How to Choose a Hotel Marketing Agency: 8 Questions to Ask Before You Sign

Most hotel owners hire an agency because ads take time and skill. The risk is not paying too much. It is being unable to see what you bought, or to take it with you when you leave. This guide gives you questions to ask any agency, including us. Account rules come from Google's and Meta's own help pages, read on October 13, 2026.

Who should own the ad accounts?

You should. The ad accounts hold your campaigns, your history and your payment details. Both platforms let an agency work in an account that stays yours:

• Google Ads. You can invite a person to your account at the access level you choose, and remove their access later (Google Ads Help). An agency can also use a manager account, which Google describes as an umbrella account linked to individual client accounts (Google Ads Help). Google says that if the manager account is not the owner, the client account's admin must grant ownership. So check who is listed as owner under Admin, then Access and security.
• Meta. If you have full control of your business portfolio, you can share assets such as Pages or ad accounts with a partner, such as an agency. Meta says only the organization that owns an asset can share it with another business (Meta's help page on partner access). Make sure your business portfolio owns your Page and ad account, not the agency's.
• Google Analytics. Adding users needs the Administrator role. Google says if you are the last administrator you cannot delete yourself (Analytics Help). Keep your own administrator seat.

If an agency runs ads from its own account and sends you a report, you cannot see the raw numbers and cannot leave with the history. That is the question to settle first.

What results should an agency report?

Bookings on your own booking page, each linked to the ad that brought it, with the value of the booking. Clicks, impressions and followers do not pay your bills. Our guide to tracking which ad brought a booking shows how that link works, and the monthly report should look like the channel report described there.

Then compare each channel's cost per booking with what booking sites cost you (see the real cost of an OTA booking). A channel that costs more per booking than a booking site's commission is not saving you money.

Which eight questions should you ask?

1. Whose name are the ad accounts in? The answer should be yours.
2. Do I keep an administrator seat in every account? Google Ads, Meta and Analytics.
3. How is each booking linked to the ad that brought it? Ask them to show a real example.
4. What will the monthly report show? Ask for a sample, with bookings, booking value and cost per booking.
5. Which channels do you run, and why those? Ask what they would not run for a hotel like yours.
6. How do you set the budget, and who can raise it? You should approve increases.
7. What is the contract term, and how do I leave? Ask what you get on the last day.
8. Who will actually work on my account? Ask for a name and how often they check results.

What are the warning signs?

• The agency will not say whose name the ad accounts are in.
• Reports lead with clicks, reach or impressions.
• A promised number of bookings or a "guaranteed" result. No one controls what guests do.
• Costs you cannot see: you do not know what goes to ad platforms and what goes to the agency.
• A long contract with no exit and no handover of accounts.

Ask every agency how it charges and write the answer into the contract. Prices depend on the hotel and the agency, so compare them on cost per booking, not on the headline number.

Should a small hotel use an agency or do it in-house?

Do it in-house when someone on your team has the time to check results every week and knows the platforms. Use an agency when nobody does. Whichever you choose, the accounts stay yours and the booking is the measure. If you start in-house, our guide to how much a hotel should spend on marketing helps you set a sensible limit, and how independent hotels get more direct bookings shows the whole picture.

MarginStay is one such agency, and these are the questions we expect you to ask us too. To see what each booking that comes to your own website is worth, try our savings calculator.

MarginStay helps independent hotels bring in direct bookings through ads, so we have a stake in this topic. The account rules come from Google Ads Help, Google Analytics Help and Meta's Business Help Centre, all read on October 13, 2026. These pages change, so check them. The questions are our suggestions, not a standard.