A 71x ROAS Campaign On A Limited Hotel Marketing Budget

About The Client

For hotels in the competitive regional market of Southern Isan, real growth demands a disciplined digital strategy that can win direct, high-value bookings and maximise total guest value – especially when going up against Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) on a tight budget.

Our client dealt with this reality every day: with a hard monthly cap of just ฿30,000, they needed an exceptionally efficient approach to capture traveller intent and prove a clear return on every Baht spent.

As the leading upscale hotel in Ubon Ratchathani, our client serves as a central hub for the region’s business and leisure travel. The hotel upholds the trusted service standards of a global brand, positioning it as the premier choice for guests who are seeking serious quality and reliability.

The Challenge

The main goal was to generate profitable growth within a tightly constrained budget. There were three core commercial challenges standing in our way:

Budget Efficiency Against OTA Dominance:
The ฿30,000 monthly budget had to be allocated with precision to compete effectively for direct bookings, which carry significantly higher margins than OTA channels.
Securing High-Margin Direct Bookings:
The hotel needed to be the first and most visible option at the moment a traveller was ready to book accommodation in the area.
Maximising Total Hotel Revenue:
Success meant looking beyond actively promoting and winning revenue from other key profit centres, such as Food & Beverage and events.

Our Strategy

The numbers don’t lie. We ran a high-efficiency game: Google for the ‘now’ buyers, and Meta to manufacture demand.

Demand Capture (Google Ads) – Winning the Moment of Intent

We focused on travellers who were already in the planning and booking phase. A Google Search campaign targeted high-intent keywords for hotels in Ubon Ratchathani, making sure our client was visible when a conversion was most likely. A supporting Performance Max campaign maintained this newfound visibility across the entire booking journey.

Demand Generation (Meta Ads) – Creating Promotional Urgency

We used Meta’s targeting to drive immediate action around seasonal and promotional offers. Campaigns for packages like “Culture Connect” were built around messaging and conversion objectives, designed to move users from passive browsing to making a direct booking inquiry.

Return on ad spend

35 x

The Results

This budget-conscious, dual-pronged strategy proved that you don’t necessarily need a huge marketing budget to win if you are hunting the right audience.

A 71x Return on a Tactical F&B Campaign:
A year-end buffet promotion demonstrated the power of precision targeting. On a modest, hyper-focused budget of ฿7,000, the campaign generated nearly ฿500,000 in revenue.
Building a Predictable Inquiry Pipeline:
The ongoing campaigns established a consistent, month-over-month increase in direct messages and booking inquiries, creating a dependable lead flow for the reservations team.
Securing a Future High-Value Revenue Stream:
Targeted awareness campaigns for the hotel’s meeting rooms and wedding packages successfully built a pipeline of long-term, high-value leads for their events business.

Our Continuing Work with Them

Our partnership with our client is focused on optimising and building upon this proven, efficient system. We use performance data to reallocate budget to the highest-return activities and develop new creative approaches, so the client’s limited marketing spend works twice as hard to smash their commercial goals.

Do you need to squeeze as much return as possible from a controlled marketing budget? Contact Move Ahead Media and discover what’s possible.