Property promotion ads support hotel campaigns by listing your properties in prominent positions across Google’s immersive Hotel Search results. Property promotion ads are designed to increase traveler consideration, drive incremental traffic, and help generate more direct leads while travelers decide where to stay.
On this page
- Benefits
- Get started
- Where your property promotion ads appear
- Set up property promotion ads
- Bidding for property promotion ads
- Reporting for property promotion ads
Benefits
- Determine which properties to promote based on your goals
- Drive direct leads from distinctive placements across Google
- Prominently place your property in front of travelers choosing a place to stay
Get started
Property promotion ads are open to all advertisers globally that meet the following criteria:
- Have an active Hotel Center account linked to at least one Google Ads account
- Have at least one active landing page in Hotel Center
- Have at least one image of the property available for use in your ad
If you’ve met the established criteria to create a property promotion ad, consider promoting properties that:
- Experience periods of low occupancy
- Are new to a market and need to raise brand awareness
- Are recently renovated or have expanded their services (for example, added a spa, outdoor recreation area, or partnerships with nearby activities)
- Are more relevant or desirable than usual due to a big event in the area
- Are currently having a flash sale (or that you're willing to offer at a discounted rate for a limited time)
Where your property promotion ads appear
Property promotion ads can appear in multiple places across Google. As of late 2023, the appearance of property promotion ads on Google’s immersive Hotel Search listings was updated, and travelers are no longer sent to the “Sponsored” tab.
By serving your ads at the top of Google Search results, you’ll have a more consistent experience that aligns your charged clicks and impressions. Review the details below to understand how your ads and your charged clicks will work after this change.
Understand your charge events
For all property promotion ad placements in immersive Hotel Search, you’ll be charged for the click that sends a user outbound to the partner site. The following clicks are “charge events” in property promotion ads:
- Clicks on the list view carousel card
- Clicks on the list view inline ad (when placesheet is open)
- Clicks on the “similar hotels” card in the Overview tab
How Google chooses what hotel imagery and information to show in your property promotion ad
Google is currently changing the policy on image provisioning and surfacing across property promotion ads. To make sure that your ads are meeting a high standard of quality, you’ll soon be able to display images directly uploaded from your price feeds.
Google Search results
Appears on desktop and mobile
When you search for hotels in a given geographic area (for example, “hotels nyc”) on Google Search, a carousel may appear at the top of the search results page with sponsored hotel options.
Hotel Search results
Appears on desktop and mobile
When you search for hotels on Google Hotel Search (for example, “hotels nyc”), property promotion ads can appear in the list of search results or in the “Overview” tab of a hotel listing.
List view
Up to 20 property promotion ads can appear in a carousel at the top of list view.
Desktop
Mobile
Desktop with placesheet open
Property promotion ads display differently when a traveler is viewing a placesheet. When a hotel’s details are visible on desktop, the list of hotels becomes narrow, and the ad carousel disappears. As a result, up to 5 property promotion ads may be displayed among organic results.
Overview tab
Google Maps
Property promotion ads in Google Maps will appear on desktop, but not on Android or iPhone mobile apps. Your ads will return to these surfaces in 2024.
Desktop in Search
Up to 2 property promotions ads can appear at the top of search results when you search for hotels. When a user clicks on one of these ads, they will be presented with the hotel details page or “placesheet” or be taken directly to the advertiser’s booking site if the click is on the “Visit site” banner. On the hotel details page, the hotels booking module paid positions are occupied by the winning property promotion advertiser. Only outbound clicks to the advertiser website will be charged.
Desktop on Basemap (new as of August 2023)
Property promotion pins on Maps surface on the Maps basemap on desktop. These trigger when the user’s viewport focuses on an area where the user isn’t frequently located. This means that triggering shouldn’t occur within the user’s home area or the areas that the user visits regularly.
If a user hovers over the pin, a hovercard appears. A user can click on either the top half or bottom half of the hovercard.
