How Do I Start a PPC Campaign for My Hotel

The meat of a pay-per-click campaign happens in the brainstorming room. If you lay a solid foundation of goals, a target audience, and a marketing message ahead of time, you will be in great shape to design the most advantageous Adwords campaign for your hotel or other business.

We work with a variety of different hotels and other hospitality businesses and we have seen time and time again that if you follow these seven easy steps, your PPC campaign will bring in the ROI you seek.

  • Step 1: Set a concrete goal, KPI, and ideal audience
  • Step 2: Figure out the timing
  • Step 3: Create an incentive
  • Step 4: Gather the materials you need
  • Step 5: Build a unique landing page
  • Step 6: Set up the ad campaign in Google Adwords
  • Step 7: Launch campaign

Let’s dive into these steps a little deeper, shall we?

Step 1: Set a Concrete Goal, KPI, and Ideal Audience

Concrete, Attainable Goal

Setting a concrete, attainable goal right from the start is imperative to creating a successful campaign.

Ask yourself, “What result do I want from this campaign?” Your first instinct may be simply to reply, “More heads in beds,” or “More revenue.” Once you have set your goal, turn it into something concrete and measurable.

Don’t: Abstract Goals for Hotels

  • Fill vacant rooms during slow periods.
  • Get more wedding and corporate meeting event business.
  • Build brand awareness.

Do: Concrete Goals for Hotels

  • Get 15+ people to book a special during a specific need-period.
  • Receive 30+ RFPs per month.
  • Reach 10,000+ people through brand awareness ads.

See the difference?

If your goal is abstract, you cannot be certain your campaign is successful because you have no benchmark for success. The abstract concept of simply gaining “more business” is relative and not specific. For example, imagine the hotel sells one room as a result of a campaign. The hotel received “more business” and would have hit the abstract benchmark. However, you would rarely consider gaining one room the mark of a successful campaign, would you?

Similarly, do not just set a concrete goal, set a realistic goal. You may be tempted to pull out the phrase, “If we shoot for the moon and miss, we’ll still land amongst the stars,” but that is not how ecommerce works. In actuality, if you set an unrealistic goal you know you will never reach, you also cannot measure a campaign’s success.

Setting concrete, realistic goals is not hard but may take some experience. That is where the professionals come in handy. Building a campaign with ecommerce professionals like those at Blue Magnet enables hoteliers to receive expert consultation on what a realistic, attainable benchmark for success looks like so they can adequately measure their campaign.

With your realistic goal poised as the big “X” on the treasure map of your campaigns, you know where the campaign needs to go. Now you just need to determine how to get there.

Key Performance Indicator

What do you want people to do when they see your ad? How will you measure your campaign’s success?

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