For those who own a website bond to their businesses a big concern, no
matter its nature, is to appear on the first pages of a search engine, especially
Google.
Beyond organic traffic an additional increase means raising
possibilities of an inquiry or booking. To accomplish this action the most
promoted and widespread tool is Google AdWords.
Brief explanation for those who are not familiar with it:
First thing I have to do is to select where I want my ads/promotions to appear
(you can choose among all countries, regions, cosmopolitan cities, etc.), then
I pick the language in which it will be displayed (if Canada is my target you
will need French and English, while for South Korea I would decide Hangeul). I
have also to limit the daily assigned budget and when the campaign should end.
On a second place I have to choose keywords related to the lodging and
travel environment (if you are in Argentina you would take into consideration “Hotels
in Argentina”, “Luxury Travel Buenos Aires”, “Lodging Palermo Soho“, etc.).Once
somebody types them on Google my hotel will probably appear as one of the first
options/results.
I have to write also a four-line ad with the hotel´s information,
promotion and contact details which will be located on the upper right of
Google´s website inside a rectangle containing numerous commercials finalizing
with the text “Powered by Google”. I have the possibility to make ads with
images and videos, but the final cost rises up to the sky. Once I finished customizing
the campaign it´s ready to be launched at any time.
Charging method: depending on the country´s
ranking, the quantity of times the keywords I chose appeared on searches among
other algorithms a daily amount of money is discount of my assigned budget when
someone clicked on my ad and lands on my hotel´s website. Countries such as
USA, UK and Australia are more expensive than Japan, India, etc.
In overall terms it is an excellent tool to generate more traffic and a
temptation for e-commerce sites that target directly to the people´s pocket
(rational benefit), but how does it impacts in the hoteliers industry?
According to an article (from Spain) it´s worth to invest on Google AdWords
for hotels because by implementing this mechanism you can increase up to 25%
your bookings after a one-month campaign.
I differ completely, hence my own point of view about this issue:
- You can´t control who´s
clicking on your ad. It´s rooted to a multiplicity of factors like people mistakenly
click on commercials they are not interested or just visit a site because
they were bored or curious. The cases are infinite making it almost
predictable that internet users outside our scope access our website by
typing one word we chose as a key. The reason behind these results is that
the system is based on random shooting without discriminating variables
that are a key in the hoteliers business.
- The hotels´ nature, an
intangible service, difficults a person to be interested on a first
instance. In fact, potential guests who consult or book it´s because previously
they heard about a hotel for the first time on specialized travel sites
(Fodor´s, Travel+Leisure, TripAdvisor, etc.). It´s demonstrated and
checked that people who enter a hotel´s site through a Google ad
(artificial) make the ATS (average time on site) goes down to a half
compared to those who enter through the organic way.
- Costs are too high
knowing that you need a minimum of bookings each amount of money spent on
Google AdWords to make it convenient. Many hotels in Buenos Aires
suspended their campaigns by not receiving even one query.
- The fierce competence next
to the giant players like Expedia which spends weekly US $ 6 million on Google´s
tool (source: Advertising Age).
- A preselected site
with AdSense of the country I´m interested in neither generates
significant traffic.
I guess you receive on a daily basis mails
from online advertising agencies and marketing agencies offering to make Google
AdWords campaigns and that the results are phenomenal. Hence I invite you to
share with all of us your own experience.
For further information please send me an email
to pguevara@ourhotelyourhome.com
