I sat through more agency pitches than I care to remember during my 17 years as a General Manager.
Slide decks full of award logos. Case studies with impressive percentages and no context. Account managers who had clearly googled “RevPAR” the morning before the meeting. Retainer proposals that started at £2,500 a month before a single piece of work had been scoped. And the unavoidable closer: “We really understand hospitality.”
They did not.
When I started Webb Marketing, I understood immediately why so many of those pitches felt hollow. Because the people in the room had never stood behind a front desk at 7am when half the team had called in sick. They had never read a Monday morning P&L and tried to explain to an owner why the weekend occupancy was strong but net revenue was down. They had never sat across from a Booking.com account manager and felt the slow creep of commission dependency tightening around the business.
This guide is what I wish someone had handed me before I signed my first agency contract as a GM. It will save you time, money, and a significant amount of frustration.
Why Choosing the Wrong Agency Costs More Than Their Retainer
The obvious cost of a bad agency is the monthly fee. That is not the real cost.
The real cost is twelve months of misdirected strategy. It is ad spend burned on broad match keywords that attract people who were never going to book. It is an SEO retainer that generates traffic but no direct bookings, because nobody checked whether the landing pages were actually converting. It is a year of OTA commissions that could have been reduced if someone had built a proper direct-booking channel from the start.
A hotel doing £1.5 million in room revenue, running 45% through OTAs at 18% commission, is paying £121,500 a year in third-party fees. If a well-chosen agency shifts just 15% of that volume to direct over 12 months, the saving is over £18,000. The agency pays for itself several times over.
A poorly chosen agency does the opposite. It consumes budget, produces reports full of impressions and click-through rates, and leaves your channel mix exactly where it was.
The decision matters more than most GMs realise when they are evaluating the monthly fee line.
The Questions Most GMs Forget to Ask
Here are the six questions I would ask in every agency pitch if I were sitting on your side of the table today.
1. Have you ever actually worked in a hotel?
Not visited one. Not marketed one from the outside. Actually worked one. Checked in a coachload at 11pm. Dealt with a kitchen walkout on a Saturday night. Read a daily revenue report and understood immediately which numbers told the real story.
This is not snobbery. It is a practical question about whether the people advising you can read between the lines of what you tell them.
There is a fundamental difference between an agency that knows hospitality vocabulary and one that understands what it feels like to review your channel report on a Monday morning. The first can write copy that sounds right. The second can spot a strategic problem in your distribution mix before it costs you money.
Ask the question. Listen carefully to the answer. Vague references to “extensive hospitality experience” and “working with hotel clients for years” are not the same as having run a hotel.
2. Can you show me cost per direct booking versus OTA commission?
This is the metric that matters. Not traffic. Not impressions. Not click-through rate. Cost per direct booking.
If your average OTA commission is £24 per booking and your agency’s Google Ads campaign delivers direct bookings at £9 each, the campaign is delivering a strong commercial return before you factor in the long-term value of owning that guest relationship directly.
If your agency cannot show you this calculation, they are optimising for the wrong thing. They are measuring their performance against marketing metrics rather than business metrics. Ask them to present it this way. If they cannot, that tells you everything.
3. What does your Google Business Profile management actually include every month?
Your Google Business Profile is the single highest-ROI local SEO activity available to an independent hotel. It is free. It directly influences your appearance in Google Maps and local search. Done well, it drives phone calls, direct website visits, and bookings without a penny of ad spend.
Most agencies set it up at the start of a retainer and leave it largely untouched.
Ask them to show you the last three months of GBP activity for one of their current hotel clients. Posts published. Photos uploaded. Reviews responded to. Questions answered. If they cannot show you consistent monthly activity, they are billing for SEO and delivering a fraction of what they promised.
4. Are you tracking phone call conversions, not just form fills?
Hotels convert on the phone. A lot. Particularly for group bookings, weddings, events, and guests who want to talk through a stay before committing.
