Marketing and RM in concert — promo timing

Thursday morning. Esther, the marketing manager, walks into Daniel’s office: “Daniel, I’m planning a January Facebook campaign. 5,000 EUR budget. Where should I put it?”

Daniel looks up from the pickup board for a moment. “Before I answer — what’s the campaign’s goal?”

Esther: “To grow January occupancy. My boss says we need a campaign.”

Daniel: “That’s not enough. Which days? Which segment? At what price level? Because if you spread it across all of January, on a few days the campaign takes out the high-paying guest, and elsewhere it’s wasted because the hotel would fill on its own.”

Esther is surprised. “So far you’ve only told me to go to the low-season Saturdays.”

Daniel: “Exactly. Let’s look together — which 5-7 days are the targeted ones.”

This dialogue is the core of the marketing-RM interplay. In the classic hotel organization the two teams optimize separately: the RM on the price and capacity side, marketing on the acquisition side. If they don’t align, dramatic revenue loss results.

The goal of this lesson is for you to understand: what the two teams’ shared language is, when it’s worth running a promo, when not, and how we measure a campaign’s success.

The two teams’ perspectives

The RM and the marketing team solve a fundamentally different problem:

Aspect	RM	Marketing
Central question	”At what price do we sell the capacity?"	"How do we drive traffic to the capacity?”
Time horizon	0-30 days, tactical	30-90 days (campaign planning), 90+ days (brand building)
Success metric	RevPAR, TRevPAR, ADR	CTR (click-through rate), CPM, CPA, booking conversion
Data need	Pickup-pace, segment mix, compset	Audience data, campaign performance, channel attribution

The two teams use different metrics, run different systems (PMS+RMS vs. Google Ads, Facebook, Meta-pixel), and see different priorities.

The modern organization aligns the two — shared language, shared goal, shared measurement.

The shared language: pace and pickup

Pace and pickup (lessons 16-17) are the shared language between the two teams. In a mature organization the marketing manager sees daily:

• Which 7-10 days are underperforming on pace (weak OTB, slow pickup).
• Which segment is slowing the most (see lesson 21, segmentation lenses).
• On which channel to amplify (direct, OTA feature, metasearch).

Hotel Peaqplus City’s January pace map:

Period	OTB	Budget	Pace state	Marketing action needed?
January 1-7	32%	40%	Strong underperformance	Yes
January 8-14	52%	50%	OK	No
January 15-21	38%	48%	Underperformance	Yes
January 22-28	62%	62%	OK	No
January 29 – Feb 4	72%	65%	Outperformance	No — rate increase

The chart says immediately: the campaign budget should go to January 1-7 and 15-21, not the whole month.

The 4 main types of marketing action

A hotel’s marketing toolkit consists of four main campaign types:

1. Performance marketing (direct-booking-driven)

Google Ads (Search, Hotel Ads), Facebook/Instagram, Meta-pixel-based retargeting. Measurable: every booked room can be tied to a specific ad.

• When to use: fast pickup growth for a specific period (1-4 weeks).
• Target segment: transient leisure, transient occasion, sometimes transient business.
• Typical CPA (cost-per-acquisition): 8-25 EUR in a city 4-star hotel.

2. Brand marketing

Image campaigns, PR, content marketing, social media. Hard to measure, long-term effect.

• When to use: to strengthen the hotel’s position, build brand value (12+ months).
• Goal: grow the direct repeat rate, market positioning.

3. Email marketing (loyalty / membership)

Your own email list. Highly measurable, low cost.

• When to use: repeat-booking incentives, exclusive deals, low-season offers.
• Target segment: returning guest, member-rate holder.
• Typical conversion: 1-3% of the list sent.

4. OTA marketing (Booking, Expedia commission / Genius / Preferred)

The hotel pays more to the OTA (higher commission, or a Genius/Plus/Preferred program) in exchange for a higher ranking position.

• When to use: to grow OTA pickup fast.
• Target segment: transient leisure (OTA-dominated).
• Cost: typically +3-5% commission on the OTA booking.

The “when is it worth running a promo” — 4 questions

Before launching a promo action, run through 4 questions:

1. Is there a real demand gap on those days?

The pickup board (lesson 16) shows it: if pace is −8 pp behind last year, that’s a problem. If it’s +5 pp ahead — no promo needed.

2. Does the promo reach the right segment?

A Sunday Brunch package is targeted at the Sunday-shape weak spots — on an average midweek day it doesn’t work.

A Last Minute Deal brings the transient leisure (OTA) segment, but not the corporate segment (because they don’t book via OTA).

3. Is the price point relevant?

A 15% discount won’t move a luxury guest. A 5% discount won’t move a price-sensitive leisure traveler.

The price move must be proportional to the segment’s sensitivity (see lesson 8).

