Paid ads for hotels: ad groups that end at the front desk
An ad is a button in somebody's results, and the person who presses it expects the next screen to match the words they read. Paid ads for a hotel go wrong in the gap between the headline and the page, long before they go wrong in the bidding.
We manage paid ads for independent hotels and boutique hotels on Google Ads, Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) and Bing Ads (Microsoft Advertising). Every ad group is wired to one landing page of the hotel's own, and each of those pages leads up to reception by a call or a form. Our ad plans cost from $895 monthly, with every figure on the pricing page.
Three platforms, three different jobs for the same hotel
- Retargeting
Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) for the hotel's own site visitors
Meta does its job as a quiet reminder for people who have visited the hotel's pages, with a modest local audience beside them. We keep the creative plain, and no ad is aimed at a person's trip, plans or circumstances. See the Meta page.
- Search
Google Ads on the stay-type and town searches a hotel lists
Text ads sit beside searches such as
boutique hotel
or a town name plus hotel. Each ad group is narrow, so the headline, the page and the search all agree. Details are on the Google Ads page. - Desktop
Bing for a thinner audience that so often sits at a desktop
Bing reaches fewer people than Google, and many of them search on a desktop. Competition is often lighter. A Google campaign can be imported and then adjusted for Bing. Read the Bing page for more.
The split
What a hotel receives, and what stays in its hands
Paid ads management hands the hotel ad accounts that have been built and are watched weekly: ad groups, written ads, a negative keyword list, tracking on calls and forms, and a landing page for every group. For a searcher who types hotels near me
, the ad should open on the neighborhood page, never on a general front page.
The hotel keeps every fact. Descriptions of the property, details of any stay and everything a guest is told stay with the owner, and ads repeat only the phrases the owner has signed off. The booking engine, the front desk and the way a call is answered are the hotel's to run.
If a landing page does not yet exist for an ad group, the page comes first. The website design page explains how a hotel site is laid out so the next step is obvious, and the lead generation page says what we count as an inquiry.
The floors of a hotel ad account, and the person who decides each one
| Floor of the ad shaft | What stands on it | Decision held by |
|---|---|---|
| Stay-type ad group for a property | Ads tied to one kind of stay the hotel lists, each sent to its own landing page | The owner approves the wording |
| Town and address ad group | Ads that name the town or the property's street, sent to a neighborhood page | The owner confirms every place name |
| Near-me ad group for the front desk's area | Ads for searches that carry a near-me phrase, kept to the radius around the address | The owner checks the radius |
| Negative keyword list for the hotel | A long, firm list that keeps out job seekers, students, other hotels by name, chain names and searches with a price word or a feature word | The owner reads the list before launch |
| Call button on the hotel's ad | A call option, only if the hotel wants one, with the call timed by length and never recorded | The hotel chooses whether to switch it on |
| Landing page on the hotel's own site | One page per ad group, built from the facts the hotel supplies | The owner approves the page |
From the first read-through to a live campaign for the hotel
The owner reads the rulebook first
Ads for hotels sit under the policies of each platform. Ahead of launch, the owner personally reads whatever rules the platform has published. We do not summarize them, and we run no ad that the owner has not checked against them.
Stay types and addresses get listed
The owner sends the addresses and the stay types the hotel lists. Those lists become the skeleton of the ad groups, so nothing is invented by us.
Ad groups are drafted, each with a landing
Every group carries its private set of ads and a private landing page, so a headline never promises something the page lacks. The drafts return to the owner as a set.
The negative list is written hard
Before launch, the negative keyword list is filled with the searches the hotel does not want: job seekers, students, other hotels by name, chain names, and any query containing a price word or a feature word.
Paid ads go live, then a standing look at search terms
With an ad group live, we go through the wording people typed and add what does not belong to the negative list. Calls and forms are sorted under source tags, and the owner receives the same tally.
The two bills
Fuel on one bill, garage on another
Picture a set of paid ads as a car and the hotel as the owner of the lobby it drives through. The clicks are the fuel. Each platform counts them and charges the hotel's own card, and the amount is whatever the hotel set. We never touch that bill.
Our fee is the garage: ad groups built, search terms read, the negative list pruned, calls and forms tallied up. It is the same figure whether the tank is nearly full or nearly empty, and no startup fee appears on the first invoice, and the owner is tied to no term. Our pricing page prints every figure.
Nothing here promises that a click ends in a phone ring. What follows once the page loads depends on the page, on the searcher and on how the front desk answers.
What a hotel's paid ads account should show on its first screen
- Every ad group names one stay type, one town or one address
- Each ad group leads to a single landing page of the hotel's own
- The negative keyword list is long and written before launch
- Calls carry a source tag and are timed, never recorded
- No ad carries a price word, a feature word or a promise about a stay
- The owner reads each ad start to finish before it can run
Two beliefs about hotel advertising worth setting down
Said at the bell standMore paid ads money always means more calls at the front desk.
What the shaft showsMore spend widens how often an ad appears, but a vague ad group or a loose landing page only wastes the extra clicks faster. A tight list and a matching page come before any increase.
Said at the bell standOne ad platform is enough for every hotel.
What the shaft showsOne platform can be a sound choice for one property. A second or third earns its place once the first has been tuned and the hotel wants a different audience, and that explains why plan size follows platform count.
Questions a hotel owner asks about paid ads
How soon can paid ads for a hotel go live?
Once the landing pages exist and the owner has gone over each platform's rulebook, the ad groups and the negative list. Anything that has skipped that reading stays switched off.
Can a hotel with several addresses run one set of ads?
Each address gets ad groups and a landing page unshared with its sibling, so a call meant for one property never rings at another. Several addresses mean more groups instead of one blended campaign.
Who sees the calls and forms that ads produce?
The front office does, split by source tag. Calls are logged by length alone. A form holds the sender's name, phone number and email, and nothing about a stay.
Do paid ads replace the organic work?
They answer to the same landing pages, but each does a different job. Ads go dark the moment the spend stops, whereas pages and a Google Business Profile remain standing. The hotel SEO page covers that side.
Talk through an ad account for your property
Fill in the form with a phone number, an email address and your name, and add how many addresses the hotel has and which platform interests you. Guest names, dates and booking details stay out.
Which stay types should get landing pages first?
List the stay types you want found, the addresses and neighborhoods around the property, and the local sites that already point to it. Leave every guest name, date and booking detail out of the note.
Press the button for the top floor
A call is where we choose the first stops: the stay type whose landing page goes up ahead of the others, the address that follows it, and the plan that takes the strain.
The elevator drawn above is an illustration only; it forecasts nothing about who finds a hotel.