Metasearch Pricing Models Explained

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As metasearch continues to expand into one of your most important channels for direct revenue, it’s important to understand your choices in terms of pricing models. 

At Metadesk, we talk to hoteliers every day and have encountered a wide variety of various pricing models for metasearch advertising. Here’s a handy breakdown of pricing models you might consider, or in some cases, be stuck with. 

A Media Placement Fee

We mostly see this pricing model offered by booking engine providers, and if you’re like most hoteliers, your metasearch presence is facilitated by your booking engine. 

Most booking engines charge you a percentage of what you allocate as your metasearch media budget, usually between 10% - 15% applied to a media budget ranging from $1,000 - $3,000 per month.

Booking engine providers love this because it’s a low labor source of revenue - they simply need to maintain a tech connection that publishes a live feed of your rates and availability to metasearch channels and collect a tidy fee.

If the percentage you pay in media fees + your metasearch advertising budget is lower than your OTA commissions, this model can be a win. But a problem we see more and more is that OTA’s are spending huge amounts of advertising dollars to dominate metasearch. And if your booking engine doesn’t allow for any media strategy whatsoever, you’re at a huge disadvantage.

Best for:

This pricing model works well for advantaged hotels that tend to fill up based on their location or surplus demand in their market.

One main drawback is if you want to use metasearch for more, like targeting need dates or a certain type of traveler, forget it. Your booking engine isn’t capable of incorporating any type of strategic targeting on your behalf. 


Flat Fee + Media Budget


The second-most common pricing model we see at Metadesk in the industry is a flat fee + media budget. We commonly see a range of advertising budgets of around $1,000 - $1,500 with the management fee ranging from $400 - $75 on the low end ($75!!).

At first glance, this seems like a great deal for hoteliers, especially with macro-economic factors like rising marketing costs and operational overhead.

But what we find is that for a management fee so low, the metasearch provider must work hard to limit their labor cost; the aim is to avoid providing support, and typically nobody is actively managing your advertising campaigns.

Instead, these providers try to manage your strategy with algorithmic and programmatic functions alone, which can be problematic without oversight provided by humans. One common problem we see is your rate strategy being compromised by automated price-matching to meet or beat the unscrupulous practice of big OTA undercutting your rates in auction.

In regards to budget, the issue here is two-fold: Many properties would prefer not to pony up even that small amount of cash each month if it can be avoided, and on top of that, the budget can oftentimes be too small to really compete with big OTA.

Best for:A flat fee + media budget is best for small to mid-sized hotels, with mid-range annualized ADR, in low to non-competitive markets.


Pay-Per-Stay Commission Model


A performance-based model that charges a commission for only stays that take place, this model works well for hoteliers that need more from metasearch and who have decided to prioritize ways to increase direct bookings.

Hoteliers like this model because it aligns their interests with that of their metasearch partner. They’re only billed for stays that take place; typically cancellations, and even reservations created by your loyalty members, are excluded from billing.

Another big advantage of this model is the fact that the 3rd party provider assumes all of the financial risk and funds your advertising budget.

It also means that, in theory, your budget is uncapped and only limited by the travel demand in your market. Your metasearch partner will keep spending as long as they’re generating reservations. This means that instead of your cash flow that determines your advertising budget, which can be arbitrary and restrictive, it’s market demand.

Best for:

This pricing model works well for properties in a competitive market that need to utilize metasearch as a strategic advertising channel to help address need periods (like mid-week vs weekend, on vs off-season, etc.) and target individual travel segments.

One huge plus is that properties using this model don’t have to come out of pocket for their metasearch advertising budget.  

Organic Only Flat Fee

If you’ve never heard of this pricing model, it’s because we just invented it 😎 And as we write this piece, this model isn’t available anywhere else.

Despite a flat fee + media budget model being very low cost in nature, some hotels simply don’t have enough inventory to make the math make sense. They may struggle to see a return on even a low budget amount of $1,000 per month, and giving away a percentage of the channel is not a great idea when your total monthly profit is low figures.

That’s why we’ve developed a low-cost way for hoteliers to display an organic listing only. And with a strategic rate strategy (sSuch as a loyalty or member rate channeled to meta) your official site will still be there at the moment of booking, alongside OTA channels with a higher rate.

