center account in your name, the property matched to its Google Business Profile listing, and rates and availability supplied through your booking engine or a connectivity partner that integrates with Google. Rate accuracy is checked before launch, because a rate that differs at checkout is disapproved and damages the listing’s standing.
Free booking links
Once the feed is live, Google can also list your direct rate in the free booking links beneath the paid ones. That costs nothing and it is the first thing I switch on.
Hotel campaigns
Campaigns split by market and by intent: guests searching your name, guests searching the destination, and guests comparing on Maps. Bids are set by country of the searcher, by device, by day of week and length of stay, and by booking window, from your own booking data. Bidding starts on manual or commission-free CPC and moves to target ROAS once bookings and their values are recorded.
Search, remarketing and Performance Max for travel
Brand and destination Search campaigns protect your name against OTA bidding and capture guests before the booking module appears. Remarketing follows guests who checked rates and left. For properties with enough data, Performance Max for travel goals adds inventory across Google using the same hotel feed.
Booking tracking
The booking engine’s confirmation step fires a conversion with reservation value, room nights and lead time into Google Ads and GA4 through Tag Manager. Cancellations are handled by adjusting conversions where the engine can export them. The method is the same as the wider conversion tracking setup; for hotels it is the difference between counting bookings and counting clicks on “check availability”.
How a hotel campaign is set up
- Booking engine review: can it feed Hotel Center directly or through a partner, and can it pass booking value to a conversion tag.
- Hotel Center account, property matching and rate feed; accuracy verified against a test booking.
- Booking conversion built and test-fired with value.
- Free booking links enabled; hotel campaigns built by market and intent.
- Brand Search campaign launched alongside so OTAs do not own your name.
- Bid adjustments from booking data: country, device, day, stay length, lead time.
- Monthly review of direct booking share, cost per booking and OTA commission avoided.
What you receive
- Hotel Center and Google Ads accounts in your name with a working live-rate feed.
- Booking conversions with value, reconciled monthly against your booking engine.
- A report on cost per direct booking, return on ad spend and the share of bookings moved from OTAs.
Mistakes I see in hotel accounts
- No brand Search campaign, so an OTA’s ad sits above the hotel’s own website for its own name.
- Rates in the feed that do not match the booking engine, leading to disapprovals.
- One bid for every country when the guest mix is mostly two or three markets.
- Counting availability checks as bookings.
Pricing and next step
Hotel Ads are managed within the monthly PPC management fee, with the ranges on the packages and pricing page; the industry context is on Google Ads for hotels and hospitality. Send read-only access for a free Google Ads audit and I will tell you whether your booking engine can support Hotel Ads and what a brand campaign would protect.