Hotel Marketing Guide
12 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Hotel Marketing Agency
The right twelve questions reveal more about a hotel marketing agency than any case study deck. Ask them in your discovery call and you'll know within 30 minutes whether the agency is worth a second meeting.
Most hoteliers walk into agency sales calls without a structured evaluation. The agency drives the conversation, shows polished case studies, and leaves the call before any hard questions get asked. This guide gives you the twelve questions we recommend asking — straight from what experienced hotel buyers actually use to filter vendors.
The 12 questions
Use these in order. The first six are about credibility; the next six are about execution and accountability.
- How many hotels are you currently managing, and what's your average client tenure?
- Can I speak to two current hotel clients of comparable size to mine?
- Walk me through a recent case study — specifically the direct-booking growth and OTA-share change.
- Who will actually run my account day-to-day? What's their hotel marketing experience?
- What's your approach to AI search and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
- How do you handle source-market segmentation in paid media?
- Do I own my Google Ads, Meta, GA4, and Google Business Profile accounts?
- What's included in the retainer vs charged separately?
- Is your fee a flat retainer or a percentage of ad spend? Why?
- How will you report results monthly, and what KPIs do you commit to?
- What's your contract length, and what happens if performance lags?
- What's a realistic timeline for direct-booking growth on a property like mine?
Frequently asked questions
Which question matters most?
Account ownership (question 7) and named team assignments (question 4). If the agency hesitates on either, walk away — these are the two areas where weak agencies create lock-in that costs you later.
How long should a discovery call be?
30–45 minutes is enough for a strong agency to give substantive answers to most of these questions. If the agency wants 60+ minutes without depth, they're selling, not strategizing.
Want to ask us these questions directly?
Book a 30-minute call. We'll answer all twelve on the call, with specifics from current client engagements — no decks, no fluff.
Book a strategy call →