As a small business marketing consultant with over 10 years of expertise assisting hotels, I‘ve seen the hospitality industry get hit hard by COVID-19 and shift dramatically prior as guests increasingly research and book trips online. Standing out has become vital, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an underutilized avenue that, with the right strategy, can drive substantial returns on ad spend.
This comprehensive guide pulls from my experience helping hotels across the country revitalize their businesses with PPC campaigns tailored to today‘s digital landscape. I incorporate detailed research, concrete success metrics, and my own tested tips for hotels hoping to turn interest into direct bookings.
The Lay of the PPC Landscape
Before digging into hotel-specific PPC techniques, let‘s ground ourselves in what pay-per-click advertising entails across some of the most popular platforms.
Breakdown of The Major PPC Platforms
Search Ads
- Appear atop Google and Bing results pages
- Over 3.5 billion searches per day globally [1]
- Hotels pay only when users click their ads
- Cost per click bid model, where advertisers compete based on bids
Social Media Ads
- Appear in Facebook and Instagram feeds
- 60%+ of Millennial travelers turn to social media when researching trips [2]
- Targeted by location, interests, behaviors
- Average CPC of $1.86 on Facebook [3]
Display Banner Ads
- Graphical ads across third-party sites
- Can retarget those who previously visited hotel site
- CPC model, with average cost of $0.43 across networks [4]
Why Hotels Should Leverage PPC Now
- Measurability – See real-time metrics on impressions, clicks, bookings
- Budget Control – Only pay when users engage with ads
- Hyper-Targeting – Zone in on potential guests by attributes
- Fast Results – Launch and optimize campaigns rapidly
I always advise hotels that PPC works best when integrated with ongoing email, social, SEO efforts for maximized exposure.
Crafting a High-Converting Hotel PPC Strategy
The key to PPC success for hotels lies in strategically targeting high-intent users, tracking meaningful metrics, and optimizing for direct conversions.
Laser Focus on High-Intent Keywords
As search has become vital for travel planning, targeting keywords around user intent separates winning PPC campaigns.
Good intent keywords:
- "hotels in miami beach"
- "miami hotels on beach"
- "affordable miami suites"
Bad keywords:
- "hotels"
- "miami"
- "vacation"
Analyze historical search data, on-site behavior, and existing organic traffic to identity buyer keywords. Match them closely to your hotel‘s unique value prop and location.
My rule of thumb: 70%+ of selected keywords should demonstrate clear purchase intent signals based on specificity and context.
Directly Convert Clicks into Bookings
With the average CPC for travel-related keywords exceeding $5 [5], hotels must optimize ads for conversions to see viable ROAS (return on ad spend).
Best practices include:
- Dynamic ads that pull right from your property management system – updating available rooms, prices, etc. automatically to searchers
- Deeply discounted lead-in offers exclusively for PPC clicks to incentivize booking
- Strong, personalized calls-to-action – "Book your Miami Beach stay today!"
- Extensions like callouts, call buttons, location info
Track PPC Performance and Continuously Optimize
Monitoring key metrics allows you to identify successes to double down on and problem areas needing refinement.
Metrics to track:
- Click-through rate (clicks/impressions)
- Bounce rate (single-page sessions/clicks)
- Pages/session
- Goal completions (bookings, email sign-ups, etc.)
- Cost per acquisition
Regularly A/B test ad creative (headlines, ad copy, calls-to-action, images), landing pages, target keywords, and display/search placements. PPC campaigns must evolve constantly to beat out competitors.
The Bright Future of Hotel PPC
PPC platforms grow increasingly sophisticated in capabilities with each passing year. Hotel marketers who stay updated on the latest developments and test new PPC features will reap major competitive advantages.
Leveraging AI and Machine Learning
Platforms like Google Ads have begun leveraging AI to automatically manage bids, adjust targeting, flag high-performing keywords, and create/test ad creative variants. This frees up hotel marketers to focus on strategy.
Early data shows AI-powered campaigns driving 16% higher clickthrough rates and 12% lower cost-per-click than manual campaigns [6].
Richer Ad Types
Search and social ads now incorporate far more than just text and images. Some newer enhanced ad units include:
- Video ads
- Carousels
- Dynamic catalogs pulling right from hotel site product pages
- 3D renderings
- Augmented reality previews
As these immersive formats become more commonplace, hotels should focus on testing and optimizing for any boosts observed in engagement or conversions.
Optimizing the Entire Funnel
With endless touchpoints in the travel journey, hotel marketers must now think beyond PPC to holistically optimize bookings across the funnel.
Strategies like abandoning cart or browse abandonment programs can rescue stays from dropping off. Retargeting past high-funnel visitors as they travel across the web keeps your brand top of mind.
A hotel PPC campaign firing on all cylinders now integrates seamlessly with other efforts to engage, nurture, convert, and retain guests.
Let‘s Discuss Driving More Direct Bookings
Hopefully this guide has shown that PPC is no longer an "experimental" channel for hotels. With the right foundations like hyper-relevant targeting, savvy tracking, and non-stop optimization, your PPC campaigns can deliver impressive returns.
What questions do you still have on getting started with pay-per-click advertising? What challenges are you facing in keeping up with the latest innovations? As your small business marketing advisor, I‘m here to help push your hotel PPC strategy into the future!
Sources:
[1] Backlinko
[2] Phocuswright
[3] Wordstream
[4] MonetizePros
[5] Wordstream
[6] Optmyzr
