Google has launched two new bid multipliers today that will allow users to leverage check-in date in bidding decisions. The new multipliers are:

• Check-in day of week: Allows advertisers to adjust bids by the clicked day of week.
• Advanced Booking Window: Allows advertisers to adjust bids based on how far in the future the user is searching for their hotel stay, e.g., if queries >21 days in the future convert lower, this multiplier will allow you to control those bids.

What’s the data say?

The graph below shows how many users select a date in the Hotel Ads experience before clicking on an ad.

Since Google defaults calendar dates for all users, the addition of these multipliers offers another layer of granularity to keep in mind when adjusting bids and bid strategies.

The graph below shows the clicks by check-in date plotted over time with the default date removed. The default date is removed to clearly show the user’s that we will be optimizing for.

We found that over 60% of clicks comes in on searches in the next 14 days on date selected queries, with nearly 85% being in the next 30. We recommend running an analysis to see how conversion rate differs as check-in date increases. Using that data, advertisers can hone-in on more efficient traffic with the booking window multiplier.

The graph below shows clicks by day of week for selected dates only.

We found that nearly 50% of all selected date searches came in for Friday or Saturday. Advertisers can use the check-in day multiplier to gain more volume where there are higher opportunities on these days.

Impact

Ability to bid by check-in date has been on almost every advertiser’s wish list as long as metasearch has been around. This, coupled with check-in day of week multiplier opens the doors to a number of new sophisticated strategies to target the users and bookings you want. Want to target business travelers? Or maybe you have some vacancies you need to fill for Friday night reach goal? With some smart analysis and testing, these and much more are possible.