When a user clicks on the top half of the hovercard, the user is led to the placesheet, where the advertiser is the only partner shown in the paid booking links. Outbound clicks on these links lead to the advertiser’s website. A click is logged and charged.
When a user clicks on the bottom half of the hovercard, the user is led to the outbound deeplink. Uses are then sent to the advertiser’s website. A click is logged and charged.
If a user clicks directly on the pin, the user is led to the placesheet. Outbound clicks from the placesheet lead to the advertiser’s website. A click is logged and charged.
Advertisers are able to show property promotion ads for all pin positions. However, it’s unlikely that one advertiser would show all pins.
Set up property promotion ads
You can create and modify property promotion ad groups in your Google Ads account and through the Google Ads API.
To create a property promotion ad, follow the steps below.
- Sign in to the Google Ads account that is linked to your Hotel Center account.
- Choose a hotel campaign where you want to create a property promotion ad.
- Select Set up a new ad group and then select Property promotion as the ad group type.
- Select properties you want to promote and add them to the property promotion ad group.
- Set property promotion bids.
- Activate your campaign and property promotion ad group.
Bidding for property promotion ads
Property promotion ads let you increase consideration of your property by promoting it at the top of search results. You can choose which properties to promote and set a bid that aligns with your business objectives.
Property promotion ads are compatible with all bid strategies available for hotel campaigns, including:
Starting April 30, 2024, Commissions (per Stay) and Commissions (per Conversions) bid strategies will no longer be available for new Hotel Ads campaigns.
Active Hotel Ads campaigns with commissions-based bid strategies will continue to serve until February 20, 2025. Review Commission-based bid strategies in hotel ads to sunset to learn more about your next steps.
- Manual CPC (cost-per-click)
- CPC%
- Enhanced CPC (ECPC)
- Commission (per conversion)
- Commission (per stay)
- Target Return on ad spend (tROAS)
Learn more about Bidding overview for hotel ads.
Reporting for property promotion ads
You can view performance metrics for property promotion ads by using the Report Editor and segmenting by the ad group type “property promotion ads”.
Eligible impressions
An eligible impression is awarded for every active bid in the property promotion query geography (at the hotel city level) and is capped at the number of available ad positions for the Google Ads account.
Available ad positions depend on the placement:
- For Hotel Search and Google Maps, the number of available ad positions varies.
- For the Google Search carousel, there are up to 20 ad positions.
Eligible impressions per geographic region might also have overlap. For example, if you have eligible impressions in Dallas, eligible impressions in Fort Worth, and eligible impressions in the Greater Dallas Area, then the Greater Dallas Area might contain eligible impressions from both Dallas and Fort Worth.
Impressions
Hotel Search and Google Maps
A property promotion ad receives impressions when it shows in the list view on Hotel Search or Google Maps. For Hotel Search, impressions are never logged in the "Sponsored" tab. For property promotion ads pins on Maps, impressions are logged when the pin appears on the user’s basemap.
Google Search carousel
A property promotion ad receives impressions when it's shown in the carousel (even if a user doesn't scroll to view the list).
If a user interacts with a format to reveal more ads (like more cards in a carousel), all additional ads are applied to the overall impression count (even if the user exposes a subset of those cards).
Impression Share
Impression Share is defined as the percentage of all eligible impressions for a given user query.
Clicks
A click occurs when a user selects an outbound link to the partner website. There's no reporting specific to the property promotion ads carousel, Flights, and others. These stats are included in aggregated metrics.
- Outbound clicks from the placesheet, such as:
- When a user clicks on the pin: Outbound clicks occur when users click out to the partner on the placesheet.
- When a user clicks on the top half of the hovercard: Outbound clicks occur when users click out to the partner on the placesheet.
- When a user clicks on the bottom half of the hovercard: Outbound clicks occur when users click on the bottom link in the hover card.
