1- If only one thing to do: protect your brand!

If you’re not the one who promote your hotel on the web, someone else will do it… and you don’t want that to happen. Hospitality industry counts many OTAS that can promote your rooms on their platform, but with a very high-level commission for you. To maximize your revenue, you must increase your direct bookings and therefore attract people on your own website: starting with your existing customers or guests who have heard about your hotel.

To be sure that when someone is looking for your hotel, they arrive on your website, we recommend at a minimum to buy your hotel name and create campaigns targeting areas where you are the most searched.

To get to know these places, go on Google Trends, write your hotel name and check the “Interest by region” part. As soon as your Google Ads campaigns are created, you’re sure that people arrive on your hotel website to book a room.

Generating traffic is important but converting is essential!

Once you attract people on your website, make them convert, speed and fluidity of navigation are as important as the aesthetics of your website. So, make sure that every page loads quickly, that a booking is made in less than 5 clicks and that all redirection links are secured. Most importantly ensure that you display your best available rates on your website. This is the #1 conversion rule!

2- Take advantage of Google free booking links

Google has definitely positioned itself as the key player in Digital Advertising in the hospitality industry and continues to grow and innovate. Let us share with you some interesting data our Data Analysts have crunched:

+65% of hotel bookings generated by a digital media (Search, Metasearch & display) have been done via Google advertising Service. This share is growing year after year as the graph below illustrates.

Now, did you know that, in 2022, out of those bookings, nearly 16% are due to clicks on Google free booking links i.e., at no cost for the hoteliers?

Google Free links are opened to all hotels having a Google Hotel Ads account. Here again, our key recipe to success is to make sure that the rates of your official website are visible in the paid links and the free links section of Google Hotel Ads. This will bring more traffic to your site and therefore more direct bookings!

3- And if you have strong objectives regarding your direct bookings: go the full Monty!

As shown on one of the figures above, bookings may be triggered by different media: In 2022, Search Marketing amounts for 44% of the hotel bookings generated by digital advertising, Metasearch Marketing: 38% of the bookings generated by digital advertising, and Display: 18%.

Our advice to maximize your direct booking campaigns is to optimize your online presence and advertise with a multimedia strategy. And it does not mean you will spend more: just split your budget into different media. There are now tech tools, such as MediaGenius, that allows you to automatize a maximum of tasks, to control your spendings and to make trade-offs in the blink of an eye in order to reallocate your budget on the best performing media at any given time. Have a look at how Kamana Lake House is now reaching 75% of direct bookings via the use of MediaGenius and D-EDGE technology.

Advertising is a complex strategy as there are a lot of actors and media you should be seen on. You’re not an octopus, get some help! D-EDGE developed MediaGenius, a single platform to manage all your digital media campaigns.

Digital marketing can seem overwhelming and difficult to understand. Therefore, being supported by a team saves you time and energy through constant support and up to date advice. Want to learn more? Get in touch with D-EDGE Digital Media teams!