No matter which bid strategy you choose, you can adjust your bid for your hotel ads. Doing so allows you to bid higher or lower for such factors as the length of stay, the check-in day, the advanced booking window or the type of device that the traveller 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 traveller stays.
Availability and bidding rules
- Bid adjustments are available for the Manual CPC, Commissions (per conversion), Commissions (per stay), CPC% or Enhanced CPC bidding strategies in Google Ads. Commission (per stay) campaigns support a -100% device and location bid adjustment. 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.
Types of bid adjustments for hotel ads
Bid adjustments can be based on one or more of the following dimensions:
- Location: Where the traveller is located.
- Device: The type of device that the traveller is using to search for hotels, such as mobile, desktop or tablet.
- Length of stay: How long the traveller indicated that 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 traveller 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 traveller 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 traveller 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 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 |
| Ad schedule | -90% to +900% | YES | NO | NO |
| Check-in date | -100% and -90% to +900% | NO | YES | NO |
Notes:
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*You can add an audience at the ad group level and edit the bid adjustment on the 'Audiences' page. Learn how to Add audience targeting to an ad group or campaign
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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. Bear 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 adjustment for desktop devices to 2, and the ad group sets it to 1.5, the ad group adjustment of 1.5 will be used.
- 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
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 advanced booking window | $21.60 |
Bear 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.
