The hospitality industry is one of the fastest growing industries with an estimated revenue of 5523.92 billion by the end of 2025. Online hotel booking is a rudimentary part of the hospitality industry. A survey conducted in the year 2024 revealed that 76% travellers support online booking as it reduces friction and stress of travelling. This blog explores all the effective ways of how PPC for hotels can transform your hotel marketing strategy

But here’s the challenge: even if your hotel has great rooms, excellent service, and positive reviews, without online visibility, potential guests may never find you. That’s where PPC advertising comes in, helping hotels appear at the top of search results instantly, boosting bookings faster than SEO alone.

There is no doubt on SEOs effectiveness, but it is time consuming whereas with the help of PPC you can increase your visibility on the search result of potential customer

The main objective of implementing PPC in hotel marketing strategies is to increase the direct booking rate. To reach this goal there are many paths you can choose such as creating compelling ad copy, targeted messaging, and an easy navigation to the book now button on the hotel website landing page and so on

What Is PPC For Hotels 

Pay per click or PPC is the most effective tool that puts the visibility of your website on a fast track. In this process the hotels bid for keywords that will keep their hotel on top of the SERP. They also pay various search engines and meta search platforms to advertise their hotel website to their future guests when they search for relevant keywords like “hotels in Melbourne” or something like that. Now when the user clicks on the hotel link then the website pays a fixed amount of money to the platforms displaying their advertisement.

The aim is to increase the conversion rate by attracting the motivated travellers looking for a place to live

How To Set Up A PPC Campaign For Hotels

So it is clear that PPC helps the hotel marketing strategy by fast tracking the promotions. But the question is: How do you set up a PPC campaign for your hotel?

If you are looking forward to setting up your PPC campaign on google ads then there are certain steps you must follow those are:

1. Connect the centre account of your hotel website to google ads account
2. Merge your hotel list and rates into hotel centre platform or integrate with another organisation
3. Go to the google ads account, click on the plus account, select campaign, choose hotel campaign type, select campaigns without goals and guidance
4. Give a descriptive name to your campaign and set a budget and then select a bidding strategy that suits your goal
5. Categorize your ad campaigns into room prices, offers and location. It is important so that you can assign bids to these ad groups which will eventually help you to control spending and targeting.
6. Understand the USP of your hotel and sell it like,”Rooms above the cloud”, “Sunset view hotel rooms”. Provide your contact details to help your potential future clients to reach out to you. 
7. The final step is to monitor ad campaign performance for a better understanding.Check the metrics regularly to understand and allocate your budget to better performing keywords. 

Tip: Keep experimenting on the different ad copy elements like changing the headlines, offers so that you get a clear idea on which one is working in your favour.

Top PPC Platforms

Pay per click platforms are the most efficient tool for digital marketers as these platforms help you with creating, managing and measuring pay per click campaigns.

This platform offers you tools like keyword research, ad creation, budget management, campaign analytics and management. These tools are proven to be efficient for businesses of all sizes and help them to raise brand awareness, spread the message, to increase the traffic and conversion rates.

Now let’s get information about some of the top-rated PPC platforms.

• Amazon advertisement – If you are aiming to target e-commerce shoppers on amazon then amazon ads can generate a number of genuine buyers through their ad campaigns. In the past few years it has witnessed an immense number of popularity for the marketers. It places the ads on the search bar, in twitch, or on the product details. Additionally it has a unique ad placement feature that it also places ads on third party platforms. Amazon ads are uniquely designed to be mobile user friendly and the CPC is 0.89$ on an average.

