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Google Ads for Hotels: Search Keywords, Budget and Common Mistakes

By MarginStay9 min readPublished Updated

Short answer

Google Search ads put your hotel at the top of results for searches such as "boutique hotel in Savannah". Pick a few searches naming your town and type of stay, add negative keywords, target people interested in your town, not only people in it, and judge every keyword by cost per booking.

Travelers who have not picked a hotel yet search for things like "hotel near the convention center" or "inn with a pool in the Hudson Valley". Google Search ads let your hotel appear above the results for those searches and send the click to your own booking page. This guide covers how to set them up so the budget goes on searches that bring bookings. Google's rules come from Google Ads Help, read on October 12, 2026.

Which Google ads does this guide cover?

Text ads on Google Search for searches that do not name your hotel. Google has other ways to advertise a hotel, each with its own guide:

Search ads for other searches cost more per booking than ads on your own name, because the traveler does not know you yet. Run them once the free listings and your name ad are in place.

Which keywords should a hotel bid on?

Searches that combine your place with the kind of stay you offer. Three groups usually make sense for an independent hotel:

  • Town plus type of stay: "boutique hotel Asheville", "bed and breakfast Cape May".
  • A reason to visit plus hotel: a landmark, a venue, a university or a yearly event near you.
  • A feature guests filter on: "pet friendly hotel", "hotel with parking", together with your town.

Google's Keyword Planner is free and shows how many searches a keyword gets each month and what it costs to target. You must enter billing details in your Google Ads account before you can use it. Google adds that results depend on your bid, budget, ad quality and location targeting, so treat its estimates as a guide.

Keep the list short and specific. Google says broad match, the default, can show your ad on related searches, while exact match gives the most control (Google's guide to match types). Start with phrase or exact match on a handful of searches, and widen only once you can see which ones bring bookings.

Which negative keywords does a hotel need?

Negative keywords stop your ad from showing on searches you do not want. Google says to look for searches that are close to your keywords but come from people looking for something else (Google Ads Help). For a hotel, common ones are:

  • jobs, careers, hiring
  • school, degree, management course
  • wedding venue or event space, if you do not host them
  • the names of other hotels you do not want to pay for

Two of Google's rules catch hotels out. Negative keywords do not match close variants, so you need to add singular and plural forms and synonyms yourself. And an account-level negative keyword list applies to all your search campaigns at once, which saves adding the same words to each one.

Then read the search terms report every week at first. It lists the actual searches that triggered your ads, so you can see wasted spend and add new negatives.

Which location setting should a hotel use?

Target your own town or region, and keep Google's default setting, "Presence or Interest". Your guests are usually not in your town when they search. Google says this setting reaches people who are in or regularly in your target area, and also people who have shown interest in it, through their searches or the pages they view (Google Ads Help).

Google also says that advertisers in travel, real estate and education who switched from "Presence" to "Presence or Interest" saw 5% more conversions on Search campaigns, based on its own data from 2022. Switching to "Presence" only would show your ads to people already in your town, which suits a restaurant better than a hotel.

You can add your feeder cities as extra targets, such as the city most of your guests drive from, and give them their own campaign so you can see which brings bookings.

How much should a hotel spend on Google Search ads?

Start with a daily budget you would be comfortable spending every day of the month, because Google treats it as an average. It says a campaign may spend up to twice its average daily budget on a given day, and no more than 30.4 times the daily budget in a month (Google Ads Help). At $30 a day, a busy day can cost $60, and the month can cost up to $912.

Then judge each keyword by what a booking costs. An illustrative 3-night stay worth $480 before taxes, at $2.50 a click:

Clicks per bookingCost per bookingShare of $480
15$37.507.8%
25$62.5013.0%
40$100.0020.8%

Illustrative. Excludes taxes and fees. Your clicks cost what the auction sets, and how many it takes depends on your booking page.

A booking site taking 20% of the same stay costs $96. A keyword that needs 40 clicks a booking at $2.50 costs more than that, so cut it. For how this budget fits next to your commission bill, see how much a hotel should spend on marketing.

Once conversion tracking works, you can let Google set bids. Google's Target CPA strategy aims for as many conversions as possible at an average cost per conversion you choose, and requires conversion tracking first. Set the target below what a booking site would cost you for the same stay.

What mistakes waste a hotel's Google Ads budget?

  • Broad match with no negative keywords, so the ad shows on job searches and other hotels' names.
  • Location set to "Presence" only, which hides the ad from travelers planning a trip from home.
  • No conversion tracking, so the account can only report clicks. Our guide to tracking which ad brought a booking explains how to link each booking to its ad.
  • Sending the click to the home page instead of your booking page or a page with rates.
  • One campaign for your name and everything else, so expensive searches use up the budget meant for your name.
  • Showing a room price without fees. The FTC's fee rule, in force since May 12, 2025, requires mandatory fees such as resort fees to be included in the price shown (FTC).

To see what each booking moved from a booking site to your own website is worth, enter your numbers in our calculator.

MarginStay runs Google Search ads for independent hotels, so we have a stake in this topic. Google's rules come from Google Ads Help, read on October 12, 2026. The keyword examples and cost table are illustrative.

Google Ads for hotels: quick answers

Are Google Search ads worth it for a small hotel?

They can be, if each booking costs less than a booking site would take. Start with ads on your own name, which are usually cheapest, then add a few searches that name your town and type of stay. Track bookings, not clicks, and cut any keyword whose cost per booking is above your booking-site cost.

What location targeting should a hotel use in Google Ads?

Target your town or region with Google's default setting, Presence or Interest. It reaches people who are in the area and people who have shown interest in it, which includes travelers planning a trip from home. Google says travel advertisers who switched to it saw 5% more conversions on Search, from its 2022 data.

How much does Google Ads cost per day for a hotel?

You choose an average daily budget. Google says a campaign can spend up to twice that on a given day, and no more than 30.4 times the daily budget in a month. At $30 a day, a busy day can cost $60, and the month up to $912.

What negative keywords should a hotel use?

Words that bring the wrong searches, such as jobs, careers, hiring, school and management course, plus services you do not offer and hotel names you do not want to pay for. Google says negative keywords do not match close variants, so add singular, plural and synonym forms yourself.

Want Google searches to end on your own booking page?

Talk to us about Google Search ads for your hotel, which searches are worth paying for, and what each booking would cost.

See your numbers

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