If your agency is only reporting online enquiry form submissions, they are missing a significant share of what its work is actually generating. And they are significantly understating their own ROI, which should concern you because it means their reporting does not reflect reality.
Proper hotel PPC campaigns include call tracking from day one. It is not complicated. It is not expensive. It is simply not done by agencies that do not understand how hotels actually convert enquiries into revenue.
5. Do you know what GEO is, and are you doing it for my hotel?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. It is the practice of structuring your hotel’s website content so that AI tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity recommend your property when a guest asks a natural language question.
When someone types “best boutique hotel with spa near Bath” into ChatGPT, GEO determines whether your hotel appears in the answer or whether your competitor does.
This is not future-proofing. It is happening now. The hotels implementing GEO today are building a competitive advantage that will compound over the next three to five years. The ones waiting are already behind.
Most hospitality marketing agencies have acknowledged GEO exists. Very few have actually implemented it in a meaningful way for their clients. Ask them to show you an example of a client property being cited in an AI-generated answer. We have been implementing GEO for hotel clients since 2024, and the early results are significant.
6. What does your pricing include, and what costs extra?
This is the question most GMs are too polite to ask directly in a pitch. Ask it anyway.
Large specialist hotel marketing agencies typically charge between £2,500 and £5,000 per month in management fees before a single pound of ad spend. Contracts are commonly 12 months minimum. Scope changes, additional campaigns, and extra services attract additional fees.
Here is the version nobody tells you until it appears in your contract: many agencies restrict you to a single campaign focus. If your retainer covers accommodation marketing and you want to shift focus to weddings or events mid-year to capitalise on a peak season, that is a scope change. That is a new fee conversation. You are locked into whatever you agreed to in January, regardless of what your business needs in September.
This is a real problem for hotels with multiple revenue streams. Your accommodation, weddings, events, leisure breaks, and food and beverage all have distinct seasonal peaks, target audiences, and conversion journeys. A rigid single-focus retainer does not reflect how a hotel actually operates.
Hospitality Marketing Agency Versus Hotel Marketing Specialist: They Are Not the Same Thing
The phrase “hospitality marketing agency” covers an enormous amount of ground. Restaurants, bars, event venues, coffee shops, holiday rentals and holiday parks all sit under the hospitality umbrella. An agency with strong restaurant marketing credentials is not necessarily equipped to manage a hotel distribution strategy.
Hotel marketing specifically requires an understanding of revenue management, channel mix, OTA dependency, rate parity obligations, booking engine conversion, and the relationship between occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR. These are not concepts that transfer automatically from other hospitality sectors.
When evaluating agencies, ask them to describe their most recent hotel P&L conversation with a client. If they look blank, you have your answer.
What to Expect From a Hotel Digital Marketing Agency in the First 90 Days
A good agency should be doing the following in its first three months together.
Days 1 to 30
Full audit of your existing digital presence. Website performance, Google Analytics data, Search Console rankings, Google Ads account if one exists, Google Business Profile activity, and channel mix analysis. You should receive a written report, not a verbal summary. This document is the baseline against which everything else is measured.
Days 30 to 60
Strategy agreed, and initial campaigns live. Google Ads campaigns should be running with proper conversion tracking, including phone calls. Google Business Profile should have been updated, and the first monthly content posted. SEO on-page recommendations should be scoped and in progress.
Days 60 to 90
First meaningful data. Cost per click, cost per enquiry, and cost per booking where trackable. Early keyword movement in Search Console. GBP insights showing click-and-call activity. A clear picture of what is working, what needs adjustment, and what the next 90 days should focus on.
If you reach day 90 and your agency has not provided you with a cost-per-booking figure and a comparison against your OTA commission rate, ask for it immediately. If they cannot produce it, that is a structural problem with how they are running your account.