• Google ads – Google ads is one of the most reliable PPC platforms for brands. 80.20 % of the total PPC market share is held by google ads. It also has a great ROI of 200% which means if someone is spending 1$ then the return will be 2$.As we know it has the world’s largest search network that gives the advertisers access to a large pool of customers. Google ads appear in search bars, YouTube and ad sense websites. It also offers mobile specific content that targets the mobile users. It allows the advertisers to choose from a variety of campaigns such as text based search ads for relevant keywords, app installed ads, image, video ads and many more. The pricing of the ads depends on the size of your business and the format of ad campaign you select but to give you a rough idea the average cost of search ads range between 2$ TO 4$ and for ads on the display network stands are only 1$

• Microsoft ads – With a monthly user number of 724 million people Microsoft advertisement (bing ads) stands as another PPC marketing platform used for its unique features. The ads here mostly appear on the search sites such as bing, yahoo, and other search networks partnered with Microsoft. Similar to google ads, Microsoft bing also offers a variety of ad format options to choose from such as dynamic search ad, image and video ad etc. This is cheaper than google ads in comparison as the average cost is 1.54$ for all the industries.

• Meta ads – PPC platforms also include meta platforms like facebook and instagram as it has a huge number of daily users. In facebook you can place ads in the newsfeed, facebook marketplace, and within facebook groups whereas in case of instagram you can place the ads in the newsfeeds and instagram stories. The facebook ads come in many formats such as video ads, image ads, slideshow ads, dynamic ads etc and instagram have photo, video, carousel reels and collection ads. Facebook offers a CPC(COST PER CLICK) of 0.54$ and CPC for instagram ads range between from 0.40$ to 0.90$

• Linkedin advertisement – Around 82% B2B marketers advertise on linkedin making it the largest B2B market which works in favour of advertising your brand on it as it also expands the limit of your reach. The only difference between linkedin and other mentioned PPC ad platforms is that it is costly in comparison the average CPC on linkedin is $5.39 so it is limited to a certain size of companies. The ads mainly appear on the feed of the targeted audience and it also comes in various formats such as dynamic, carousel, conversational ads etc.

7 Ways PPC Helps In Boosting Hotel Marketing Strategy

Till now in this blog we have only discussed what is pay per click, its functionality and the PPC platforms. Now lets discuss the 7 most effective ways PPC can be helpful to boost your hotel marketing strategy.

1. Motivating The Guests

Ads do tell a lot about your hotel, especially if you are running an independent hotel. What most people forget while promoting their hotels online is, you can’t simply claim “the best service” and expect bookings.

To improve booking rates there are a few tips you can follow those are:

• Offer an appealing package to attract interested visitors
• Offer complementary amenities
• Guaranteeing best prices

If your website is running a discount offer you can mention it in the ads, mention the unique features of your hotel. Following these tactics will help you to take action.

Other factors like a well-designed website, engaging contents, appealing offers also encourages the users to make a booking which leads to a higher conversion rate.

2. Use Long Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are specific search terms that target the right audience. Using long tail keyword is important because it plays a major role in the outcome of your hotel marketing strategy like

• First of all it increases your organic search ranking and improves your search marketing  making the clients dependency on the third party a lot less.
• Secondly it helps your website to appear on the long tail search queries by decreasing the search volume 
• The third and the most important part is that it attracts potential clients who are more likely to make an action, by making your keyword more relevant and specific.

Example of some long tail keywords are – “Pet friendly hotel in Chicago”, “Hotel with best city skyline view in Seattle”

Note – Avoid using generic keywords as they attract irrelevant traffic, increase competition and deliver poor conversion rates.

3. Effective Use Of Ad Assets

Ad assets are the high quality images, description, location, and the links that direct users to your website. There are many ways you can use them to make your hotel PPC campaigns more effective.

