Industry Guide · 15 chapters · first chapter coming soon
Google Ads for Hotels, Built to Win the Booking Back From the Booking Sites.
A hotel shares the search page with Expedia, Booking.com and Google's own hotel box, and most of its guests search from somewhere else. These fifteen chapters build a Google Ads account in the order that works, using real searches, websites and guest reviews from one example market, New Orleans. The method works for independent and boutique hotels, inns and small hotel groups anywhere in the US.
Fifteen Chapters, From the First Booking to Your Own Name Back
New to Google Ads? Begin with Chapter 1. Each chapter builds on the ones before it.
Measure
Count every booking with its dollar value, and know what a guest is worth against a booking site's commission
Booking Value, Not Just Bookings
Your Name Before the City
Clicks Against the Commission
Build
Win your own name first, then the neighborhood, amenity and long-tail searches
One Ad Group per Neighborhood
Other Hotels' Names as Negatives
City Searches, Then Parking and Pets
Manual Bids, Then Booking Value
Ads in Your Guests' Words
Launch
Settings to fix before the first dollar goes out, starting with where guests live
Targeting Where Guests Live
Scale
More reach once the account knows what a booking is worth
Performance Max for Travel
Demand Gen Before the Trip
The Map Listing
AI Max Comes Last
Hotels
Bonus chapters: the price feed behind free booking links, and winning your name back from the booking sites
Bonus: The Price Feed
Bonus: Your Name Back
The Rollout, Month by Month
The order matters as much as the campaigns. Each step waits until the one before it has taught Google something.
Brand, Isolation and the price feed
Your hotel's name first, with the larger share of the budget, exact match on neighborhood and amenity searches, and a price feed through your booking engine so free booking links run.
Exploration and paid hotel ads
Broad match bidding on booking value, plus paid hotel price ads, once real bookings reach about 30 a month. Bigger hotels get there sooner.
Performance Max for travel goals
Only after months of clean booking data, with your own hotel's name excluded.
Demand Gen and AI Max
YouTube before the trip, then Google's newest automation, including Search Campaigns for Travel, last.
How to Use This Guide
Starting a new account?
Read in order. Booking value tracking and the commission math come before the first keyword.
Chapter 01 →Ads already running?
Check where your location targeting points and who wins searches for your own name. Targeting only your own city and an underfunded brand campaign are two common leaks.
Chapter 09 →One example market
Examples come from New Orleans hotels, described as we found them. Run the same steps in your own market.
Chapter 05 →Rather Have Us Build It
For Your Hotel?
We build hotel accounts in this order. See our Google Ads management.
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