As the online travel industry grows, so does the need for metasearch optimization tools. Search engines have become increasingly complex, and there are now more players in the market than ever before. As such, you may find yourself faced with a new challenge: how to optimize your metasearch campaigns in an increasingly competitive landscape. Although we cannot bid on specific dates, there are many ways to update and customize your bids for prime optimization.
In-Market Audiences
In-Market Audiences are a useful bid modifier that can be used to target people who are looking to travel soon. This bid modifier could be combined with other modifiers, like device targeting, to get even more granular with your audience targeting.
In-Market Audiences also allows you to target people who have already shown interest in travel plans so that you’re not paying for impressions that are less likely to result in conversions.
OTA Bid Modifiers
OTA bid modifiers are a way to increase or decrease your bid on a particular site like TripAdvisor, Google Hotel Ads, Trivago, etc.. This can be useful for ensuring the highest visibility on the channels that are most likely to convert for your brand. Alternatively, you can decrease the amount you’re willing to bid (or not bid at all) on channels that have a track record of lower performance. Travel metasearch optimization is all about getting the most bang for your buck while still maintaining your presence throughout the customer journey.
Check-in Day Modifiers
Since hotels are not able to bid on specific check-in dates, the next best way to fill need periods is by adjusting your bids for particular check-in days of the week. Have strong weekend occupancy but are somewhat soft in mid-week? Increase your bids for check-ins Monday through Thursday and decrease bids for Friday through Sunday. This will allow you to be present for more searches where you need the bookings and avoid spending unnecessarily when you’re already full.
Hotel Metasearch Management Best Practices
There are some basic best practices that should be followed when managing a metasearch campaign:
Optimize your campaigns. There's a lot of room for improvement in terms of how many impressions each campaign is getting compared to others in the network, as well as where those impressions are being served (geographically).
Use in-market audiences. These are audience segments based on consumers who have recently searched for products similar to yours, so they're more likely than non-qualified searchers who didn't find what they were looking for before coming across yours on the next page down (or wherever else!). This can help get better results at lower CPCs because people have already shown an interest in what you offer by searching for travel or hotels. This means there's less risk involved since they've already expressed their intention towards booking travel previously in their research.
Adjust your bids for Check-in day, Length of stay, and/or Days to arrival. If you’re looking to encourage bookings for specific periods, the easiest way to have an impact is by increasing your bids for these variables.
There are many ways to update and customize your metasearch bid for prime optimization.
Although we cannot bid on specific dates, we can utilize in-market audiences and other bid adjustments to ensure the highest visibility with guests that are the most likely to book. It’s important to own the space for searches with the highest value to your business.
We hope this article has helped you understand how to better optimize your metasearch bid. There are a few more tips we didn’t mention here, but if you would like to learn more about optimizing your metasearch bids, then please contact us at https://metadesk.pro/sign-up/
Overwhelmed with all the different metasearch options? Check out this quick-start guide to determine the best option for your hotel.
Hotel Metasearch Providers:
Google Hotel Ads
The king of metasearch for a reason. They dominate in terms of impressions, ease of access, and, therefore, reservation volume. That also means lots of competition, with often the highest CPCs of any channel. However, this should still be your top priority channel since you would be missing out on visibility on the most used search engine in the world.
TripAdvisor
#2 to Google for impression volume and conversions. TripAdvisor can be a great branding tool for destinations or activity-centric markets, especially if your property is geographically advantaged. While this channel may not have the visibility of Google Hotel Ads, impressions tend to be highly qualified since many people using TripAdvisor are in the active planning stages of their booking.
Bing
Great performance in terms of return on ad spend, but we often see low impression volume. They only capture a small fraction of the impression share Google receives. Bing can still be a great booster to your bottom line and should be included as one of your top 3 channels.
Kayak
Kayak offers the ability to book not just hotels but also flights, rental cars, full vacation packages, and even trains and buses. With so many options, many travelers use Kayak as a one-stop shop for their travel booking, making it our recommendation for your next metasearch channel.
Trivago
Trivago aggregates multiple OTAs into 1 channel, including booking.com, Expedia, Priceline and more. Volume tends to be lower, but CPC also tend to follow. Another great option is to help drive the direct booking and cut out the OTAs if you’re present during a search.
SkyScanner
Another great direct booking tool, SkyScanner is designed as a travel search engine with the intent of cutting out the OTA. Conversions rates are fairly low in our experience, but increasing brand awareness can never be discounted.
This metasearch channel is mostly popular in the UK/European travel market.
WeGo
Headquartered in Singapore, WeGo is particularly important if you are focused on driving visibility and bookings from Asia and the Middle East. Another aggregator, WeGo, can drive bookings to the OTAs if you don’t have a presence to encourage direct bookings.
