Manage and update your landing pages

The landing page settings in Hotel Center help you define, organize, and manage your landing page configuration. This article explains recent updates to the landing page experience in Hotel Center.

Landing page

A landing page (formerly Point of Sale/POS) represents the URL destinations for when a user clicks on a hotel ad price on Google and gets redirected to a partner website. Every landing page will have at least one URL, or more if you are using LPURL tags, which enable partners to utilize ValueTrack parameters to track information about the source of an ad click. These URLs can be dynamically constructed to include additional information about the user and the itinerary.

You define at least one landing page when you initially set up your Hotel Ads account. After your initial setup, you can customize an XML file that defines the landing page for more complex configurations. To review the landing page XML schema, please refer to Landing Pages File Syntax.

Hotel Ads uses matching rules to determine which landing page to use for a particular end-user. If Hotel Ads can't match an end-user to a landing page, then the ad is not shown, resulting in a lost opportunity.

Setting up LPURL and ValueTrack is optional, but strongly recommended if you wish to populate any ad/campaign variables in your landing page. Learn more about ValueTrack parameters and how you can utilize them to populate dynamic variables and track valuable information through your URLs. You can also review examples of various LPURL implementations.

How to view your landing pages

To view your landing pages in Hotel Center:

Log in to your Hotel Center account.
On the navigation menu, click Landing pages.

Note: Your landing page match percentages may not add up to 100%. Match percentages estimate potential traffic to your account and the percent of traffic you’re missing.

If you haven’t added any landing pages to your account yet, the landing pages list will not be displayed on this page.

Add a new landing page

Individual landing pages can be added using the “New landing page” button:

On the landing page view, click on the List tab and then the New landing page button.
Select the landing page matching criteria needed to prefer or block user types from landing on this new page.
Create your new landing page URL using the provided Google variables. If your production website already has a landing page URL, you can also use that and substitute the listed variables for the associated values. Learn more about using variables and conditions
Create a unique ID and display name for the new landing page. The display name will be displayed in ads based on the language specified.
In the URL section, click on the Test button. Google will test and validate the URL against test itineraries to confirm that the landing page is functioning correctly.
Click Publish to confirm your changes.

To add a new landing page using XML:

On the landing page view, click on the Upload tab.
Upload your landing page XML file using the recommended syntax. Learn more about landing pages
Click Submit.
- After you submit your XML file, Google will test and validate the URL. You will see a list of the landing pages you uploaded. Landing pages that uploaded correctly will show with a green checkmark , and landing pages that have errors will show with a red exclamation point .
Click Publish to confirm your changes.

Fix errors from test itineraries

URL and LPURL test itineraries will indicate if the details of a given landing page are incorrect or aren’t formatted properly. In that case, ads related to that landing page will not be displayed on Google until all issues have been addressed. For testing itineraries:

If you see a red exclamation point: Review the last changes you made to your URL or LPURL parameters using the "Edit" button and check if the changes were formatted correctly.
If the uploader could not generate test itineraries: When testing itineraries, you may receive a message saying that no prices match your landing page parameters.
- If you see this error message, try these steps:
  1. Check your feed status for warnings that Google is experiencing errors while parsing your prices.
  2. Check your URL parameters. If you’ve updated your site capabilities, the new parameters may not match your cached prices on Google.
  3. If you use AllowablePointsOfSale, update your price feed with the ID in context. This will allow Google to test itineraries.
If you see a “Failed to parse XML” error: Review the error details provided, as well as the line and column where there are issues on your XML file.

If none of these solutions resolve your problem, contact Google support for help.

Reorder your landing pages

By reordering your landing pages, you can choose which landing pages Google will prioritize first when matching to a given itinerary. To reorder landing pages, click the Reorder list button and use the slider or drag and drop the specified landing page to the desired position. Google will always select the first successfully matched landing page to generate a valid URL, hence higher priority landing pages should be listed first.

For example: Let’s assume the goal is to increase match priority for a landing page targeting users in France. If the specified page is listed above other pages with similar segments (e.g. users in Europe), Google will prioritize the first landing page (users in France) to generate a URL for the end-user.

To scroll and reorder your landing pages without using the mouse:

In the “Landing pages” view, use Tab to select the “Reorder list” button and press Enter.
Use Tab to highlight the landing page you want to move.
Use the left arrow key to select the handle for the landing page.
Use the up and down arrow keys to reposition and reorder the selected page.
Use the right arrow key to deselect the handle.
Save the changes when you’re done.

Note: As you reorder your landing pages, the expected match rate for each landing page may change dynamically.

Branding restrictions

If you support multiple brands, you can use the same integration and account for the landing pages, but only in cases where the brands use the same pricing (same hotel set and same price set) as all other brands on the account.

For example, a company called ‘TravelAgency.com’ might define the following landing pages.

Same back-end:
- “TravelAgency.com”: For users in the United States. The website for this landing page is in English and uses US dollars as the currency.
- “OtherBrand.com.ca”: For users in Canada. This landing page uses the same pricing back-end as “TravelAgency.com”, but has a different brand.

Different back-end:
- “OtherBrand.com.uk”: For users in the UK. This landing page uses a different back-end.

In the example above, you can include OtherBrand.com.ca in your landing page file because it uses the same hotels and pricing back-end as Travelagency.com. OtherBrand.com.uk would require a separate account because it uses a different pricing back-end as the other example points of sale. For more information, contact Google by using the contact form.

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