Google Ads for hotels
In the tourism sector, the variety of accommodation on offer (hotels, bed and breakfasts, holiday villages and centres, aparthotels, campsites, self-catering accommodation, etc.) and the number of ways to book (on the official website, by email, by telephone, on e-reputation sites, hotel distribution sites, large hotel groups, on social networks, etc.) means that Internet users have to make a choice in an ultra-competitive sector.
To face up to this strong competition and the variety of offers, and to attract qualified Internet users, an independent hotel must have an offensive digital strategy. Even if they don’t have the financial clout of the big players in hotel distribution, they can put in place some very affordable measures to reach their future customers directly. Google Ads, Google’s online advertising tool, is one of them.
The Google Ads ad delivery system is linked either to a list of keywords (search network) or to a list of sites (Display network), both of which are defined by the advertiser. Google is generally paid per click on the ad (CPC = cost per click), the amount of which is determined by a system of bids between advertisers. In order to guarantee a certain quality of ads, Google has introduced an algorithm that favours the “best” ads.
It is essential to distinguish between free natural search engine optimisation (SEO) and paid search engine optimisation (SEA). Paid search is part of an overall SEM (Search Engine Marketing) strategy, in other words, all the marketing actions taken to improve your website’s ranking, whether natural or paid. In a nutshell: SEM = SEA + SEO + SMO.
This is the management of advertisements or sponsored links that appear on the sites reserved for search engine advertising.
This is the set of techniques used to optimise a website in order to improve its positioning on the search engine results pages.
SMO refers to all the techniques and actions designed to develop the visibility and image of a website or brand on social networks.
When an Internet user types the query “hotel cannes” into Google, the first 4 links marked “ad” are sponsored links (SEA), followed by the so-called “natural” results (SEO) located below the waterline (the imaginary line below which the page content is only visible if the user scrolls with the mouse). The space occupied by Google Ads is therefore considerable. It should be noted that for a hotel, searches on the name of the establishment represent around 50% of its traffic.
Google allows different types of campaign to be created to meet the needs of the advertiser. Ads can be displayed on the Search Network and/or the Display Network. The search network, made up of Google and its search partners, i.e. the sites that integrate and use Google’s search engine, is more focused on return on investment (ROI), whereas the Display network will be used primarily to gain a presence in the upstream phases of the purchasing cycle, as well as to improve brand awareness.
