OTA Ads in Digital Marketing

Gabriela Garcia

Updated October 15, 2026 13:28

Purpose	Learn how to subscribe to OTA Ads, set up and schedule an Expedia advertising campaign, and monitor campaign performance from Cloudbeds Digital Marketing.
Best for	Property and account owner · Specialized manager
Use this when	You want to promote your property on Expedia search results pages using OTA Ads in Cloudbeds Digital Marketing.
Requirements	Cloudbeds Digital Marketing, an OTA Ads subscription, an active Expedia connection or agreement, an active Expedia property listing, available Cloudbeds credits, and the required OTA Travel Ads role privileges.
Expected result	You can create an Expedia advertising campaign, set the budget and visibility, schedule when it runs, configure occupancy-based pausing, choose ad creative, and review campaign performance.
Limitations	Expedia does not provide individual reservation IDs in OTA Ads reporting, so individual Cloudbeds reservation IDs are not available in the OTA Ads performance view.

Introduction

OTA Ads helps you promote your property on online travel agency search results pages directly from Cloudbeds Digital Marketing.

With OTA Ads, you can create and manage cost-per-click advertising campaigns from your Cloudbeds account. Expedia is the first supported channel for this product. When travelers click your ad, they are sent to your live Expedia listing, and the booking is completed on Expedia.

OTA Ads is designed to help your property increase visibility with travelers who are already searching on Expedia.

The video below provides an overview of OTA Ads and how the product helps you promote your property on Expedia from Cloudbeds Digital Marketing.

Before you start

To use OTA Ads, your property needs:

An active Expedia connection or agreement.
An active Expedia property listing.
An active Cloudbeds Digital Marketing subscription.
An active OTA Ads subscription.
Available Cloudbeds credits for campaign ad spend.
A role with the required OTA Travel Ads privileges.

OTA Ads uses Cloudbeds credits for campaign ad spend. You can choose how much budget to invest in the campaign and optionally configure Auto-refill settings.

OTA Ads role privileges

OTA Ads permissions are managed from the Users section in Cloudbeds PMS. Go to Users, open the Roles tab, and review the Digital Marketing privileges.

The OTA Ads privileges appear as:

OTA Travel Ads: Admin: Allows the user to subscribe, edit the daily budget, and customize campaign content.
OTA Travel Ads: Manager: Allows the user to customize campaign content.

Screenshot of the Digital Marketing role privileges showing OTA Travel Ads: Admin and OTA Travel Ads: Manager options.

To review or update role permissions, see Add, edit or delete roles.

If you cannot access OTA Ads or complete the setup, ask your Property Owner or a user with permission to manage roles to confirm that your role has the correct OTA Travel Ads privilege enabled.

What you can do with OTA Ads

With OTA Ads, you can:

Subscribe to OTA Ads from Cloudbeds Digital Marketing.
Create an Expedia advertising campaign.
Set your campaign budget.
Optionally configure Auto-refill credits and a monthly refill limit.
Choose a visibility level.
Set campaign start and end dates.
Configure the campaign to pause automatically based on forecasted occupancy.
Select images from your Expedia image library.
Use AI-generated text for your ad title and description.
Preview your ad before starting the campaign.
Monitor campaign status and performance from the dashboard.

Subscribe to OTA Ads

Use the OTA Ads tab in Cloudbeds Digital Marketing to review the subscription details, confirm the requirements, select your campaign credits, and start the setup process.

In your Cloudbeds PMS, click the Main Menu icon and go to Digital Marketing.

Click the OTA Ads tab.
Click Get started.
In the Sign up for OTA Ads drawer, review the campaign information, including the monthly fee, ad budget, and requirements.
Click Continue.

In OTA campaign settings, use the Budget step to select your preferred campaign credits.
To keep your campaign funded automatically, enable Auto-refill credits and select the refill amount. To control how many successful automatic refills can occur in a calendar month, enable Max refills per month and select the maximum number of refills.
Review your payment method. If needed, add a valid payment method.
Review and accept the terms and conditions.
Click Sign up.

Auto-refill limits: For monthly reset timing, what happens when the limit is reached, failed-payment behavior, and unlimited Auto-refill behavior when no monthly limit is set, see the Digital Marketing General FAQ.

