Google Ads for Hotels. Ads That Find New Guests, Not Just Capture the Ones You Already Have
There is a version of hotel Google Ads management that looks excellent in a monthly report and delivers very little genuine commercial value.
It involves running campaigns almost entirely on brand search terms, the guests who already know your hotel name and are searching for it directly. These campaigns convert well because those guests were already coming to you. The cost per click is low because there is minimal competition for your own name. The conversion rate is high because the intent is already there. The report looks impressive. The new guest acquisition is minimal.
We manage Google Ads differently. Brand protection matters and we include it. But the real work, the campaigns that actually grow your hotel's revenue rather than just capturing demand you already earned, happens in non-brand search. Finding guests who do not yet know your hotel exists but are actively searching for exactly what you offer. That is where a Google Ads management fee earns its place.
Why Hotel Google Ads Requires More Than Generic PPC Knowledge
Running Google Ads for a hotel is not the same as running Google Ads for an e-commerce store or a law firm. The commercial model is different. The seasonality is complex. The revenue streams are multiple. And the relationship between paid search and the OTA landscape creates specific strategic considerations that a generalist PPC agency will not naturally understand.
Craig Webb spent 17 years as a General Manager with Bespoke Hotels, the UK's largest independent hotel group, managing corporate conference hotels, boutique luxury properties with spas, leisure and destination hotels with fine dining, and multi-outlet food and beverage operations. Every campaign decision we make is informed by that operational perspective.
We know that a hotel near a major airshow fills its rooms for one week in every fifty-two, and that campaigns for that week need to be live ninety days in advance. We know that wedding enquiries peak between September and February for the following summer, and that a hotel with no active wedding campaign during those months is missing its most commercially significant window. We know that a spa day campaign in January outperforms the same campaign in August because the guest motivation changes with the season.
This is the level of understanding that separates a hotel Google Ads strategy from a generic paid search programme.
Google Ads Across Every Hotel Revenue Stream
A hotel is not a single-product business and its paid search strategy should not treat it like one. Each revenue stream has its own seasonal pattern, its own target guest, and its own keyword landscape.
Accommodation
The foundation of any hotel Google Ads programme. Search campaigns targeting location, occasion, and experience-specific terms that reach guests actively looking for somewhere to stay. "Boutique hotel near Bath," "hotel with spa near London," "dog-friendly hotel Oxfordshire." These are high-intent searches from guests who are deciding. Appearing here at the right moment with the right message converts at a cost well below OTA commission.
Weddings and events
The highest value segment for many independent hotels. A dedicated wedding campaign targeting "exclusive wedding venue Berkshire," "country house wedding near London," "small wedding venue with accommodation" reaches couples in the active research phase. Wedding campaigns need their own ad copy, their own landing page, and their own budget allocation separate from accommodation. A shared campaign mixes intent and dilutes performance for both.
Spa and wellness
Spa guests are driven by occasion and experience. "Spa day for two near Oxford," "luxury spa break Cotswolds," "spa hotel hen weekend." These searches have strong commercial intent and the average transaction value is significant. A spa campaign that runs year-round but increases budget in January, around Valentine's Day, and ahead of Mother's Day follows the natural demand pattern rather than fighting it.
Conference and corporate
The midweek occupancy filler that most hotel Google Ads programmes completely ignore. Corporate event planners and PAs search by location reference to specific business parks, motorway junctions, and nearby companies. "Conference venue near M40," "meeting rooms with accommodation near Bicester," "corporate event venue Oxfordshire." These searches are undercompeted, high value, and directly bookable without OTA involvement.
Restaurant and bar
A hotel restaurant campaign targeting local dining searches puts the hotel in front of potential future bedroom guests who may never have considered staying. "Sunday lunch Worcestershire," "fine dining near Evesham," "afternoon tea Oxfordshire." The immediate revenue from the booking is secondary to the brand exposure and the guest relationship it begins.
Each revenue stream has its own campaign, its own ad copy, its own landing page, and its own budget aligned to its seasonal demand calendar. That is how a hotel Google Ads programme grows a business rather than just reporting on it.
Understanding the Three Campaign Types and When to Use Each
Search Campaigns: Where New Guest Acquisition Happens
Search campaigns show your ads when someone types a specific term into Google. They are the most controllable, most transparent, and most commercially direct campaign type available.
For hotels, search campaigns split into two distinct categories with very different purposes.
Non-brand search campaigns target guests who have not heard of your hotel. They are searching for a type of hotel, a location, an occasion, or an experience. These are the campaigns that find genuinely new guests and grow your customer base. They require careful keyword selection, strong negative keyword management to prevent budget wastage, and landing pages that match the search intent precisely. This is where the real work of hotel paid search management happens and where a Google Ads management fee should be earning its keep.
