Performance Max for Restaurants & Hotels: From Setup to ROAS

When to use PMax (and when not to)

Campaign structure for hospitality

• Split campaigns by market/region (e.g., London vs Midlands) or business line (Restaurants vs Hotels).
• Asset groups by intent:
  • Brand (protect; can live in Search instead if you prefer).
  • Near-me + Cuisine/City (Italian in Manchester, brunch in Leeds).
  • Occasions (Bottomless Brunch, Sunday Roast, Private Dining, Christmas Parties).
  • Local events (Watch Football, F1 Sundays) with deep links to evergreen pages.
• Audience signals: your first-party lists (site visitors, bookers), in-market for dining/travel, restaurant & hotel affinity.
• Locations: target presence-based areas around each venue; exclude irrelevant regions; use store/location groups if you have many sites.

Creative assets that actually perform

Conversions, values & offline imports

• Track with value: Reservations (value = expected spend per cover × expected covers), Online orders (basket value), Click-to-call (proxy value), Directions (small proxy value) and Private Dining enquiries (lead value).
• Import offline bookings from your reservation system or CRM so PMax can learn from real revenue, not just clicks.
• Phone conversions: track call length and store-hours windows; import to Google Ads/GA4.
• Hotels: pass booking revenue and cancellation windows; if using a booking engine, send the transaction value back to Ads.

ROAS for hospitality: targets, math & value rules

1) Set your break-even ROAS

Break-even ROAS = Revenue ÷ Max affordable ad spend per booking.

Example (Restaurant)
Avg spend/booking (2 covers × £30) = £60
Gross margin (after COGS) = 70% → £42 gross profit
Target profit to keep per booking = £12
Max ad spend per booking = £42 − £12 = £30
Break-even ROAS = £60 ÷ £30 = 2.0 (200%)

Example (Hotel)
ADR (avg room price) = £150
Gross margin after OTA/COGS = 60% → £90 gross profit
Target profit to keep = £30
Max ad spend per booking = £60
Break-even ROAS = £150 ÷ £60 = 2.5 (250%)

Start your tROAS a touch above break-even for safety (e.g., 220–280% restaurants, 260–320% hotels), then relax or tighten based on capacity and seasonality.

2) Model lifetime value (optional)

If guests return often, you can justify a lower first-order ROAS. For example, if a brunch guest returns 3×/year, that lowers the tROAS requirement today. Keep two dashboards: First-Order ROAS and LTV-Adjusted ROAS.

3) Use Value Rules to weight high-value traffic

• Location weight: +30% value for venues with higher spend per cover.
• Menu/occasion weight: +40% for Private Dining enquiries; +15% for Sunday Roast bookings.
• Audience weight: +20% for past purchasers; +10% for in-market diners/travellers.

4) Bidding flow that protects ROAS

1. Launch on Maximise Conversion Value (no target) for 1–2 weeks to gather signal.
2. Set tROAS at break-even + safety (e.g., 220%).
3. Scale budgets after 7–14 days of stability; adjust tROAS gradually (±10–20%).
4. Use seasonality adjustments for big spikes (Mother’s Day, finals, Christmas) and data exclusions if tracking breaks.

5) ROAS troubleshooting

• Low ROAS + low volume: asset gaps, over-tight tROAS, or geo too wide; add video/photos, loosen tROAS, narrow to highest-value postcodes.
• Low ROAS + high spend: poor value mapping; fix conversion values, add Value Rules; check brand exclusions.
• Great ROAS + capped spend: raise budget or lower tROAS slightly; duplicate winning asset groups into their own campaigns if needed.

Guardrails: exclusions & URL controls

• Brand Exclusions: stop PMax from soaking up cheap brand traffic unless you want it; keep Brand in a separate Search campaign.
• Account negatives (where supported): block job seekers, recipes, wholesale/irrelevant terms.
• Final URL expansion controls: limit auto-expansion to menus/reservations/locations; exclude blog articles if they don’t convert.
• Geo hygiene: exclude far postcodes or regions you can’t serve; focus on high-value catchments.

Weekly optimisation checklist

• Review search terms insights and asset group performance; rotate 2–3 new assets weekly.
• Check location and hour-of-day reports; push budget towards high-value times/areas.
• Verify conversion values and phone call imports; sanity-check average values.
• Feed winners into Search and expand occasion pages via Seasonal SEO.

Reporting that decision-makers care about

FAQs

Should hotels use “Hotel campaigns” instead?

Where supported, yes—Hotel campaigns are built for room pricing and availability. Use PMax alongside for brand discovery, dining, bar, events and spa traffic.

Can I day-part PMax?

Use budget changes and seasonality adjustments to bias spend around peak service times. Keep Search day-parting tight around booking windows.

What creative lifts ROAS fastest?

Short video of the actual venue, clear offer/occasion, and a clean booking CTA—plus sitelinks to Menu/Reserve/Locations.