About bid adjustments for hotel booking links and travel promotion ads

Bid adjustments allow you to bid higher or lower for factors such as the length of stay, check-in day of the week, the advanced booking window, or the type of device the user is using.

When you use bid adjustments, your final bid is calculated on your base bid plus any bid adjustments, multiplied by the number of nights the user stays.

Note: Itinerary bid adjustments cannot be used with tROAS.

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Availability and bidding rules

  • Bid adjustments are available for the Manual CPC, Target return on ad spend (tROAS), CPC%, or Enhanced CPC bidding strategies in Google Ads. Learn more about Bidding overview for hotel ads.
  • When you set up a campaign, you can choose a maximum effective bid limit. If you choose this option, any combination of base bids plus bid adjustments won't exceed the maximum effective bid limit.
  • If you create bid adjustments, the adjustment will be used unless a campaign or ad group is paused.
  • Bid adjustments set at the campaign level will apply to all ad groups within that campaign. Bid adjustments set at the ad group level will apply to all hotel groups in that ad group.
  • This article describes how to use Google Ads to apply bid adjustments. You can also set bid adjustments with the Google Ads API.
Note: Target ROAS will automatically adjust your bids based on signals that are bid adjustable (like location, time or day, or device). Thus, all bid adjustments are ignored except a -100% device bid adjustment. If bid adjustments need to be made for this bid strategy, it can only be made on the campaign level.

Types of bid adjustments for hotel ads

Bid adjustments can be based on one or more of the following dimensions:

  • Location: Where the user is located.
  • Device: The type of device the user is using to search for hotels, such as mobile, desktop, or tablet.
  • Length of stay: How long the user indicated they'd stay at the property (up to 30 days). You may set a maximum of 30 adjustments.
  • Check-in day of week: The day of the week the user intends to stay at the hotel.
  • Date type: Specifies adjustments to apply to your hotel ads based on whether users search for specific dates or simply search and see prices with default dates.
  • Advance booking window: How far in advance the user wants to book the hotel (up to 330 days). You may set a maximum of 10 adjustments.
  • Audience lists: A Google Ads audience list, such as for customers or website visitors.
  • Check-in date: The selected dates the user intends to stay at the accommodation.

Bid adjustments can be set at the campaign and ad group level as shown:

Campaign bid adjustments Ad group bid adjustments
Location

Device

Audience

Check-in day of week

Device

Audience* (see note below)

Length of stay

User set dates

Advanced booking window

Check-in date

The following table shows the valid range of values and levels at which manual bid adjustments can be applied for Hotel ads.

Adjustment Valid range Level (where custom bid adjustment is settable)
Campaign Ad group Hotel group
Device types -100% and -90% to +900% YES YES NO
Location -90% to +900% YES NO NO
Advance booking window -100% and -90% to +900% NO YES NO
Check-in day of week -100% and -90% to +900% NO YES NO
Length of stay -100% and -90% to +900% NO YES NO
Date type -50% to +100% NO YES NO
Audience list -90% to +200% YES YES* NO
Enhanced CPC auto YES NO NO
Target ROAS auto** YES NO NO
Ad schedule -90% to +900% YES NO NO
Check-in date -100% and -90% to +900% NO YES NO

The following table shows the valid range of values and levels at which manual bid adjustments can be applied for Hotel ads in Search campaigns for travel.

Note: These are not available at the campaign level.
Adjustment Valid range Level (where custom bid adjustment is settable)
Ad group
Advance booking (formerly known as Advance booking window in Hotel campaigns) -100% and -90% to +900% YES
Booking start day of week (formerly known as Check-in day of week in Hotel campaigns) -100% and -90% to +900% YES
Length of booking (formerly known as Length of stay in Hotel campaigns) -100% and -90% to +900% YES
User-set dates (formerly known as Date type in Hotel campaigns) -100% and -90% to +900% YES
Booking start date (formerly known as Check-in date in Hotel campaigns) -100% and -90% to +900% YES

Notes:

  • *You can add an audience at the ad group level and edit the bid adjustment in the "Audiences" page. Learn how to Add audience targeting to an ad group or campaign.

  • ** Target ROAS for Hotel ads will automatically adjust your bids based on signals that are bid adjustable (like location, time or day, or device). Thus, all bid adjustments are ignored except a -100% device bid adjustment. If bid adjustments need to be made for this bid strategy, it can only be made on the campaign level.

  • If you're setting values in the Google Ads API, they'll appear as decimals. A value of 1.0 set in the Google Ads API indicates no change in the base bid. A value of 0.1 in the Google Ads API is a 90% decrease in the base bid, while a value of 2.0 is a 100% increase in the base bid.

  • When you set more than one bid adjustment in your campaign, those adjustments are typically multiplied together to determine how much your bid will increase or decrease. Keep in mind that combined bid adjustments can't exceed a 900% bid increase. For example, a $1 bid with a device increase of 900% combined with a location increase of 900% will result in a bid of only $10. The lowest possible bid adjustment when combining multiple bid adjustments is -90%.
  • If an ad group has a device adjustment set, that value will be used instead of the campaign device adjustment. For example, if a campaign sets the device type adjustments for desktop devices to 2, and the ad group sets it to 1.5, the ad group adjustment of 1.5 will be used.
  • For Hotel campaigns, enhanced CPC can be used together with -100% negative bid adjustments to exclude certain traffic from your campaign. For instance, if you bid $5, select the Enhanced CPC bidding strategy, and set a -100% bid adjustment for mobile devices, your bid will be $0 for mobile devices.

Combined effects of bid adjustments for Hotel campaigns

Bid adjustments can combine to exceed your base bid, as the following example shows:

Base bid of 5% CPC on a $100/night hotel room Running total bid
Bid for one night $5
Bid for 3 nights $15
Campaign bid adjustment, Spain hotels, 20% $18
Ad group bid adjustment, 20% for 7-day advance booking window $21.60

Keep in mind

The maximum positive bid adjustment is 900% (which is 10 times the base bid). The maximum negative bid adjustment is -90%. However, advanced booking window, check-in day of week, check-in date, length of stay, and device bid adjustments have an additional setting of -100% (resulting in a bid of zero).

Combined bid adjustments can't have a +900% or -90% bid adjustment. If the eligible fields are set to -100%, then the stacked bid multiplier would also be set to -100%. The eligible fields can include 0%. For example, a $1 bid with a device increase of 900% combined with a location increase of 900% will result in a bid of only $10.


Search campaigns for travel

Manual bidding differences for Search campaigns for travel

Hotel Campaigns automatically multiply your base bid by the user's itinerary length of booking. However, Search Campaigns for Travel (SCT) do not support this automatic multiplication logic. To align directly with standard Google Ads logic, you’ll need to use standard length of booking bid adjustments to achieve the same final bid outcome. Learn more About length of booking bid adjustment in legacy Hotel campaigns vs Search campaigns for travel.

Related links

If you need help with your booking links, contact us or request to chat with a support specialist.
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