Takeaway
Google Hotel Ads is the number one channel you should be participating in for hotel metasearch as their reach and visibility are unmatched. TripAdvisor should be your second top priority as they tend to have the highest conversion rates outside of Google and good volume. If you have the budget or are dedicated to having the greatest visibility, It’s best to participate in a variety of channels and continually monitor performance to see which channel works best for your market and/or property. After all, why limit your hotel’s visibility when you can build brand awareness and drive direct bookings all at the same time?
If you need assistance in deciding what metasearch channels are best for you, let the experts at Metadesk help you.
Why “Set It & Forget It” Doesn’t Work for Hotel Metasearch
If you're not using hotel metasearch yet, you should be. A mind-blowing 94% of travelers reported using hotel metasearch sites to find the best hotel rates when planning travel. You should be valuing hotel metasearch on par with Google Search Ads and other channels in terms of brand exposure. And just like Google Search Ads, you're missing out on your best possible performance with a "set it & forget it" campaign management approach.
It's easy to think that once you've established your connection with your metasearch partner and your rates are being displayed that there's nothing left to do but wait for the bookings to roll in. However, the truth is that there are several bid adjustments that can be made to fine-tune your hotel's performance to ensure you're getting the best bang for your buck.
We all know seasonality can affect hotels to a greater extent than many other industries. What you may not know is that there are many bid adjustments that can be made in hotel metasearch to help account for those expected highs and lows.
Hotel Metasearch Seasonal Optimization Tip #1: Adjust Your Bids Based On Days To Arrival
Let's look at an example of a beachfront hotel in the Northeast United States. From 5/1/2022 to 8/31/2022, this particular hotel saw only 27% of their bookings as 30 days or more to arrival. 52% of all bookings fell in the 7-29 days to arrival range. When we compare that to 11/1/2022 to 2/28/2023, where guests were over 2x more likely to book 30+ days out (61% of all bookings), it's clear that seasonality can indeed have an impact on our hotel metasearch channels.
So, what can we do about it?
By taking the time to review the data and using the bid adjustment tools within Google Hotel Ads and other platforms, you can ensure your hotel is more likely to be visible to the guests that are most likely to book. In our previous example, bid adjustments were implemented to increase bids for potential impressions for the 1 to 3-week booking window during the peak summer season and reduced during the offseason. Similarly, higher bid adjustments have been put in place on the 30+ day window as guests begin to plan their summer travel during the colder months.
Hotel Metasearch Seasonal Optimization Tip #2: Adjust Your Bids Based On Check-In Day
Check-in day is another influenceable seasonally-based variable we can optimize for within hotel metasearch campaigns. Using the same example hotel, during the peak summer months, guests were more willing to arrive on nearly any day of the week, with roughly even distribution (except for Tuesday) at 21% (M), 0% (Tu), 12% (W), 15% (Th), 15% (F), 15% (Sa), 21% (Sun). But once we shift into our colder months, 55% of guests booked stays checking in on either Friday or Saturday. Again, we used this trend for data-driven optimization, this time by reducing bids for weekdays during the colder months and increasing bids for weekends.
Several other factors can be adjusted and dialed in, including the device type being used, length of stay, specific arrival date, and more. Reviewing all of this data, making bid adjustments, and staying up to date with the seasonality are all essential to ensure you are best positioned to drive bookings with guests who are most likely to book. It goes to show that even if you're connected and "running" hotel metasearch ads unless someone with expertise is taking the time to ensure all the campaigns are well-optimized, you're leaving potential revenue on the table.
Fortunately for you, GCommerce Solutions has that expertise. Contact us to learn more.
Did you know that 2023 marks the 23rd anniversary of Google Ads? 🤯 Ad revenue now contributes 80% of Alphabet’s revenue and last year that totaled around $54 billion. Over the past 20+ years Google paid search has become an almost guaranteed budget line item for pretty much every business that is looking to advertise, reach customers, and drive revenue. Chances are, your hotel has been a loyal customer of this ad type for years. But did you know there’s a type of Google search ad that is helping hotel’s drive 5%+ of total website revenue that can’t be accessed via the standard keyword focused Google paid search campaign type?
If you’ve been a loyal Google paid search advertiser all these years and you’re not running Google Hotel Ads via metasearch advertising then you’re losing out on a very large portion of the Google hotel search ecosystem. One that could be driving a substantial amount of direct revenue for your hotel. One that the OTAs have been using to STEAL MARKET SHARE the past 10+ years.
A Brief Overview of Google Hotel Ads
Did you know the first ideation of Google Hotel Ads technically launched back in 2010? Up until 2018, hotel inventory partners running these sponsored placements had to manage them in a completely separate platform from Google Ads. When Google moved Hotel Ads into the Google Ads platform in 2018, it made it easier for advertisers to manage alongside their standard keyword based paid search campaigns. The caveat though, is that in order to run these Google Hotel Ads placements the hotel advertiser still has to rely on a Google connectivity partner to feed rates/inventory into a separate campaign type.