• Focus on variety – By increasing the variety you are literally expanding your reach. When you are offering a variety of ad assets the chances of showing the most relevant combination to customers increases.
• Relevance check –Aligning the ad assets with ad content and user intent is important. If the ad assets are irrelevant then it can create confusion among the users.
• Provide complete information – It is very important to provide the full information about the hotel such as contact no, email id, and updated urls, as these are the key to improving your business.
• Evaluation – Perform regular evaluation of your assets at campaign level. Track asset performance to identify what works best and replace underperforming assets. A regular testing of different assets will give a rough idea about which one actually working in your favour

4. Prioritizing High Intent Keywords

In hotel PPC campaigns another crucial point is to prioritise high intent keywords.Targeting high-intent keywords attracts visitors ready to make a booking.This way you get a better insight in the users behaviour which will later help you in making a stronger marketing strategy. Example of some high intent keywords are 

It has several benefits like

• High intent keywords increase the conversion rate as these keywords meet the user at the decision stage. It aligns with the users query and provides them exactly what they are looking for leading them to actually get engaged with it.
• So when you are targeting searchers who are about to book hotel rooms for themselves you are decreasing the expansion of your reach but you are making sure that the person turns this into a purchase. This makes the marketing strategy more efficient
• When you are using high intent keywords you are directly leading potential customers to your website reducing the extra fee on online booking sites
• Commission free bookings can attract more visitors as these are more compelling in comparison to the ones that add charges on bookings. This reduces the cost and increases the return on investment
• Using high intent keywords also increases the search engine ranking of your website. When you use these keywords in the meta description and the headtag it gets easier for the user to locate your website

5. Build An Impressive Landing Page

Creating a first impression is a must if you want someone to remember your website for a long time. When a user clicks on the advertisement of your hotel website the link takes them to the landing page of your website. A well-designed website keeps the user engaged but if the website design is confusing and is similar to other 10 websites then the chances of that person never returning to your website increases. A strong landing page is essential for a lasting first impression:

• A landing page design must highlight unique hotel features to encourage direct bookings from the landing page instead of using a third party app.
• If you create different landing pages for distinct market segments for a personalized experience without making anyone feel like they are being left behind. This helps you to build a more genuine relationship with your clients.
• Minimize distractions, guide users toward the “Book Now” button. Eliminating the distractions help the users to take a decision
• A well designed landing page keeps the customers engaged and satisfied. The aim is to provide a smoother and enhanced user experience, this includes high quality images, clear texts, so that the user can easily navigate through the landing page.
• If you are also adding the guest reviews and photos on the landing page it will help you to build a deeper connection with your clients
• For a better customer experience it is very important toCollect minimal user information like email or phone number for customizing a personalized marketing campaign.

Here is an example of impressive landing page 

Source

6. AI Powered Bidding Strategies

For a better result in hotel marketing strategy it is important for you to prioritize AI bidding strategy. These strategies use advanced algorithms and large datasets to optimize ad performance in real-time, outperforming manual methods.Example of some AI powered bid strategies are – ROAS (return on ad spend), Target CPA(Cost per ad).

This will help you to drive more profitable ad campaigns and control the advertising budget.

Because of this strategy your hotel can profit in many ways like –

• If your hotel offers variety of rooms then strategies like maximize conversion value are very useful as they ensure to prioritize the high value bookings and room types
• A huge dataset is processed by AI to understand the past performance metrics, ongoing trends, online rating and reviews to predict the users final decision regarding the bookings.
• It increases the productivity and efficiency among the people running the manual campaign management as it is able to adjust bidding and creativity optimization. It performs the task that generally takes a group of people to perform.
• For a hotel business it is very essential to keep growing in this competitive market and AI ensures your campaigns stay efficient and adaptive.

7. Monitoring  Weekly Performance

Monitoring weekly performance guarantees a successful marketing strategy by providing you with real time insight on booking trends, revenue, occupancy, guest satisfaction. It is profitable and efficient and points out to the part of the marketing campaign that needs to be optimized

By monitoring weekly performance you get updated about marketing strategy like

• Helps you to adjust room prices by  tracking revenue per available room,
• By monitoring demands of the rooms on peak demand period such as weekend, or some event you can promote package offers and allocate resources for those days
• Weekly monitoring of direct booking rates on hotel website and app you can attract more clients
• Tracking operational efficiency is important. Key factors like, the duration of a guests  stay, guest query resolution time and so on effect guest experience and reputation
• You can compare the outcome of your own marketing strategies with the competitors marketing strategy for a better understanding of the performance of marketing strategy
• By monitoring regularly you can predict the problem before it can cause any harm to your hotel’s image like declining customer satisfaction so that you can prevent it by taking the right action.