Best for:

Small hotels, or those with a low ADR, where traditional metasearch pricing models just don’t work.



We hope you found this breakdown useful and informative. At Metadesk, we offer a range of metasearch products to best serve your unique needs.

Please reach out if you’d like to discuss your metasearch advertising strategy and which model might work best for your property’s unique needs.

The Importance Of Hotel Metasearch

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Hotel metasearch engines work as aggregators, pulling data from various sources to create a list of available room rates for a potential guest to choose from. They improve the booking experience for your guests, making it easier to reserve rooms and compare rates.

On the surface, hotel metasearch may seem like yet another distribution channel, but it's vital to any successful hotel marketing strategy. Metasearch can improve the guest experience, help you beat online travel agencies (OTAs) to recapture direct bookings, and effectively target "bottom of the funnel" guests. You should consider using hotel metasearch to take advantage of a significant marketing opportunity.

Improved Guest Experience

Gone are the days of browsing multiple websites for rates before booking a hotel room. Hotel metasearch engines will do the work of research and organization for your guests, removing the hard part of making a reservation. The guest experience starts long before they set foot on your property, and the ease of booking through a metasearch engine will create a positive association between you and your guests. 

This easy booking process can also increase the chances of a guest visiting at all. Because so many hotels already use metasearch, manual rate shopping needs to be updated. If guests can not easily find your official rates on a metasearch engine, they may be discouraged from booking. And if your competition is the one skipping metasearch, that same discouragement could lead a potential guest to your hotel instead.

Beating Online Travel Agencies

OTAs have been using hotel metasearch for years and will continue to do so for many more to come. If you want to maintain a competitive edge, it’s vital that you throw your hat into the ring as well.  

OTAs have large marketing budgets that can easily outshine your own marketing efforts, so you need to do everything you can to beat them out and capture direct bookings. If you're absent on hotel metasearch, this is an automatic win for the OTAs. Guests can't book direct if there's no direct listing available!

If you are present on hotel metasearch, your official rates can easily win out. Since hotel metasearch engines display booking options side-by-side, it's effortless for guests to compare. If your official rates are equal to or lower than those of OTAs, guests are more likely to book direct. And more direct bookings means more money in your own pocket.

Hotel metasearch engines can even update automatically with discounted rates, and this is a great way to stand out above OTAs. “Book Direct” offers and other exclusive packages will be reflected in the hotel metasearch feed, lowering your rates and making a direct booking even more appealing. 

Targeting “Bottom Of The Funnel” Guests

Hotel metasearch is about as “bottom of the funnel” as you can get. This is the final step between your guest and their reservation, and it shouldn’t be overlooked. 

If you’re not nailing the bottom of the funnel, you’re sacrificing the effectiveness of all your other marketing efforts. Even if you convince a guest to stay with you over your competition, that stay loses some of its value if the final booking goes to an OTA. You work hard with your marketing, so you should maintain a strong presence to the final moments. OTAs will use metasearch with or without you, so don’t skip out on your opportunity to compete. 

Getting Started With Hotel Metasearch

To get the most out of hotel metasearch, you need to connect with a metasearch partner. They can ensure your official rates are displayed in the lists created by hotel metasearch engines, allowing you to stay competitive on these channels. 


If you’re ready to get started with hotel metasearch, check out our post on metasearch basics or contact Metadesk.

Google Hotel CPC & Metasearch for Hotels

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In the world of online travel first came the search engines, then the OTAs (online travel agencies, i.e. Expedia) and most recently the metasearch engine websites such as Trivago and Kayak. Hoteliers are forced to evolve and utilize new online channels to be visible and compete effectively online.  But what is the most effective way for hotels to use these channels? Since the launch of Google’s Hotel CPC program, hotels must now use a combination of search engine and metasearch campaigns just to be visible throughout Google’s search engine features. What are you doing to ensure your hotel is visible and driving qualified traffic across these online channels? Let’s break down what metasearch for hotels means, where it fits into your online marketing strategy and how hotels can be successful using this marketing channel.