4. Does the campaign cost outweigh the incremental revenue?

The classic calculation:

Incremental revenue = (New bookings × Net ADR) − (Campaign cost + Channel commission)

If a campaign with a 5,000 EUR Facebook budget brings 30 new bookings at OTA standard ADR (~95 EUR × 2 nights × 30 = 5,700 EUR), but the campaign cost is 5,000 EUR + ~15% commission (≈855 EUR) = 5,855 EUR, then the campaign is loss-making (5,700 < 5,855).

In a mature RM-marketing partnership every campaign is computed up front.

The “when NOT to run a promo”

A few classic situations where a promo is wasted:

Situation 1: Event-peak days

A Coldplay concert on a Saturday has built the demand. A promo here is just an ADR cut that the guest would have paid anyway.

Situation 2: Strong pace advantage

If there’s a +5 pp pace advantage over the next 30 days, the hotel fills itself. The promo is just lost revenue.

Situation 3: One segment dominates

If a given day is expected to be 70% corporate bookings, an OTA promo doesn’t work there — the corporate segment doesn’t book via OTA.

Situation 4: Brand damage

If a hotel regularly runs Last Minute Deals, guests learn to wait. The long-term ADR drops, because everyone waits for the discount.

Measuring the campaign — incremental vs. cannibalization

This is the most important measurement concept in promo timing. Two terms:

• Incremental = new bookings the campaign brings in (the guest wouldn’t have come otherwise).
• Cannibalization = bookings that arrive even without the campaign — but come in at a lower price, because of the campaign’s reduced ADR.

A concrete example: Hotel Peaqplus City launches a January Last Minute Deal campaign (BAR −15%):

• 30 bookings arrive in the campaign period
• Of which 12 are new (who wouldn’t have come without the campaign — incremental)
• 18 who would have come anyway at standard ADR (cannibalization)

The full effect:

• Incremental revenue: 12 × (95 EUR × 0.85) × 2 nights = 1,938 EUR
• Cannibalization loss: 18 × (95 EUR × 0.15) × 2 nights = 513 EUR
• Net incremental: 1,938 − 513 = 1,425 EUR

If the campaign cost was 800 EUR, then it’s net positive 625 EUR. It was worth it.

Measuring cannibalization is hard — a mature RM organization runs an A/B test (we cover this at expert level in lesson 61).

Hotel Peaqplus City’s January campaign plan

Back to the opening scene. Daniel and Esther plan the January campaign together:

Period	Pace state	Action	Budget	Expected incremental
January 1-7	−8 pp	Direct Last Minute Deal + Facebook/IG retargeting	2,500 EUR	~25 bookings, +2,800 EUR net
January 15-21	−10 pp	Sunday Brunch package + Google Hotel Ads	1,500 EUR	~15 bookings, +1,600 EUR net
January 22-28	OK	No campaign	0 EUR	–
January 29 – Feb 4	+7 pp	BAR increase	0 EUR (negative cost)	+1,200 EUR ADR uplift

The total January marketing budget is 4,000 EUR (instead of the original 5,000 — 1,000 EUR saved), and the expected net incremental is 5,600 EUR. ROI: 140%.

Esther nods: “This is cleaner than what we did in the past months. My boss will be happy too, because more revenue comes in at a lower cost.”

Daniel: “Exactly. The RM and marketing’s shared pace view decides this. Don’t spend on the days that fill themselves — focus on the underperforming days.”

The role of the Peaqplus Insight Engine + Pickup

The Peaqplus Insight Engine module gives automatic promo-timing suggestions. A few concrete capabilities:

• Pace-anomaly flagging — based on the pickup module, Peaqplus flags which dates are slipping into pace underperformance.
• Segment-level suggestion — “The transient leisure segment for January 15-21 is slowing by −12%. Suggested action: a direct member-rate campaign.”
• Incremental estimate — “Estimated 15 new bookings, ~1,600 EUR net incremental, suggested budget 1,500 EUR.”
• Action follow-up — the campaign is measurable afterwards on the Peaqplus Dashboard (new-booking contribution, ADR effect).

In lesson 53 (AI narrative and human-readable reports) the Insight Engine also gives a natural-language summary: “January pace underperforms in the 1-7 and 15-21 periods. The main cause: a two-thirds weakening of the transient leisure direct segment. Suggested action: two targeted direct-marketing campaigns, combined budget ~4,000 EUR, expected net incremental ~5,600 EUR.”

In lesson 46 (Promotional strategy — when, how much, to whom) we cover strategic promo planning at advanced level.

Key takeaways

• The RM and marketing teams see different perspectives — the RM on price-capacity, marketing on acquisition. The pace view is the shared language.
• The 4 marketing-action types (performance, brand, email, OTA) suit different goals — campaign choice is segment- and pace-based.
• Promo timing requires 4 questions: is there a real demand gap, the right segment, a relevant price point, does it outweigh the cost.
• Incremental vs. cannibalization — a campaign is successful only if the net incremental revenue outweighs the cost.
• The Peaqplus Insight Engine + Pickup gives automatic promo-timing suggestions, and per lesson 53 communicates them in an AI narrative.