If you have ฿100K to spend on ads and a hotel that still lives on OTA bookings, put most of it where guests are already comparing prices: Google Hotel Ads, if your booking engine can feed it. Put the rest into Meta Ads to find guests who haven't chosen a hotel yet and to win back the ones who visited your site.
The two channels do different jobs. Google catches demand that already exists. Meta creates it. Spend everything on one and you leave the other half of your direct bookings on the table. Here is how each works, where each one fails, and how we would split a first ฿100K.
Google Hotel Ads: the guest is already shopping
Google Hotel Ads show your live price and availability in Google Search, Maps and Google Travel, next to a link that sends the guest to your own booking page (Engine). The searcher has usually picked dates and a destination, so intent is high and bookings can start quickly.
To run it you need a verified Google Business Profile and a booking engine or connectivity partner that syncs live rates and availability with Google. If your booking engine can't do that, Google Hotel Ads is not available to you yet, and that is the first thing to check.
One thing has changed that many older guides still get wrong. Google retired its commission bidding for hotel campaigns, the "pay a percentage only when the guest stays" option. It now points hotels to Target ROAS (its recommended option), Enhanced CPC, or Performance Max for travel goals (Google Ads Help). In practice you now pay for clicks and bid against a return target, so a weak booking page costs you real money.
Meta Ads: the guest hasn't decided yet
Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) work earlier in the journey. You can reach travellers by interest and behaviour, build lookalike audiences from your past guests, and retarget people who visited your site or watched your videos. Ads can also open a WhatsApp or Instagram chat, which suits guests who want to ask a question before booking.
Meta is also where your content does the selling. A hotel with real footage of its rooms, pool and view will do far better here than one using stock images. The limit is intent: people scrolling Instagram are not shopping for a room that night, so results build over weeks and depend on follow-up.
Side by side
Google Hotel Ads wins on speed and intent; Meta wins on reach and cost of attention. Neither works without a booking page that converts.
| Google Hotel Ads | Meta Ads | |
|---|---|---|
| Guest mindset | Comparing prices for set dates | Browsing, not yet decided |
| Time to first bookings | Days to a few weeks, once the feed is live | Several weeks of testing and retargeting |
| What you need first | Booking engine that syncs live rates, verified Google Business Profile | Strong photos and video, a Meta pixel or conversion tracking |
| How you pay | Clicks, bidding toward a return target | Impressions or clicks, depending on objective |
| Best for | Capturing existing demand and beating OTAs on your own rate | Building demand, international reach, off-season and new properties |
| Main risk | Feed errors or a slow booking page waste clicks | Wasted spend if there is no retargeting or WhatsApp follow-up |
| Works best with | Rate parity and a clear direct-booking offer | Authentic content and fast replies on chat |
How we would split ฿100K
The right split depends on what your hotel can already do. Treat these as starting points for a 60-day test, not fixed rules. The amounts are ad spend only, not agency fees.
| Your situation | Google Hotel Ads | Meta Ads | Tracking and WhatsApp setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Booking engine feeds Google, you get some branded searches | ฿60,000 | ฿30,000 | ฿10,000 |
| Feed not ready yet, or too few bookings to learn from | ฿0 until the feed is fixed | ฿85,000 | ฿15,000 |
| New hotel with little awareness | ฿30,000 | ฿60,000 | ฿10,000 |
In the second case, fix the feed first and add Google when it works. Running Google Hotel Ads with bad data only pays for bad clicks.
A simple 60-day order of work:
- Weeks 1 to 2: set up conversion tracking for completed bookings, connect the feed if it isn't live, and make sure your direct rate is at least as good as the OTAs.
- Weeks 3 to 4: launch the main channel for your situation, with one clear offer such as a direct-booking perk.
- Weeks 5 to 8: retarget site visitors on Meta, answer every WhatsApp enquiry fast, and move spend toward whichever channel produces bookings at a lower cost.
- Day 60: compare cost per direct booking against the OTA commission you would have paid, and set the next budget from that number.
Measure bookings, not clicks
The most common reason a hotel thinks ads don't work is that nobody can see which bookings they produced. Before you spend a baht, check these:
- Track the confirmed booking, not the page view. Both Google and Meta need to know when a reservation is completed, with its value. Target ROAS bidding can only aim at a return if it knows each booking's value.
- Check the hand-off to your booking engine. Many Thai hotels send guests from their own website to a separate booking domain. If tracking doesn't carry across that jump, the booking is credited to nobody and your ads look worse than they are.
- Count WhatsApp and Instagram enquiries. A guest who messages first and books later won't show up as an ad conversion unless you log it. Tag the source of each chat and record which ones become stays.
- Compare against the OTA commission. The number that matters is cost per direct booking against the commission you would have paid on the same stay.
- Reply fast. Chat leads go cold within hours, so set up an automatic first reply and a staff member who follows up.
Frequently asked questions
Is ฿100K enough to run Google Hotel Ads? Yes, for a test. The bigger issue is whether you have enough bookings flowing for Google's bidding to learn from, which is why the first 60 days focus on tracking and feed quality.
Can a small hotel without a booking engine use Google Hotel Ads? Not directly. You need a booking engine or connectivity partner that sends live rates and availability to Google. Start with Meta and fix that first.
Should I stop listing on OTAs? No. Many hotels run both, and use direct-booking ads to shift the mix over time rather than leave OTAs overnight.