If your hotel has a website with a high conversion rate, chances are that you are running AdWords campaigns, especially for your hotel name. With these campaigns you will get a significant increase in traffic to your website and, therefore, the number of direct bookings will increase, and you will prevent Booking.com and other OTAs from capturing traffic that belongs to your website. So far, so good.
But what does this cost your hotel, does your provider charge you a higher commission for AdWords bookings, 8%, 10%? In this post I will explain why you should not accept these "draconian" conditions.
AdWords cannibalises the organic channel
Indeed, AdWords increases qualified traffic to your website and, therefore, proportionally increases the number of direct bookings. However, by working with AdWords, your organic bookings will decrease, as a part of the bookings that would correspond to your natural positioning will be redirected to AdWords.
Option 1) Organic only: 240.000 €.
Option 2) Organic + Adwords: 280.000 € (200.000 € organic + 80.000 € Adwords)
In the example we see how AdWords "eats" €40,000 that would correspond to organic traffic. The reason is that many users who would access your website through the natural link, do so through the AdWords link.
Paying more for AdWords is not an option
At WPH we are completely transparent in the management of AdWords, you will be able to access all the data we handle in the campaigns, such as the total investment, along with the main KPIs, and you will learn the techniques we use to optimise the campaigns.
You will be able to see for yourself that the investment made in no case justifies a 10% commission, as we move in ROI values of between 300% and 1500% of the investment.
At WPH we do not charge commission for bookings, but in the case of charging commission (some clients prefer it) our AdWords commission is the same as an organic booking.
Unlike the "old school" providers, at WPH we will manage the campaigns, but the investment is at the client's expense, so we are completely transparent. Even so, the overall price of AdWords bookings will be only 1% or 2% more expensive.
Example of a real AdWords report.
Getting bookings on your website is very easy. You just need a good tool and the right pricing policies. Don't forget: the credit for direct bookings lies mainly with the hotel.
Contact us for more information!