To clarify, just because you are running Google paid search, doesn’t mean you are live on Google Hotel Ads.
How are Google Hotel Ads Different Than Google Paid Search Ads?
There are quite a number of differences between Google Hotel Ads and Google Paid Search Ads. Understanding these differences will help you navigate between the Google search ecosystem for hotels and set your hotel up for success by best utilizing these different campaign types.
Google Hotel Ads require a direct feed to your hotel’s (or an OTA’s) rates and inventory
Unlike Google paid search campaigns, Google Hotel Ads require a direct feed to your hotel’s rates and inventory via your CRS or booking engine. A huge factor in hotel ads campaigns quality score comes down to the accuracy of the price in your feed to the price that is shown on the booking engine landing page. Since these rates and inventory fluctuate constantly based on your inventory and revenue management, it’s a requirement by Google that there is a feed in place to keep your campaigns updated with the latest rates and inventory information. You also must use a Google technology partner that offers the ability to connect your hotel’s rates and inventory to Google Ads. This list is limited but can include booking engine/CRS companies as well as technology providers such as WIHP and Derbysoft.
Google Hotel Ads appear in different places in Google’s search ecosystem
Let’s look at some examples of where Google Hotel Ads and Google Paid Search Ads appear within Google Search.
Google Hotel Ads can be found under the knowledge panel in the main search engine results page (SERP), within Google’s travel planner and within Google Maps/Local Map Packs.
Google Hotel Ads in Knowledge Panel on SERP Shown Below:
Google Hotel Ads in Google’s Travel Planner Shown Below:
Google Hotel Ads in Google Maps Shown Below:
Google Paid Search Ad placements only appear within the Google SERP at the top and sometimes bottom of the page: (unless you are opting to advertise on Google’s Search Partner Network then they can appear on a number of other sites OR if you’re participating in local search campaigns that can appear on Maps)
Google Paid Search ads in Google’s SERP Shown Below:
Google Hotel Ads campaign types don’t use keywords for targeting
Unlike standard Paid Search campaigns, there is no keyword targeting option associated with Google Hotel Ads campaigns. You’re limited to geographic targeting, some different bid modifier options and 1st part audience targeting options.
Google Hotel Ads campaigns can’t utilize Google’s in-market and affinity audiences
One feature that Google has enhanced within Google Ads over the years (to compete with Facebook audience targeting) is a robust list of in-market and affinity audiences. These audiences group users together that have shown intent to be in-market to purchase something (like travel to San Diego) or have an affinity (like for outdoor sports) based on their online behavior. While Google paid search campaigns allow you to target or exclude in-market, affinity and 1st party audiences (website visitors, customer database lists), Google Hotel Ads only give you the option to target/exclude your 1st party audience lists.
There are workarounds on using 3rd party data providers as audience lists but they must be imported as a 1st party audience type. Our hope is that this changes in the future but for now it’s limited.
Google Hotel Ads has different bid modifier options
Google Hotel Ads offers bid modifications on different segments than standard paid search campaigns. Since it’s specific to hotel accommodations inventory searches bid modifiers in Google Hotel ads campaigns includes:
Geo-Location
Device
Length of Stay
Check-in day of week
Date Type
Advance booking window
Audience lists
Check-in date
Out of the above list, the only overlaps with Google Paid Search Ads are geo-location, device and audience lists
Google Hotel Ad types contain different content
As you can tell from the screenshots in #2 above, visually Google Hotel Ads and Google Paid Search ad types contain different content. The components of a Google Hotel Ad are different than a Google Paid Search Ad.
Google Hotel Ads contain:
Rates/Prices
Call Outs for Marketing Messaging (via Call out Extension)
The example below for Camelot Inn & Suites shows Family Friendly and Scooter Rentals for the official site ad and Free Cancellation for the OTA ads
Room Type Bundles (sometimes)
Sometimes, if Google decides and you’re in the top position they will show room type bundles with different room types/rates
Google Hotel Ad example:
Google paid search ad components that are most applicable to hotels include:
Headlines
Descriptions
Display URL
Extensions that can include
Image (seen below)
Sitelinks (seen below)
Promotions
Structured Snippets (amenities list)
Call outs (same as seen in hotel ads)
Location
Call
Lead form
Google Paid Search Ad example:
Google Hotel Ads uses a completely different quality score rating system
Google Ads quality score is what all great account structures are built around. It is the holy grail of optimization. For keyword based Google paid search campaigns quality score is calculated based on 3 components: Expected click through rate (CTR), Ad relevance and landing page experience. Improve your scores in these three areas and the reward is lower CPCs. When you are limited on budget, it’s imperative to have it go as far as possible and by lowering CPCs and driving more clicks you’re giving your client more clicks with chances for more conversions.