Maximising The Return On Investment From Pay Per Click Campaign

Digital marketing is beneficial for hotels of all sizes. Whether you run a small or big hotel, if you can utilise pay per click strategies well then undoubtedly your business will bloom.

For a maximum ROI from PPC campaigns there are certain things that you must keep in mind –

• Set clear goals – When you are clear about the goals you are going to achieve it will be easy for you to guide your strategies for a better outcome of the PPC campaign.
• Keep track of the conversion – For a clear result on your return on investment you can track the success rate of conversion. Monitor conversions to understand the effectiveness of your PPC ads..
• Keyword research – By performing keyword research you get an idea about the high intent keyword that aligns with the user queries. This ensures that your ad is reaching the right audience.
• Plant negative keywords – Strategically place negative keywords to prevent ads from appearing for irrelevant searches, saving money and improving campaign efficiency.
• Captivating ADS – Make sure the ads you are writing are able to capture and hold the attention of the customer. Make sure the words are clear,. precise so that it can encourage the audience to click on it
• Landing page – While designing the landing page make sure it delivers exactly what it shows in the ad. A fast loading, easy to navigate, and mobile friendly landing page is more likely to generate more conversion rates.
• Set the right bidding strategy – Opting for a new and smart bidding strategy is always helpful as it lets the google algorithms optimize your goals and set bidding strategies by keeping your monthly or weekly budget in check. It also efficiently manages your ad costs without overspending and omitting ad campaigns based on their performance.
• Stay updated – Always stay up to date about the ongoing market trends, changing google algorithms, and competitors strategies. This will help you to develop PPC ads according to that.

Future Of PPC In Hotel Marketing Strategy

While PPC is already effective in driving traffic today, its future in hotel marketing will be shaped by AI and evolving digital trends. The only question remains is, what is the future of pay per click in hotel marketing strategy?

AI is deeply involved with the evolution in the usage of pay per click for search engine marketing. It is aiming at the meta, social and voice search platforms for high booking rates. With online advertising platforms like Google ads it is leveraging AI to optimize its content.

By combining pay per click and organic content you are helping the users to trust your brand and ensure a great user experience. There are certain key trends for hotel marketing strategy that, if followed, will help you to shape a better future with the help of pay per click.

• By keeping up with the changes  in AI softwares it will be easy for you to select the proper AI tools to  help you to adjust bids according to your budget. Additionally PPC is also involved in retail media, social media, and programmed advertisement. It helps you to increase your reach to more diverse section of audience
• Pay per click campaigns will be more successful with its unique features in curating messages by understanding the user’s intent and context, creating personalized advertisements for individual travellers, interesting offers, and creating attractive yet relatable landing pages. This will undoubtedly be a masterstroke to boost the conversion rate.
• The most efficient and effective way for attracting guests who are nearby is to build the website mobile friendly. This strategy is also known as geo targeting. Many hotels are now targeting mobile optimized ads and location based marketing strategies like geo fencing. It alerts the software when a mobile device in the area searches for a related keyword and helps your hotel site to appear in search engine result pages.
• Integrating video ads helps the pay per click campaigns as it helps in creating brand awareness, establishes an experienced image in this market, this way you can lead the user to book the hotel by providing them a high quality video content to attract them. This is a great way to highlight the USPs of your hotel.
• The hotels also need to keep their hotel advertisement campaigns dynamic in nature. It is important as the demands of users depend on the season, peak booking times it helps to increase bookings . This way it will be easy to promote offers that are attractive to the visitors.

Common Mistakes In PPC And Their Solution

Pay per click PPC ads are one of the most enhanced advertising models as it is proven to deliver a proper result increasing the boost in conversion rate. It is effective only if it is used expertly, if by any chance this is not utilized properly it can lead to a bad outcome in the overall performance of a hotel advertisement campaign. The most common mistakes people make and you must avoid making are

• Mistargeting – The PPC planning is only effective if you have a good understanding about the needs of your users. If the advertisements do not align with the needs of the audience then the audience wont feel related to the content resulting in the high bounce rate.
  
