A few days ago I wrote here about Vrbo's sponsored listings pilot, and mentioned in passing that Booking had been charging for visibility for years with its Preferred Partner programme.
Today I want to go back over what Booking actually has.
Booking doesn't just have an extra-commission programme. It has a pay-per-click advertising platform, and it has been open to European properties since February 2023.
What Booking actually offers
They call it Booking Holdings Sponsored Ads. You bid a price per click and your property shows up in the featured positions in results. Not only on Booking.com, the same bid also places you on Priceline and Agoda.
Booking didn't build the platform, Koddi runs it, an advertising technology company in the travel sector. Which is to say, this is not an experiment with two buttons in the extranet but a full-blown ad system, with its targeting (check-in date, travel period, days of the week, length of stay) and its dashboard of impressions, clicks, bookings and cost per booking.
It's an auction like the ones on Google Ads: you pay one cent above the second-highest bidder, not what you bid. And on top of the base bid you can add modifiers, so you pay more only in the cases you care about: check-ins in the next 48 hours, long stays, mobile.
You pay per click. Whether the traveller books or not.
And it isn't the only thing on sale. The Preferred Partner programme charges a few extra points of commission all year in exchange for more visibility and the thumbs-up badge (reserved for the top 30%, and with a 180-day penalty if you're dropped for failing the requirements). The Visibility Booster does the same by dates: you raise the commission only on the check-in dates you choose.
For Preferred Partners, Booking publishes the outcome. It says they get on average 65% more search views and 20% more bookings.
Which is to say: to take home 20% more bookings, they had to come up 65% more times in results. The extra visibility converts considerably worse than the visibility they already had, which is only natural: those are appearances in front of people who mostly weren't going to book them anyway.
Under the Preferred programme that non-converting part is free, because you pay in commission and only when there's a booking. With a pay-per-click ad it isn't: there you pay every time one of those people who was never going to book clicks in for a look.
What Booking says on its own page
It's written on the official partner page:
“80% of bookings are made at properties on the first page of search results. Every time you advertise your property with us, you're guaranteed a spot on this page.”
And a little further down:
“Without Sponsored Ads, 73% of properties end up on later search pages, where they're less visible.”
So eight out of ten bookings are decided on the first page. And the 73% remark is there to push the use of their ad system.
This isn't new
The product was born in 2021 as Booking Native Ads. In August 2022 it was renamed Booking Network Sponsored Ads. In February 2023 it opened to Europe and the Middle East. And the 2026 news is only the latest step: in May, Booking Holdings unified all its advertising under a single brand, BKNG Ads, so that one bid works across its three portals.
So while Vrbo is only now starting to sell visibility, and Airbnb is announcing it, at Booking they've been selling it for three years.
“I don't advertise, so this doesn't affect me”
If the first page is auctioned, the price of that auction also decides where those of us who don't bid end up. Our organic position is no longer a spot we earned and that gets respected. It's starting to be a spot we're left with, out of whatever is free once others have bid.
You can choose not to take part in the auction, but the auction does take part in your performance.
Deciding not to bid is a legitimate decision. Believing it doesn't affect you is not.
What to do about it
1. Organic first, always. Position can be bought; conversion can't. A listing that converts badly and on top of that pays to come up first is paying for more people to skip it. Before bidding for a click you need proven, solid conversion: competitive total price, reviews, photos, fast replies.
2. Measure cost per booking, never cost per click. The dashboard shows you clicks because clicks always go up. Booking's own numbers (65% more search views, 20% more bookings) show why that misleads: what decides whether the ad makes sense is what each booking you win costs you, compared with the commission you already pay.
3. Bid where you need it, not where you're already doing well. Paying to stand out on dates that fill by themselves is giving away margin. Paying to fill a low-season gap, or a midweek check-in nobody wants, can pay off handsomely. That's what the modifiers and the specific dates are for: they're the useful part of the invention.
4. Compare the commission with the clicks before choosing. A few points of commission all year come out considerably dearer than some clicks bought in the six weak weeks. And the other way round. It depends on your occupancy, your ADR and which dates you're short of demand, so there's no general answer, you have to run the numbers.
5. Don't depend on a single shop window. We can't sit on one channel alone (Airbnb or Booking or...). We have to spread our exposure out (and the direct channel!).
The future
I'm keeping the bet from the previous post: before the end of 2027 we'll see sponsored ads inside Airbnb's search.
Though it's really an easy bet, except on when it starts. When the biggest portal in Europe has spent three years selling the first page, and the third one has just started, the question is no longer whether Airbnb will do it.
Watching which position each listing comes up in, and deciding what gets paid for and what doesn't, is part of what we do every day at ListingOK. But whether you run it or we do, the warning is the same: the first page has had a price for years.
So the question those with poor performance have to start asking themselves is whether to pay to come up first. And specifically: how much, on which dates, and in exchange for how many bookings.
Sources
- Booking.com for Partners: Booking Holdings Sponsored Ads (official page, accessed 05-08-2026)
- Booking.com for Partners: Preferred Partner programme (accessed 05-08-2026; 65% more search views and 20% more bookings, requirements and 180-day penalty)
- Booking.com for Partners: Visibility Booster (accessed 05-08-2026)
- Mirai: Booking Network Sponsored Ads (formerly Native Ads) (18-10-2021, updated Feb 2023; history and auction mechanics)
- Booking Holdings: BKNG Ads (21-05-2026)
Miguel
Miguel Roig Gimbernat is Partner at ListingOK, specializing in Revenue Management for vacation rentals and short-term rentals. With over 15 years of experience in technology, pricing, and revenue management, he helps property managers and hosts maximize their profitability on Airbnb and Booking.com through real market data and expert supervision. He combines expertise in data, platforms and technology with marketing to transform market intelligence into revenue decisions that boost profitability.
