One9Six / Working playbook
The hotel campaign contribution scorecard
What did the campaign contribute after cancellations and costs? Use this worksheet to bring marketing, reservations and revenue management into the same conversation.
One9Six / Working notes
Calculate what the campaign leaves behind
Use a consistent revenue basis before comparing channels. The example below uses realised room revenue excluding taxes. It is a planning example, not a client result. Contribution is not accounting profit and attributed revenue is not evidence of incremental demand.
| Focus | Record | Practical check |
|---|---|---|
| Realised room revenue | €20,000 after cancellations and refunds | Reconcile booking IDs with the property system |
| Variable costs | €6,000 servicing + €600 payment and booking fees | Include only costs defined in the agreed contribution model |
| Campaign contribution | €20,000 less €6,000 less €600 less €3,000 media = €10,400 | Add attributable production and agency costs separately if comparing full acquisition cost |
| Revenue ROAS | €20,000 ÷ €3,000 = 6.67 | Read beside contribution, occupancy and cancellation maturity |
Apply this to your next project
- Separate booking date from stay date in every report.
- Compare room types, stay periods and markets before moving budget.
- Flag immature cohorts instead of treating their booked revenue as final.
Make it practical
A useful place
to start.
Use this guide with the colleagues involved in the work. Note what you know, what needs checking and who will take the next step.
Download PDF- Define the decision. Record property, market, campaign, booking period and stay period. State whether the question is to maintain, expand, reduce or redesign investment. Assign a marketing owner and a revenue management counterpart.
- Agree the revenue basis. Use one currency and a documented treatment of taxes, refunds and extras. Record booked value, cancelled or refunded value and completed stay value separately. A price already reduced by a discount must not be reduced a second time.
- Build the cost bridge. List media, transaction and channel fees, attributable agency or production costs and variable stay costs. Record which costs are incremental and which are allocations. Keep fixed overheads visible as excluded costs if they are outside this scorecard.
- Calculate contribution consistently. Adjusted revenue less non media costs gives contribution before media. Subtract media for contribution after media. Show revenue ROAS separately. Do not label the contribution result net profit or incremental profit without the additional evidence those terms require.
- Segment the result. Compare brand and non brand demand, first time and repeat guests where reliable data permits, room categories and stay dates. Flag sold out nights and inventory restrictions. Channel averages can conceal the part of the business that needs support.
- Reconcile and qualify. Record the share of bookings matched across systems, the delay in cancellation data and unexplained differences. Distinguish measured transactions from modelled estimates. Assign an owner and correction date to every material discrepancy.
- Set the next spend threshold. Use the expected contribution of the next booking and the inventory it would consume. Agree the maximum acquisition cost and the evidence needed to increase spend. Historical average ROAS is not a marginal return forecast.
- Close with an action. Complete: decision, evidence, uncertainty, owner, budget limit and review date. Keep the original scorecard so the next review can distinguish a revised assumption from a genuine change in performance.
The method in practice
Worked scorecard: one campaign, three views
Illustrative working example. Figures and decisions are not client results or market benchmarks.
Inputs
Booked revenue €10,000. Cancellations/refunds €2,000. Fees €400. Variable stay costs €3,000. Media €1,000. All amounts use the same tax basis. Other attributable costs are assumed zero solely for this example.
Calculation
Booked revenue ROAS: 10×. Adjusted revenue: €8,000. Contribution before media: €4,600. Contribution after media: €3,600. Contribution/media: 4.6×. Fixed overheads and displacement are excluded.
Decision record
Do not scale from the 10× figure alone. Check whether demand is additional and whether the relevant stay dates still need bookings. Record those two answers before changing budget.