  Solution – Before setting up your PPC ads campaigns and making any investment in it be sure to do a thorough market research as it will give you a clear understanding about the needs of your target audience

• Poor Budget Control – In pay per click ad campaigns it is important to maintain the budget of the ad. Miscalculation of the ad campaign budget is a normal thing to happen but you should not keep repeating it. See maintaining a budget is important Overspending or underperformance often leads to reduced ROI.
  
  Solution – You can distribute the budget on well performing ad campaigns, regular monitoring of CPA, CTR and ROAS will help you to track the regular performance of the ads, and no need to increase the overall budget until the ads have been able to improve the ROIs.

• Neglecting keywords – Keywords are a major part of marketing and the worst mistake you can make in a PPC ads campaign is overlooking the potential keyword. Only if you are aware about the popular search trends only then you will be able to make relatable ads. This is the reason why missing high-potential keywords reduces relevance.
  
  Solution – The solution to this mistake is, choosing keywords that have the highest PPC potential, you can also use google keyword planner which is free and it is a great tool to understand the monthly search statistics of the keywords.

• Ignoring your audience – For a well functioning pay per click ads campaign it is really important that it reaches the right audience, otherwise the ad campaign is just going to fall flat on face. This common mistake can lead to loss of potential guests.
  
  Solution – It involves re engaging with your past visitors, marketing to the right audience depending on their search behaviour.

• Ignoring conversion rates – Keeping track of your regular conversion rates will help you to understand the overall performance of your ad campaign and your return on investment. Without tracking conversion rates you will never know which ad, landing page or keyword is improving the conversion rate. The mistake of not setting up conversion trackers is very common among the marketers giving advantage to the direct competitors
  
  Solution – You can take help of any third party tracking tool like google analytics for the measurable results KPIs, conversion and revenue. This is useful in setting up conversion goals and assigning value to each goal.

• Generic landing page –A generic landing page can be responsible for draining all your money spent on advertisement . A poorly developed landing page that is hard to navigate and does not encourage the user to make any action creates a poor user experience.
  
  Solution – The one and only solution to this problem is to develop a user + mobile friendly landing page which aims to increase conversion rate.

• Under-optimized ad copies –The mistake that is very common is not writing a quality ad copy that attracts  the audience to click on them. As ad copies develop the first impressions about your website, writing ad copies that are very generic can cost your website to lose its credibility.
  
  Solution – If you want to increase your click through rate write ad copy that is compelling and relevant as this is the first thing a user notices as this represents  the quality of content on your webpage.

• Using a single ad for all ad campaigns – Having one campaign seems manageable and may seem harmless but the aftermath affects the brand image. Irrelevant messaging for diverse audiences reduces engagement. Just like every other common mistake it is also another one that marketers take lightly. But it can lead to a lower conversion rate.
  
  Solution – The reason is the same as we have discussed earlier in order to make your ad relevant to the diverse group of clients you need to keep a variation in ads.

So I guess we have discussed all the mistakes that are most common in pay per click ads marketing.

FAQs

Conclusion

The objective of this blog was to discuss all the topics related pay per click ad campaigns and how PPC ads campaigns can boost the hotel marketing strategy. We have discussed the right PPC platforms. This blog also contains how hotels can set up PPC campaigns for their hotels, the most common mistakes made by the hotel owners and the repercussions of PPC. But above all the main part of this entire blog was to discuss the 7 ways PPC ad campaigns are boosting hotel marketing strategy.

This blog is a guide for you to understand the functionality of PPC ads campaign so that you have an better knowledge and you can grow your business by avoiding the most common mistakes made by the hotel owners but in case if you are still unclear about the concept you can take help from an expert SEO agency for better results.