Brand protection campaigns target guests who are already searching your hotel name. The purpose is defensive. Booking.com and Expedia are almost certainly bidding on your hotel name right now, appearing above your own website in results for guests who already know and want to stay with you. A brand campaign at minimal cost per click ensures your direct booking link appears first. Every guest who clicks your direct link rather than an OTA link saves you the full commission on that booking.
Both matter. But if your monthly report is full of brand term conversions presented as evidence of campaign success without separating the two, you are not seeing the full picture. We report brand and non-brand performance separately so you always know which part of your budget is protecting existing demand and which is generating genuinely new bookings.
Performance Max: Powerful Tool, Not a Set and Forget Solution
Performance Max, or PMax, is Google's AI-driven campaign type that runs across Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and Maps simultaneously from a single setup. Used correctly it is a valuable addition to a hotel paid search programme. Used as the only campaign type, on autopilot without strategic oversight, it is how agencies charge management fees for watching Google's automation run. We have taken over campaigns where the agency is charging over £1,000 a month to simply turn the automation on, set and forget, then keep collecting the fee.
PMax does not give you granular control over which keywords trigger your ads. It does not allow you to bid differently on "boutique hotel Cotswolds" versus "hotel near Oxford station." It aggregates performance data in ways that make it difficult to identify exactly where your budget is going. Google's own documentation acknowledges that PMax is designed to limit granular channel focus in order to give its AI maximum flexibility.
We use PMax as a supplementary reach and retargeting layer alongside properly structured search campaigns, not as a replacement for them. The search campaigns give us control, transparency, and non-brand discovery. PMax extends reach across Google's wider network and supports the retargeting function. Together, they cover more of the guest journey than either could alone.
If your current agency is running PMax as your only or primary campaign type, ask them what specific strategic changes they made to the account in the last 30 days. If the answer is vague, the campaign is on autopilot.
Retargeting: Bringing Back the Guests Who Were Almost Ready
Many guests who visit your hotel website do not book on their first visit. They browse, they compare, they close the tab and come back to it later. Or they do not come back at all.
Retargeting campaigns show ads specifically to people who have already visited your website, keeping your hotel front of mind during the consideration period between first visit and booking decision. For a hotel where the average booking value is several hundred pounds, following up with a warm audience who has already demonstrated interest is one of the highest-return paid tactics available.
We build retargeting audiences from all key website pages. Guests who visited the rooms page but did not reach the booking engine. Guests who started a booking and abandoned. Guests who spent time on the weddings or spa pages without enquiring. Each audience receives tailored ad copy relevant to the specific page they visited rather than a generic hotel message. A guest who spent four minutes on your wedding page does not need to be shown an ad about your rooms. They need to be shown your wedding venue at its best with a clear reason to get in touch.
Retargeting budgets are modest relative to their return. For most independent hotels, a well-managed retargeting programme delivers some of the lowest cost-per-booking in the entire paid search account.
What Does the Report Actually Tell You?
Monthly Google Ads reporting for hotels should show you the metrics that connect directly to your P&L, not the metrics that make the campaign look impressive in isolation.
Every Webb Marketing hotel Google Ads report includes a brand-versus-non-brand conversion split, so you can see exactly how much of the performance is defensive and how much is genuine new-guest acquisition. It includes cost per direct booking compared to your OTA commission rate on equivalent bookings so you can see the commercial case clearly every month. It includes phone call conversions alongside online enquiry data because hotels convert significantly on the phone and omitting call data understates the campaign's true return. It includes a campaign calendar showing what is planned for the next 90 days aligned to your seasonal demand pattern and upcoming events in your area.
If your current report does not show these things, it is not telling you what your paid search investment is actually delivering.
What Is the Real Cost of Google Ads for Hotels?
A well-managed hotel Google Ads programme requires two separate budget considerations.
The management fee covers the strategic work. Campaign structure, keyword research, negative keyword management, ad copy creation and testing, bid strategy, audience building, and monthly reporting. Webb Marketing charges £450 per month for Google Ads management. That fee does not change based on how much you spend on ads.
The ad spend goes directly to Google. You pay Google directly from your own account. We recommend a minimum of £500 per month in ad spend for most independent hotels to generate enough data for meaningful optimisation. Hotels in competitive locations or running seasonal campaigns typically invest £800 to £1,500 per month in ad spend during peak periods.