The Sign up button becomes available after all required options and checkboxes are selected. After you sign up, continue through the campaign settings to configure visibility, image, text, and preview options.

Set up and manage your OTA Ads campaign

After subscribing, use the OTA campaign settings drawer to configure your campaign. The setup includes budget, visibility, campaign scheduling, occupancy-based pausing, image, text, and preview settings.

Budget

Use the Budget step to choose how many credits you want to invest in your OTA Ads campaign and manage optional Auto-refill settings.

Select the campaign credit option you want to use.
Optionally enable Auto-refill credits and select the refill amount.
Optionally enable Max refills per month and select the monthly refill limit.
Review your payment method.
Click Continue.

OTA Ads uses prepaid Cloudbeds credits for ad spend. If the campaign runs out of available credits, the campaign pauses automatically. If you use a monthly refill limit, automatic refills stop after the configured limit is reached for that month.

For more information about Auto-refill credits and monthly refill limits, including reset timing and what happens when the limit is reached, see the Digital Marketing General FAQ.

Visibility

Use the Visibility step to choose how actively your campaign competes for placement on Expedia search results pages and configure when the campaign should run.

The visibility slider ranges from increasing ROI to increasing views. The middle option is labeled Medium and balances cost with the number of times your ads are shown to travelers.

A higher visibility setting may help your ad compete more actively, depending on Expedia search demand, availability, and other marketplace factors.

Schedule your campaign

Use Campaign start/end to select the dates when you want the campaign to run.

Pause the campaign based on occupancy

Enable Pause campaign if occupancy is above to pause the campaign automatically when forecasted occupancy for the selected period is above the percentage you choose.

Select:

The occupancy percentage that should trigger the pause.
The future period Cloudbeds should evaluate.

Cloudbeds evaluates forecasted occupancy daily. If occupancy is above the configured threshold for the selected period, the campaign pauses automatically. When occupancy falls below the threshold, the campaign automatically restarts.

Example: If you configure the campaign to pause when occupancy for the next week is above 90%, Cloudbeds checks the forecast daily and pauses or restarts the campaign based on the configured threshold.

Image

Use the Image step to select the image that will appear in your ad.

OTA Ads uses images imported from Expedia. To use a new image in your OTA Ads campaign, upload the image to your Expedia property profile first. Cloudbeds retrieves eligible images from Expedia through the connection.

After the image is available in Cloudbeds, you can select it during campaign setup.

Screenshot of the OTA campaign settings Image step showing images imported from Expedia

Text

Use the Text step to review or customize your ad headline and description.

OTA Ads can generate ad text for your campaign. Select a Tone and voice, then click Generate with AI to generate a headline and description. Review the suggested text before saving the campaign, and edit it if needed so it accurately represents your property.

Expedia applies formatting requirements to OTA Ads headlines and descriptions. The headline and description must start with a capital letter. Do not use:

Exclamation marks (!) in the headline or description.
Words with three or more letters written entirely in capital letters. Two-letter abbreviations are allowed.
Percentage discounts.
URLs, email addresses, or phone numbers.
Hashtags.
Gimmicky symbols, formatting, or spacing, such as *Great* or W-O-W.
Repeated punctuation or repeated words.

Preview

Use the Preview step to review how your ad may appear before saving your changes.

Check that the image, headline, and description are correct. The preview may include sample data that does not reflect actual traveler-facing information.

When everything looks ready, click Save.

Screenshot of the OTA campaign settings Preview step showing the ad preview and Save button

Monitor OTA Ads performance

After your campaign is active, use the OTA Ads dashboard to monitor campaign status and performance.

The dashboard may show information such as:

Campaign status and the reason for the current campaign state.
Campaign ROI
Spend
Revenue
Current and previous bookings
Current and previous clicks
Current and previous views
Remaining budget
Impressions

Expedia does not provide individual reservation IDs in OTA Ads reporting. As a result, the OTA Ads performance view shows aggregated campaign results rather than individual Cloudbeds reservation IDs.

Screenshot of the active OTA Ads dashboard showing ROI, spend, revenue, performance chart, Expedia row, remaining budget, impressions, clicks, bookings, spend, and revenue