Google enhances Promoted Hotels to increase visibility and sales

As we told you a few weeks ago, Google has introduced a new type of paid ads, available on Google Maps and Google Travel.

These new paid spaces will be activated for destination searches such as; "hotels in Madrid", "hotels near Madrid airport", "hotels Madrid center", etc, as long as your hotel is located in that location, or for searches with specific attributes or characteristics of a hotel such as "hotels in madrid with pool" "hotels in mallorca only adults", etc..

Previously known as Promoted Hotel, Google has decided to give a twist to the whole product and relaunch it as Property Promotion Ads (as we already announced in preview from Roiback) this new form of paid ads is a great opportunity to offer more visibility and sales to your hotel.

As a Google Premier Partner, Roiback was one of the few companies chosen to be part of the Beta phase (testing and improvement period) of Property Promotion Ads. Here are its main features and why it can be an important competitive advantage for your hotel.

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How does Property Promotion Ads benefit your hotel?

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1. Offers more visibility: You will be able to bid for spaces that you could only bid for organically in Google Maps and Google Travel.

2. It allows you to reach new clients: You will be able to bid on generic searches (e.g. "Hotels in Madrid"), capturing customers who have not already decided on a specific hotel.

3. The ads are exclusive: In Property Promotion Ads only the ad of the partner that wins the bid is published, which means that only the ad of your hotel will be seen without competing with the OTAs, thus offering exclusive visibility.

4. Allows a wide variety of advanced bids: PPA allows you to use all the bid multipliers offered by Google Hotel Ads, i.e., you can optimize by devices, markets, days in advance or length of stay among others. This gives you great flexibility in your optimization strategies. For example, to deal with the Covid-19 crisis we could bid only for stays 3 months in advance which, together with a flexible cancellation or payment policy, could be a very good option to achieve long term bookings.

5. Offers more flexibility: It can be an interesting and effective tool for seasonal hotels that wish to promote an opening and maximize their visibility at any time.

Frequently Asked Questions about Property Promotion Ads

- Is Property Promotion Ads the same as Google Hotel Ads?

Property Promotion Ads is an extension of Google Hotel Ads. Both Property Promotion Ads and Google Hotel Ads are based on the same Google Hotel Ads integration. Property Promotion Ads is simply a new way to get more visibility for your property within Google Maps and Google Travel, with a format very similar to the classic Google Ads.

- Is it possible to start using Property Promotion Ads now, and what are the requirements?

Yes, Property Promotion Ads can be used as of today. The only requirement is that you contact your booking engine or connectivity partner to configure and activate campaigns. Your booking engine must have the certification and connectivity with Google Hotel Ads, it is not necessary that the hotel has a previous campaign created in GHA to activate PPA.

- How many sponsored spaces are there with Property Promotion Ads?

At the moment, there are 2 sponsored spaces or "slots" where the ads are shown, but it is possible that after a few months Google will decide to expand it as it is a product in the process of experimentation.

- What bidding model does Property Promotion Ads use?

The most recent news about this type of campaigns is that they are now available in the 3 types of bidding models that we have in Google HA:

1. CPC
2. CPA or Commission (Pay) per Conversion
3. Commission or Commission (Pay) per Stay

- Can I have Google Hotel Ads campaigns at commissionable model and Property Promotion Ads campaigns at CPC model at the same time?

Yes, both actions are compatible and recommended.

- Can I use the same budget I already have set up for standard Google Hotel Ads campaigns?

This only makes sense for the CPC model since for the other two bidding models we do not configure any campaign budget, but it is possible through the budget sharing functionality of the Google Ads tool itself.

- Can Property Promotion Ads be used for branded searches (containing your hotel name)?

No, for the latter, Google Hotel Ads campaigns already exist.

- Is it possible to select the keywords to bid on?

No, you can't. Google will show your hotel according to combinations of target keywords that make sense in terms of the data you have active in Google My Business address.

- Is it possible to set up a special callout for PPA campaigns?

No, callouts do not appear in sponsored ads, the texts published are brief descriptions highlighted in the hotel's own GMB file, they cannot be managed from the PPA campaigns.

- Can PPA campaigns be segmented by market?

Yes, we can activate them only for certain markets such as the main markets of the hotel or only local market in the current situation, however, this strategy is only recommended when the campaigns are active at CPC model, since at CPA or Commission model the more visibility the campaign has the better, since it will only be paid if there are bookings and at commission model if they are consumed.

- Are CPC campaigns charged twice per click? That is to say, one when you click on the PPA and another on the hotel ad?

No, the click is only charged when the customer is redirected to the hotel's website, i.e. the first click on the ad is free of charge.

- Are PPA campaigns created from the Google Ads platform?

Yes, since January 2020 no more Google HA campaigns are managed from the old platform (Hotel Ads Center), all optimization is done from Google Ads.

What can I expect from PPA? Will there be a lot of bookings or visits?

As we have explained, this is a very new product and space and we will soon have more information on the impact on traffic and sales. We must also consider that we are living in an atypical moment of depressed demand. We will see its potential in a few months. We must warn of something very important, PPA is a product much closer to the moment of consideration and inspiration of a customer and therefore the conversion rates will be completely different from the standard GHA. According to Google, the KPIs we are used to for branded campaigns in Search or standard GHA, are far from the results of PPA. We can say that PPA will probably have similar ratios to generic Search or Display campaigns. Even so, the volume of searches and results in maps and travel for this type of more local and generic Keywords is so brutal, that it will surely be very beneficial for hotels.

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HOW DO PROPERTY PROMOTION ADS LOOK LIKE ON GOOGLE MAPS?

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PPA ads carry an "ad" note to differentiate them from organic ads.

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HOW DO PROPERTY PROMOTION ADS LOOK LIKE IN GOOGLE TRAVEL?

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GOOGLE TRAVEL VIEW WHEN CLICKING ON A PPA ADVERTISEMENT

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We only see the official website of the hotel and it is located within the "Sponsored" tab. On the other hand, if you arrive at Google Travel from an ad that is NOT Property Promotion Ads, the availability is shared with the rest of the competitors.

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HOW TO CREATE A PROPERTY PROMOTION ADS CAMPAIGN?

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STEP 1

Access the Google Ads console and click on "new campaign".

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STEP 2

Click on "Create a campaign without a specific objective".

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STEP 3

Click on "Promote your hotels on Google Search and Maps".

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STEP 4

Once you have selected the type of campaign, you can create the PPA campaign itself, where you can configure the desired budget, language, geolocation and bidding.

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In short, Property Promotion Ads, would be similar to what Tripadvisor has brought out with its Sponsored Placement Direct Booking, with the difference that both platforms, although similar in their concept of price comparison, have a different use in the customer purchase cycle and perhaps Google Hotel Ads is closer to the final phase of purchase, which explains its higher conversion rate.

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To start testing Property Promotion Ads feel free to contact us, we will be happy to help you!

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