What is Google Hotel Ads and how does it work?

17/10/2023
Google Ads

In an increasingly connected world, travel planning has become easier, more accessible and more efficient than ever.

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Among the many tools that have revolutionized the way we search for and book hotels is Google Hotel Search, a powerful platform that simplifies the search for accommodation and provides travelers with a more convenient experience.

In this article we will dive into the world of Google Hotel Search.We explore its features, advantages and how this innovative tool has changed the way we organize our hotel stays.

What is Google Hotel and where does it come from?

OriginGoogle Hotel Finder – was known as such in 2011, when it was launched.

Google specializes as a metasearch engine for hotels (some examples of metasearch engines are Booking or Tripadvisor).
It allowed hotels to advertise only through paid advertising.
Focused only for OTAs (Online Travel Agencies).

What was the problem with this metasearch engine? The main weakness it had was that you had to have advanced knowledge of SEM.

And what were the solutions they came up with to improve it? Simplified the tool to make it accessible to both agencies and their own clients, in addition to making it free of charge. Consequently, they created Google Hotel Free Links (which is the organic part we know today).

The final result of the implementation of all possible improvements was the consolidation of Google Hotel as a metasearch enginecreating Google Hotel Ads.

What features does Google Hotel offer as a metasearch engine?

This is what it has meant Google Hotel as a metasearch engine:

It has been a new addition among hotel search engines and comparators. In addition, it allows us to filter by date, location and people that best suits us, unlike others. And the most important thing: it allows us to book and choose directly on the hotel's own platform.
Advertising in the hospitality industry has reinvented itself, incorporating new payment methods such as:

CPCis the classic model, you are only charged when users click.
Commission%: metasearch engines are paid a percentage for each successful booking (the % varies according to the engine).
Combinedis a combination of CPC and commission. On the one hand, the CPC brings visibility and on the other hand, the commission will be only for effective sales.

It is no longer necessary to advertise exclusively on the major metasearch engines. We also now need to optimize the web correctly to reward us and position us correctly at an organic level.

What is Google Hotel like today?

Google Hotel is not only the Ads part, it really consists of two types of positioning:

Organic positioning

We have many more options to compare with respect to sponsored placement.
The most important factor for positioning is the final price of the reservation.
Being the "official site" gives us an advantage over other OTAs.

In order to position ourselves in a natural way, regardless of whether you are a hotel or a vacation rental agency, we will need:

Connect our booking engine with the "Google Hotel Search" channel and select the rooms/accommodations we want to show.
Refine our company profile with as much data as we can offer about our business (well-selected main category, services, contact, location, hours, etc.).

Paid positioning

Only 4 options will appear, which will be those that have had the highest relevance and bidding with respect to the rest.
It always appears at the top of the section.
It is not the most relevant thing to leave the first one, since the main factor is have the lowest price.
Normally the most important OTAs are advertised, since they have the largest client portfolio and may be their own suppliers.
Those in which the hotel has connectivity are advertised.

When does the Google Hotel metasearch appear?

In short, this meta-search engine may appear in these situations:

When we go to search for a specific hotel in the Google search engine, the hotel's company profile will appear next to the search network, next to the Google hotel meta-search engine, placing the comparison in organic and sponsored.

When we are in the Maps network and we go to search for a specific hotel or by keywords that relate to it, both positions will appear in its lodging file.

How can we create and implement campaigns in Google Hotel Ads?

According to Google itself, in theory we would only need 3 elements to be able to create Google Ads campaigns:

Feed with the rooms and/or accommodations and their features

We need a feed of availability and prices, which is updated with our booking engine regularly, so that Google can pull our updated info at all times to ensure price and availability accuracy. That is, the feed will collect both the availability information and the characteristics of the accommodations according to the user's searches. The data in this feed is more static, and is called "room data".

In addition, we need a complementary feed with itinerary data: This is the most variable part we will see this feed as it depends on availability and changes we can make in prices.

Account Google Hotel Center (to host the feed)

In addition to creating the account, we will need to upload our Google Hotel Center account a file in which we will specify which landing pages or URLs users will visit once they click on a Google Hotel ad.

It is normal to have a single website and domain to take users to depending on the language, currency and even device. The only thing to keep in mind is that this file can be updated at any time from the Hotel Center platform.

Technological capacity (for direct integration and response to the requests)

Google makes us pull request to cache our hotel and room info in your search engine. This is updated several times a day to provide this information based on user searches.

For data that may be missing or possible information that may not give a very accurate result, there is the Live Queries tool that allows the user to search from Google in a more visual way:

And finally, it should be noted that, obviously, all the elements mentioned above will be obtained and configured in one way or another depending on whether we decide to delegate this technological part (partners connectivity), or we do it ourselves directly:

Direct integrationUsing a Google Connectivity API and having access to a Google Hotel Center account that Google will previously have to create for us through a form.
Integration with third parties: exist partners The integration of paid integration tools that do the job of managing the Google Hotel tools is not the most normal thing that Google gives us access to these tools.

If we have all these elements, we could generate in the Google Ads panel itself a Performance Max with a trip objective, we would add the budget, audiences and the resources we want and we can start working.

Although it is important to remember that these are the bidding strategies that we can use in the campaign and that are interesting to keep in mind:

Per click (PPC)You pay a fixed cost per click, when redirected to your website after clicking from the meta-search engine. Regardless of whether it is cancelled.
By conversion (PPS or CPA)hotels pay a commission, or % of the room/booking price, including cancellations.
Per stay (CPS)% is a fixed % of the reservation. We are only charged if the stay is completed, not if it is cancelled.

Other models according to Google:

CPC Percentage (% room price per click).
Advanced CPC (Adjusts the automatic CPC according to the probability of booking).

Would you like us to explain this process in more detail? At Geotelecom we have experts in SEM campaigns with which you will be able to stand out from your competition.

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