Google Ads and Facebook ads for tours: when they pay off
An ad pays while each booking it brings costs less than a booking site would take for it.
Know the most a booking may cost
Your ceiling is the commission a booking site would take. A Google search ad against a booking site at 25%:
| Shared tour | Private tour | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | US$60 | US$500 |
| The booking site keeps (25%) | US$15 | US$125 |
| The ad costs per booking | about US$71 | about US$71 |
| Against the booking site | US$56 more a booking | US$54 less a booking |
The ad's cost assumes US$2.14 a click, LocaliQ's 2026 average for travel search ads, and 3 bookings for every 100 clicks, an example. Google's Keyword Planner shows click prices in your country; measure your own bookings.
Choose the ad for the job
| Ad | Reaches | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Google search ads | People searching for a tour like yours now | Private and high-priced tours, and your own name |
| Meta ads, on Facebook and Instagram | People who don't know you yet, by country, language and interests | Travellers from a new country, and retargeting |
| A boosted post | More people see one post | Reach, not bookings: see Social media |
Start small on Google
- 1
Bid on your own name if others do
Competitors and resellers may buy ads on your business name, shown above your website in the results. An ad of your own puts you there too.
- 2
Advertise one or two best-sellers
Choose 5 to 15 search phrases for each, matched exactly, and block searches with words such as free, jobs, map or pdf (Google's negative keywords).
- 3
Send each ad to its tour page
In the searcher's language, with booking on the page.
- 4
Judge after 100 to 200 clicks a tour
About US$210 to 430 at the travel average. Keep the keywords that bring bookings.
Start small on Meta
- One campaign, one budget, and 2 or 3 ads to compare.
- Leave it alone for its first week: big changes restart Meta's learning.
- Meta's ads learn best from about 50 results a week (2026). Until your bookings reach that, optimise for a step that happens more often, such as a started checkout.
- Retarget recent visitors and video viewers.
Track every booking back to its ad
Set these up before you spend:
- 1Analytics on your website
Such as Google Analytics: where visitors come from, and where they leave.
- 2Meta's and Google's tracking code
The Meta Pixel and the Google tag on your booking pages, reporting each booking with its value.
- 3Bookings reported by your booking system
From its server too, so phone bookings and browsers that block tracking still count. Meta calls it the Conversions API.
- 4A tracking tag on every link you control
Posts, e-mails and flyers' QR codes: a tracking tag shows where each booking came from.
Compare your channels every month
| Channel | Bookings | Revenue | Cost | Cost ÷ revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google search ads | 6 | 2,100 | 420 | 20% |
| Meta ads | 4 | 360 | 200 | 56% |
| Booking site at 25% | 20 | 1,800 | 450 | 25% |
Keep an ad while its share stays below a booking site's, and change or stop the rest. Here, the Google ads pay and the Meta ads don't.
In TourTask
Enter your Meta Pixel and Google Ads IDs under Website integrations → Tracking, and fill in Server-side conversions to report phone and in-person bookings too: see Conversion tracking. Ad tracking works on your own domain, not on a tourtask.site address.