Skift Take
As the hospitality sector charts a path to recovery, every penny counts. When it comes to maximizing advertising spend, it helps to work with a channel that offers a wide choice of bidding models and the ability to maximize returns through granular operations management.
Touching virtually every stage of the traveler’s journey, Google has evolved into one of the biggest power players in the online travel market. According to Skift Research, the travel industry may have spent as much as $16 billion advertising on Google in 2019. That same year, it became the world’s most popular hotel review site.
A new guide from WIHP, “How to Generate (More) Bookings with Google Hotel Ads via Meta I/O,” sheds light on the importance of Google in the current distribution landscape and explores how to maximize the potential of Google Hotel Ads (GHA).
“Google Hotel Ads has become the most powerful and simple marketing channel for hotels today,” said Quentin Lederer, chief operating officer at WIHP.
In 2020, with a high number of hotel cancellations due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Google removed its minimum commission of 10 percent to use its Pay-Per-Stay (PPS) option, which allows hotels to pay for a GHA click only after the guest stay has occurred. Incorporating this bidding model into the marketing mix can help moderate the risks associated with Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns and position hospitality companies for success, especially if they’re managing several large campaigns at once.
Other key takeaways in this guide include:
- Insights from a review of the milestones in Google’s history of improving and evolving travel search results, from the launch of Google Ads to the company’s current PPS model for hotels
- How Google can be used either as a brand awareness platform, as a source of incremental revenue, or as a channel shift from OTAs
- How advertising allocated for Google Hotel Ads on WIHP’s Meta I/O platform rose from 7.3 percent in 2014 to 59.1 percent in 2019
- Detailed analysis of hotel client spending on Google Hotel Ads to recognize patterns and highlight fluctuations in spending, return on advertising spend (ROAS), and conversion rate
- Tips on launching and optimizing campaigns for Google Hotel Ads using Meta I/O, which connects to over 100 different booking engines
- As the numbers in the guide demonstrate, investing in Google Hotel Ads is among the most reliable, risk-free, and high-performing investments any hotel can make.
This content was created collaboratively by WIHP and Skift’s branded content studio, SkiftX.
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Tags: advertising, digital advertising, SkiftX Showcase: Technology