If you’re a hotel owner or event manager, you’re probably doing your best to hold events creatively these days. Unfortunately, it’s still more difficult to keep your event rooms full than it used to be. In 2022, things have started picking up for events again – corporate events, parties, wedding, and more!

One solution to help bring in regular event traffic is PPC (pay-per-click) marketing. You can use PPC to reach out to event planners directly and get them to book rooms, escpecially now that things are opening up more and more.

Read on to learn about how PPC for events can work for your hotel.

What Is PPC Marketing?

PPC marketing is exactly what it sounds like: any kind of digital ads where you pay for each click on the ad. The most common advertising platforms that use PPC ads are search engines (most notably Google Ads) and social media platforms (like Facebook ads).

Advertising using a PPC model means that you only pay for the actual value the ad provides you in the form of visitors to your hotel’s website. This makes PPC advertising a valuable and cost-effective strategy to add to your hotel marketing mix.

How to Optimize PPC for Events

To get the most out of PPC event marketing, you will need to use SEM, or search engine marketing, strategies. The most important of these strategies to implement for PPC ads is optimizing your keyword selection.

The keywords you choose to associate your ad with should be relevant and specific to the market you are seeking. For example, if your hotel is located in San Antonio, Texas, and you are looking to attract local business meetings, you could use “corporate event space in San Antonio.”

You should use some keywords that are not location-specific to target event planners who do not have a specific city in mind. You should also highlight some of your hotel’s key event-related amenities and benefits in your keywords and in the ad itself.

You pay more for advertising on keywords that are searched more widely. You will therefore want to strike the right balance of cost and competitiveness of each keyword with both the size and specificity of the audience for each. Google Trends is a great resource for checking the reach of specific keywords. Choosing very specific keywords should keep your budget in-line and only bring qualified website visitors. 

How to Convert Visitors to Bookings

Since you’re paying for every visitor to your website with PPC marketing, you want to make sure as many event planners as possible are then following through and booking their events at your hotel.

A great way to do this is to offer an exclusive deal only available to those who click on your PPC ad. You can also have your PPC ad direct those who click on it to a landing page designed specifically for event planners rather than your general hotel booking page. This can extra details like photos, video tours, rates, offers, and major selling points of why they should choose your event space over other hotels or event venues.

How to Get Started With PPC for Your Hotel

If you’re not already using PPC for events advertising at your hotel, this is a great way to attract additional event bookings. Start with the basics of Google Search ads, and then expand into remarketing ads and possible social media ads. For a smaller budget, a small/strict set of keywords will be a great starting place! Make sure to stick to phrase match and exact match so you don’t waste money on irrelevant searches.