WHAT IS HOTEL METASEARCH?

Unlike OTAs such as Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity, metasearch engines don’t hold their own inventory of hotel rooms. Instead, metasearch engines pull data from other search engines to provide information to users about rates and availability. The metasearch engine will then direct the user from their website to the original source (i.e. OTA or hotel website) to book their stay. The metasearch engine will then receive a referral commission or CPC charge for sending the traffic to the hotel or airline website.

Examples of Hotel Metasearch include:

  • Kayak
  • Trivago
  • Google’s Hotel Ads
  • TripAdvisor
  • Hipmunk
  • Skyscanner

WHY SHOULD HOTELS PARTICIPATE IN METASEARCH

  • IT IS IMPORTANT FOR HOTELS TO BE VISIBLE WHERE CONSUMERS ARE RESEARCHING, FROM THE TOP OF THE FUNNEL TO THE BOTTOM. This requires a strategy that incorporates multiple channels including search engines, metasearch engines, OTAs, social media and more.  Metasearch should be viewed as another tool to gain exposure to new customers and drive conversions. Just like all tools in your hotel’s marketing strategy it should be tested and analyzed to assess if it is successful in achieving your business goals and objectives.
  • TO COMPETE WITH OTAS AND THEIR COMPETITION FOR DIRECT BOOKINGS. Similar to paid search campaigns, metasearch campaigns allow hotel’s to compete with OTAs for ad space that is critical in driving direct bookings through the hotel website. If you’re not present with ads in metasearch you are losing out on bookings to competition and OTAs. If the consumer books through an OTA you’re losing out on critical information needed to market to those guests in the future and increase the lifetime value of the guest.
  • VOICE ASSISTANT TRAVEL SEARCH IS CURRENTLY POWERED BY METASEARCH. Voice assistants, such as Alexa and Google Home, are the newest channel for search powered exposure to consumers. Currently, these devices are partnering with metasearch engines such as Kayak to provide hotel, flight and travel search results. The metasearch and OTAs are going to be the first to provide a way to enter this channel. My prediction is that if you want your hotel to be present in these voice assistant searches you’ll need to be visible through metasearch channels.
  • LOCAL SEARCH IS MOVING TOWARDS A PAY-TO-PLAY MODEL. Google is continuing to monetize search results, the most recent changes being seen in local search within the Google My Business listings and map pack. Just a couple weeks ago Google changed their map results to show rate cards directly on the map, as shown below:



Here’s another view, taken directly from inside Google Maps:

Screen-Shot-2017-08-15-at-3.52.07-PM

In the above screenshot, you can see two different ways Google’s monetized the local search results for hotels. The first is the ads on the far right for Cambria Hotel and AC Hotel. These ads are managed directly through Google Adwords paid search campaigns. The second is shown in the details view for Omni Chicago Hotel, which are the OTA channels displaying with rates – these ads are populated through Google’s Hotel CPC program. Google’s Hotel CPC program is a form of metasearch and managed separately from Google Adwords paid search campaigns.

HOW CAN HOTELS PARTICIPATE IN METASEARCH?

Hotels can participate in Metasearch directly through their Google Hotel partner booking engine providers. The Google Hotel program requires a direct API with rates and inventory feed directly from booking engine to Google. Google Hotel CPC partners include Synxis, TravelClick and more. You can find a full list here. Pricing through your booking engine is typically set up on a commission based model that charges you a percentage based on revenue from reservations driven by the campaigns. Some also charge CPCs on top of this commission. Review contracts with your booking engine partner to ensure it will be a profitable model for your hotel.

HOW CAN HOTELS BE SUCCESSFUL WITH METASEARCH?

Just like all other marketing channels and campaigns, it is important to closely monitor key performance indicators from your metasearch campaigns.

  • Work closely with your booking engine partner to ensure you are receiving reports that detail clicks, CPCs, costs, reservations and revenue attributed to these campaigns.
  • Monitor KPIs through each metasearch channel – which channels are performing best? Which ones are costing you money? Not all metasearch channels will perform the same. Make sure your booking engine partner that is managing your campaigns are shifting budget to the ones that work best for your hotel.

Have a question? We can help.

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