What Webb Marketing Actually Charges
I said I would tackle pricing head-on, so here it is.
| Service | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads Management | £450 /month | Ad spend paid directly to Google. Min. £500/month spend recommended. |
| Meta Ads Management | £200 /month | Facebook and Instagram. Ad spend paid directly to Meta. |
| SEO Services | £600 – £1,500 /month | Scope-dependent. GBP management is included as standard. |
| Audit & Campaign Setup | £450 one-off | Full audit, setup, and 30-min handover call. No ongoing commitment. |
No single-focus restrictions. If you are on a retainer with us and your biggest revenue opportunity in October is weddings rather than accommodation, we work on weddings in October. If you want to switch from leisure breaks in spring to corporate bookings in September, we switch. No scope change fees for shifting campaign focus within your agreed service. Do note though, that switching campaigns too often leads to inconsistency, and the changes need to be planned in advance.
No minimum contract lengths.
Month to month. If we are not delivering, you should be able to leave. We are confident enough in our work that we do not need to lock you in to prove it.
You own everything.
Your Google Ads account, your Meta Business Manager, your Analytics data, your Search Console property. All of it is set up in your name and remains yours if you ever move to a different agency or manage it yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a hospitality marketing agency?
A hospitality marketing agency provides digital marketing services for businesses in the hospitality sector, including hotels, restaurants, bars, holiday parks, and events venues. Services typically include SEO, paid advertising, social media management, website design, and email marketing. The best hospitality marketing agencies bring genuine sector knowledge to their work, understanding how hospitality businesses generate revenue and what metrics actually matter to operators.
How much does a hotel marketing agency charge in the UK?
Hotel marketing agency fees in the UK vary significantly. Large specialist agencies typically charge between £2,500 and £5,000 per month in management fees, often with 12-month minimum contracts. Webb Marketing charges more accessible rates: Google Ads management from £450 per month, Meta Ads from £200 per month, and SEO retainers from £600 to £1,500 per month. Ad spend is always separate and paid directly to the platform.
What is the difference between a hotel marketing agency and a hospitality marketing agency?
Hotel marketing agencies specialise specifically in hotels and accommodation businesses, bringing expertise in revenue management, channel mix, OTA strategy, and direct booking conversion. Hospitality marketing agencies cover the broader sector including restaurants, bars, and events venues. For hotel operators, working with an agency that specifically understands hotel distribution and revenue management delivers better results than working with a generalist hospitality agency.
How do I know if my hotel marketing agency is performing?
The key metric is cost per direct booking compared to your OTA commission rate. If your OTA commission averages £20 per booking and your agency’s campaigns deliver direct bookings at £8 each, the work is commercially justified. Secondary metrics include organic ranking improvements, Google Business Profile click and call data, and direct booking revenue as a percentage of total room revenue month on month.
Can a small independent hotel afford a digital marketing agency?
Yes, if the agency is priced appropriately. A 15-room boutique hotel generating around £394,000 in annual room revenue and running 35% through OTAs at 18% commission is paying approximately £24,800 per year in third-party fees. A Google Ads campaign at £450/month management plus £500/month ad spend costs £11,400 per year. If it shifts even 10% of OTA volume to direct, the saving in commission covers the entire agency cost with room to spare.
Book a Straight Conversation
If you are evaluating agencies right now, I am happy to have a 30-minute call about what you actually need. Not a pitch. Not a slide deck. Just two people who understand hotels talking about what moves the needle for your specific property.
No junior account exec. No minimum commitment to book a call. Just a straight conversation.
Book a free 30-minute call: webbmarketing.info
Email Craig directly: craig@webbmarketing.info
Craig Webb is the founder of Webb Marketing and spent 17 years as General Manager with Bespoke Hotels, the UK’s largest independent hotel group. He has managed large corporate conference hotels, boutique luxury properties with spas, leisure and destination hotels with fine dining, and multi-outlet food and beverage operations. Webb Marketing is a Google Verified agency based in Bicester, Oxfordshire, serving independent hotels and hospitality businesses across the UK.