Google Hotel Ads relies on different components for quality score rating. Price accuracy and price competitiveness factor into Google quality score calculation for Google hotel ads. Price accuracy comes down to making sure the rates and inventory feed from your booking engine/CRS to Google ads is as accurate as possible. If the rate shown in the ad doesn’t match the rate shown on the booking engine landing page then your price accuracy score will be negatively impacted. If Google continues to see issues with price accuracy, you risk your hotel ads campaigns being turned off. The other piece is price competitiveness. The less competitive your price is compared to OTAs, the more it will cost you for the same placements. Parity is important for all direct booking strategies but takes center stage in Google Hotel Ads.
How Can I Tell if My Hotel is using Google Hotel Ads?
Not sure if your hotel is currently using Google Hotel Ads? I recommend reaching out to your digital marketing agency or booking engine/CRS to inquire. Not all searches for your hotel will show an “official site” Google Hotel Ad, even if your hotel is currently live on Google Hotel Ads. This comes down to impression share and optimization focus. Not all impressions are created equal and you want to optimize your campaigns to prioritize impressions to those more likely to convert. You can go to your hotel’s listing in Google Travel Planner to try and view your official site ad. If you do see it, it will show with the default Google Hotel Ads green icon or preferably, your hotel’s own logo.
Should my hotel be advertising with both Google ads campaigns and Google Hotel ads campaigns?
The answer is Yes! If your hotel isn’t present on both Google Hotel Ads and Google Paid Search Ads then you’re missing out a huge opportunity to drive more direct bookings for your hotel. If you’re not advertising here, the OTAs already are and they are capturing the wealth of bookings that are driven from these campaigns. Participating with both of these campaign types also makes sure you are visible throughout the Google ecosystem where travelers are searching for hotel accommodations.
Do you have questions on how you can get started with either Google Hotel Ads or Google Paid Search Ads? Reach out to one of the GCommerce experts today for a consultation.
To get the most out of Google Hotel Ads, your hotel metasearch campaigns require the same level of attention as any other hotel marketing. This includes a dedicated budget, performance monitoring, and most overlooked, campaign optimization. Bid adjustments are some of the most common optimizations for many search marketing campaigns, so we put them to the test on Google Hotel Ads to see if the same technique would also work for metasearch.
The Google Hotel Ads Bidding Test
This test was conducted over a period of 3 months (3 weeks for “Hotel 2”), using period-over-period data from Google Hotel Ads to compare results.
In this case, we were testing reduced bids on longer stays, with little to no change in total spend. In Google Hotel Ads, Cost per Click (CPC) is duplicated per night, which quickly adds up. A bid of $1 becomes $4 for a 4-night stay, and goes up to $7 for a week-long guest.
To combat this, we used negative bidding adjustments to minimize CPC bids and reduce unnecessary spending. In the case of our 4-night stay, we used a -75% adjustment to better match our base bid, effectively aiming to reverse the 4-times duplication.
We did not adjust 1-3 nights, since these lengths were both reasonably priced, and our best performers for each hotel.
See the chart below for the exact bidding adjustments we used in this test.
Google Hotel Ads Bidding Test Results By Hotel
Percent change, period-over-period.
Hotel 1 saw an improvement to all metrics.
Hotel 2, the shortest test, saw a decrease to most metrics, with CPC, Revenue/Click, and ROAS remaining flat.
Hotel 3 saw an improvement to most metrics, with the exception of increased CPC and flat Clicks.
Overall Google Hotel Ads Bidding Test Results
The following metrics were inconclusive, as the test produced one increase, one decrease, and one flat result for each:
Average CPC
Clicks
However, every other metric saw an overall increase from this test:
Revenue per Click
Conversion Rate
Return on Ad Spend
Revenue
Bookings
No metric decreased overall.
Conclusion
Using negative bidding adjustments on Length of Stay led to a far more efficient use of our metasearch budget overall, stretching our dollar further and allowing us to increase conversion metrics without a significant increase to spend. While this specific test only adjusted bids for one variable, it still proves that Google Hotel Ads bidding adjustments can lead to improved performance, strongly supporting their value.
Like any optimization technique, bidding adjustments aren’t foolproof. Even in our test, Hotel 2 did see a dip in performance as a result of these adjustments. However, it’s still an optimization technique we wholeheartedly recommend. If you keep your customer in mind and pay careful attention to the performance of your specific hotel, Google Hotel Ads bidding adjustments have the potential for a great payoff.
If you’re looking to get started with Google Hotel Ads bidding adjustments, contact GCommerce Solutions below for more information.
