REPORT - As Clicks Fade, Hotel Digital Marketing Confronts A New Era Of Increasing Compliance

Digital marketing regulations a key factor to increased cost of acquisition, according to Cendyn Hotel Digital Marketing Performance Index

Austin, Texas, USA – November 17 2025: Cendyn, a global integrated hotel technology and services company, has identified a sharp increase in hotel cost per acquisition (CPA) due to a combined influence of increasing media costs and governmental regulation.

With CPA up 38% – marking the steepest YoY increase in several years – Cendyn found acquisition costs are being significantly affected by compliance as we enter a new phase of a clickless world.

EU’s Digital Marketing Act (DMA) forced companies to adapt how they collected user data – ensuring they receive explicit user consent. Cendyn’s investigation encompassed Google’s response to government compliance, especially through Consent Mode V2 – which ensures websites can continue using Google advertising and analytics services and comply with the new data privacy regulations. However, performance consequently dropped.

When consumers do not accept Google Consent Mode V2, conversions go untracked, reducing optimization signals for Google’s automated bidding systems, distorting return on ad spend (ROAS), and potentially prompting misguided strategic decisions.

In addition, aggregated data from the Cendyn Digital Marketing Platform (DMP) identified a decline in conversion rates across most channels. This reflects the broader effect of reduced tracking capabilities due to a lack of user consent for cookie-based tracking.

The Cendyn Performance Index also highlights the impact of new regulations on “junk fees”. As a result of the California Senate Bill 644 and California Assembly Bill 537, hoteliers must comply with requirements for transparent tax and fee breakdowns. Failure to comply has created price parity issues, harming performance, particularly on rate-sensitive channels like metasearch. Inaccurate or non-compliant pricing can significantly reduce visibility, depress click-through rates (CTR), and lower return on investment (ROI). As users rarely click on listings showing higher rates, CTR fell from 3.18% to 2.88% in the USA.

The report warns that price parity, technical accuracy, regulatory compliance, and privacy-first advertising are now critical for campaign success. Christina Leme, Senior Director Global Media at Cendyn said: “Hoteliers need to take the findings from this report as a warning: non-competitive listings face reduced visibility, or exclusion from search results. But there are things hotels can do to counter these trends. Implementing robust price parity monitoring, optimizing consent management for better tracking, ensuring accurate fee and tax disclosure, investing in first-party data collection and activation – these are all great strategies for securing future bookings. In a landscape defined by constant change and increasing regulatory complexity, hotels that stay ahead of these shifts can and will thrive.”

With Cendyn hoteliers constantly adapt to market changes, compliance and consumer behavior – to continually deliver bottom-line results addressing each hotel’s unique business needs, ensuring optimal performance and success.

The Cendyn Hotel Digital Marketing Performance Index 2025 delivers actionable intelligence, designed to help hospitality marketers make informed decisions, and implement strategies to optimize spend, preserve visibility, and capture demand in an increasingly crowded market. Available now, download to read the full findings and analysis.

Access the full Cendyn Hotel Digital Marketing Performance Index 2025.