Getting started with digital ads can seem a bit daunting, but with the right digital partner and a suitable strategy, digital ads might be the missing key to increasing your direct bookings.
Our cross funnel strategy ensures that you are not only converting engaged users, but also reaching potential customers at receptive points in their journey. The goal is to run relevant and engaging targeted ad campaigns to grow your revenue and build your brand.
Are you ready to advertise your hotel?
Description
Here’s everything you need to know about digital ads:
How much budget should I allocate?
As a rule, a campaign needs to be able to drive clicks at a reasonable level to see any conversions, therefore if we assume campaigns run between 20 – 50p per click one should put between £15 – £20 per day per campaign.
What ROI can we expect from this ad?
This depends on the sort of ad you are running and what your goals are. Traditionally, brand awareness ads have a much lower immediate ROI, as they need to show a number of times to get your brand into the mind of a prospective customer. Search ads will depend on if they are generic or branded search. Our target branded search ROAS is 12:1, and we work down from that depending on how wide the net we’re casting is.
What is better: Facebook or Google?
They have very different uses and work with different sorts of data. As a rule of thumb, Facebook is better for brand awareness and google excels at intent-based conversion marketing. However, both of the platforms have access to remarketing functions that you can use to follow users, and Google has YouTube advertising available.
How does targeting work?
Targeting can be based on your data, or data from the advertiser. This could be remarketing information (what page has someone been on your site) or location/demographic data.
Can I track users who have come from a campaign?
You can, we use Google Analytics to find out how users have worked with the site after arriving from campaigns.
What campaigns do other hotels like me do?
Hotels run all sorts of campaigns, your budget and goals should form your decision.
Why do I need a landing page?
A landing page will allow you to make the best value for money from your ads by showing them a page with all the information that they want with a great user experience. The conversion rates of these will be much higher than an ordinary page, as it allows consistency for the user’s journey.
How long should I let the campaign run for?
If you are running a specific campaign for an offer or seasonal reason, then this will normally be dictated by the length of these. Otherwise, for general campaigns, we like to run them indefinitely and tweak them on a monthly or quarterly basis.
What kind of things should I advertise for? Just rooms or all revenue streams/events?
All revenue streams are viable, although F&B is a much lower ROAS due to the way people look for restaurants. Generally, budget should be split based on the value of those streams if your Rooms:Weddings:Events split is 70:20:10 then use this for ads.
What is the difference between responsive ads and normal ads?
Responsive ads have a number of different assets which are used interchangeably to create ads, for search this could be 15 different headlines fitting 3 slots.
Should I use imagery/videos in my ads?
For brand awareness, this is incredibly important. The more relevant, specific and creative these are, the better value they will lend to your campaign.
What kind of CTA works best for ads?
Something concise and relevant to what you would like your user to do, for sales “Book Now”, for leads “Sign Up Now” and for brand awareness “Learn More” tend to work well.
Which type of price model works best?
The models have different uses – CPC is good when looking at driving clicks (Google search works on this basis) CPM (cost per mille/thousand) is used for brand awareness, CPA is often used by affiliate marketing schemes. The best payment will be based on what your campaign looks to achieve.
How many users do we need to make this worthwhile?
We look to drive around 15 – 25% of website traffic through ads.
How does this track conversions?
We use cross domain tracking with your booking engine to make sure conversions register with Google Analytics and we link analytics with the Google Ads account to ensure conversions are tracked correctly. The same is true for Facebook/Instagram Ads.
Can we bid on our competitors’ names?
We would advise that you don’t for two reasons; you are going to pay a lot more per click for a site that isn’t relative to your brand, You are not likely to get conversions if people are looking for somewhere else specific.
Is it worth running ads while the hotel is closed?
Depending on the reason, there can be exceptions, but in general, it is not worthwhile in terms of ROAS running search ads. Brand awareness can still be gained however and may be worth moving budget to these campaigns.
How much in advance of the opening should we start running ads?
Depending on your hotel’s opening strategy, whether you are running PR or any local advertising, this can range from a week to a couple of months.
Is there a setup fee?
We do have a set-up/management fee, give our team a call to talk about your campaign requirements.