The number that matters is not the combined cost. It is the cost per direct booking compared to your OTA commission rate on the same booking. If your average OTA commission is £28 per booking and your Google Ads campaign delivers direct bookings at £11 each, the programme is returning more than two pounds for every pound invested in management fees before ad spend is considered. We establish that baseline number in month one and track it every month thereafter.
You own your Google Ads account. It is set up in your name and stays with you regardless of what happens with the agency relationship. We will never hold your account data as leverage. This is in stark contrast to agencies we have taken over from, which try to protect the account's visibility and avoid granting access. The only reason for this would be to hide their poor stats. The Google Ads account is the client's and the client's only.
Is Webb Marketing the Right Google Ads Partner for Your Hotel?
We are Google Verified. That means our campaigns are built and managed to Google's own standards, not just to the minimum required to run ads.
We are best suited to independent hotels, boutique properties, country house hotels, exclusive-use venues, and destination properties that want a Google Ads programme built around their specific revenue streams, seasonal calendar, and commercial objectives, rather than a generic hotel advertising template.
We are not the right fit for large international hotel groups managing multi-market, multi-language brand campaigns at significant scale. We will tell you that on the first call, if it applies, rather than taking work, we are not the right size to deliver well.
If you are currently running Google Ads and are not sure whether they are working as hard as they should, we offer a free account audit. We will look at your brand versus non-brand split, your campaign structure, your conversion tracking setup, and your cost per booking, and give you an honest assessment of what is working and what is not.
FAQ
How much does Google Ads management cost for a hotel in the UK?
Webb Marketing charges from £450 per month to manage a hotel's Google Ads account. Ad spend is separate and paid directly to Google. We recommend a minimum of £500 per month in ad spend for most independent hotels. The most useful number is not the total monthly investment but the cost per direct booking compared to your OTA commission rate. A well-managed campaign typically achieves a cost per direct booking of £8 to £25, depending on competition and location, compared to OTA commission of £20 to £50 on an equivalent booking.
What is the difference between brand and non-brand hotel Google Ads?
Brand campaigns show your ads when guests search your specific hotel name. They are defensive, ensuring OTAs do not intercept guests who are already heading to you. Non-brand campaigns show ads when guests search for types of hotels, locations, and occasions without your name in the query. These are where genuine new guest acquisition happens. A hotel Google Ads programme needs both but should report them separately. If all your conversions are coming from brand searches, the campaign is capturing existing demand rather than growing it.
What is Performance Max and should my hotel use it?
Performance Max is Google's AI-driven campaign type that runs across all of Google's platforms simultaneously. It can expand reach efficiently but provides limited transparency into exactly where your budget is going. We use PMax as a supplementary channel alongside structured search campaigns, not as a replacement for them. A PMax-only hotel account gives the agency very little to actively manage, which is why some agencies default to it. Ask any agency running PMax for your hotel what specific changes they made to the account last month. Vague answers indicate the account is running on autopilot.
How does retargeting work for hotels, and is it worth the investment?
Hotel retargeting shows ads specifically to people who have already visited your website, keeping your property in front of them during the consideration period. For a hotel where the average booking value is several hundred pounds, following up with warm audiences who have already shown interest is one of the highest-return paid tactics available at any budget level. We build separate retargeting audiences for different page types, accommodation, weddings, spa, and serve each audience tailored ad copy relevant to what they were researching. Retargeting budgets are modest and cost per booking is typically among the lowest in the account.
How quickly can Google Ads start generating hotel bookings?
A properly structured Google Ads campaign for a hotel can be live and generating clicks within a week of account setup, assuming conversion tracking is correctly configured first. We do not spend a single pound on ads until we can track the complete journey from click to confirmed booking. The first two to four weeks of any campaign are a learning phase where Google's algorithm gathers data. Most hotel campaigns reach their performance stride between weeks three and six, at which point cost per booking data is reliable enough to make confident scaling decisions.
Does being Google Verified actually make a difference for hotels?
Yes in two specific ways. Google Verified status means our campaigns are built to Google's own best practice standards, which typically results in higher Quality Scores, lower cost per click, and better ad positions for the same budget. It also means Google provides us with direct support and early access to new features and beta programmes that non-verified agencies do not have access to. For hotel clients this means your campaigns benefit from both the efficiency advantages of properly structured accounts and the additional tools available through the verified programme.
Let's Look at What Your Current Campaigns Are Actually Delivering
Book a free 30-minute Google Ads review with Craig or Harry. We will look at your brand versus non-brand split, your campaign structure, your conversion tracking, and your cost per booking, and give you an honest assessment of where your budget is working and where it is not.
No obligation. No pitch deck. Just a straight commercial conversation about your hotel's paid search performance.
Book at webbmarketing.info or email craig@webbmarketing.info
