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The hospitality industry can be very volatile. Sometimes, even the most successful hotel experience a slump in bookings. This may be caused by seasonality and etc. When this happens, it’s essential to explore new strategies to give your hotel the boost it needs. This is where digital marketing can greatly help hoteliers gain more bookings.
One effective tactic that’s been gaining popularity is paid advertising campaigns, also known as paid ads or pay-per-click (PPC) ads. By utilizing paid advertising for hotels, hoteliers can grab the attention of potential guests during the early stages of their decision-making process.
A PPC campaign is a major asset in driving relevant traffic to your website and boosting bookings when implemented effectively. In this article, we’ll explore the various paid advertising for hotels, to help you determine which approach best aligns with your hotel’s objectives.
What Is Paid Advertising (PPC)?
Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, also known as search engine marketing campaigns, are a powerful way for hotels to promote their website to a targeted group of online searchers. By bidding on keywords, hotels can control their advertising budget and only pay for clicks that their ad receives. This makes PPC campaigns a cost-effective strategy for driving traffic to your hotel’s website.
But here’s the catch: generating clicks alone won’t cut it. For your PPC campaign to be truly effective, it needs to attract motivated travelers who are interested in booking a room at your hotel. So one of the most important things is to make sure that your campaign is reaching the right audience.
Reach The Right Audience In Paid Advertising for Hotels
To ensure that your hotel paid advertising reaches the right audience, you must first define your target audience. One of the first things to consider is your target audience’s demographics. These are factors such as age group, gender, and income level. It’s also essential to consider their interests, behaviors, and preferences.
Next, you should conduct market research to gain insights about your target audience. There are multiple ways to do this. An online survey is a cheap way to gather a large amount of data. A focus group may help you gather more detailed information with a smaller sample audience.
Conducting keyword research is also crucial to identify the keywords and phrases that your target audience is using to search for hotels. This helps you optimize your paid advertising campaigns and ensures you’re targeting the right audience.
Social media targeting is another effective strategy to reach your target audience. Utilize social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to target your audience based on their demographics, interests, and behaviors.
Finally, consider retargeting as a powerful tool to show to people who have already visited your website. This helps you reach an audience that has already shown an interest in your hotel, making it more likely that they will book with you.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT KEYWORD RESEARCH: SEO Guide: How To Start A Keyword Research For Your Website [2024]
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CHOOSING THE RIGHT TARGET AUDIENCE: Basic Google Ads Audience Targeting Guide: Choosing The Right Audience On Search Network & Display Network [2024]
Search Engine Marketing For Hotels
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) can help hotels display their ads in various locations during a search. SEM helps hoteliers to reach users who are searching using specific hotel names, generic searches for hotels in a given area, or even search engine maps (such as Google Maps).
Since Google holds the majority of the global search share, we will primarily talk about Google. Keep in mind that other search engines such as Bing offers search engine.
With Google hotel ads, hotels can showcase their name, pricing, and highlight attractive features or amenities. Google’s hotel search module displays up-to-date prices, photos, a booking link, and other features for users.
In addition, Google offers a specific feature for hotels to bid for dynamic ads in Search, Maps, and/or the Assistant, which displays room rates, hotel photos, amenities, and a booking link in the hotel booking module. With Google Hotel Ads, users can establish a feed with prices and availability that can be updated at any time—a form of metasearch ads within the Google platform.
The performance max campaign by Google is a great way to integrate various Google marketing channels like YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps.
Placing your hotel front and center in the user’s early search stages is an effective way for a hotel to increase bookings.
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE ON GOOGLE HOTEL ADS: Google Hotel Ads Guide: A Comprehensive Guide For Hoteliers 2024
Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising is one of the best ways to reach a large amount of audience. A large part of your audience is likely to spend a significant amount of time on social media, it’s one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways to reach out to potential customers.
The Meta platform (Facebook & Instagram) is a powerful tool to create engaging hotel advertising. Here is why:
Meta advertising is a powerhouse for hotels, thanks to its precise targeting and retargeting capabilities. You can use various criteria like age, location, interests, and behavior to create ads. With multiple ad formats like regular posts, carousels, and videos, you can showcase your hotel in a variety of ways.
Instagram’s editing features allow you to create ads that look like organic posts, blending seamlessly into users’ feeds. Hotels can use this feature to highlight their rooms, amenities, and even local hotspots.
The Stories feature is particularly popular, allowing for maximum creativity and engagement with photos and videos. It’s an excellent way to make sure your hotel stands out in a crowded social media landscape.
Social media is also a great platform if you want to use influencer marketing. Partnering with an influencer will give your hotel a larger reach by exposing your brand to an influencer’s large following. Influencer marketing can be used to promote user-generated content and also increase your hotel’s credibility (a brand endorsed by an influencer is usually seen as more credible by its followers).
With the rise of short-form content. It might be a good idea for hotels to utilize this. Various social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram are promoting the growth of their short-form content due to TikTok’s successes in the past years.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT DIFFERENT SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY FOR HOTELS: Different Hotel Social Media Technique To Engage With Customers And Promote Their Brand On Social Media [2024]
Native Advertising
Native advertising can be an excellent way to reach your target audience while they are consuming content online. This type of advertising blends in with the surrounding content, making it less disruptive to the user’s experience. You may find native ads in various formats, including sponsored posts, paid press releases, and video ads on travel blogs.
To make the most out of native advertising, it’s essential to use contextual relevance to increase click-through rates. By matching the editorial content of the publication, you can seamlessly integrate your brand’s message with the reader’s interests. This method is much less intrusive than traditional banner or display ads that can often be ignored or dismissed by users. Native advertising allows you to promote your content while maintaining a non-invasive approach to your audience. An invasive approach may sometimes put a bad impression on your brand.
Conclusion
Paid advertising campaigns, also known as pay-per-click (PPC) ads, are an effective way for hotels to promote their website to potential guests. To create an effective PPC campaign, hoteliers must define their target audience, conduct market research, and identify the keywords and phrases that their audience uses to search for hotels in order to execute these paid digital marketing strategies.
