What single rule decides where to put the button?
A preferred-source selection converts where value has just been delivered and fails where it interrupts, because it is a small ask attached to a decision the reader has already made.
That is the same rule the review-collection era arrived at, and it is worth taking seriously because it was learned expensively. Ask after the stay, not during it. Ask on the confirmation screen, never on the payment screen. Say what it changes, say it takes one click, and say it can be undone.
The placements below are ordered by that rule, not by effort.
1. Should you put the button on the booking confirmation page?
Yes: it is the highest-intent moment a hotel owns, because the guest has just chosen you, paid you, and has nothing left to do on the page. Every other placement is competing with something; this one is competing with a closed tab.
Put it under the reservation summary, phrased as a follow-on rather than a new request: they have already decided you are worth staying with.
2. Should you add it to the post-stay email?
Yes: it is where the review request already goes, so the routine, the sending infrastructure and the timing are solved, and this is one more line in an email you are already sending.
Send it as its own line rather than bundling it with the review ask. Two asks in one paragraph means the reader does one of them, and the review is the one that has an obvious payoff to them.
3. Should you use the thank-you page after an enquiry or contact form?
Yes: it is dead space on almost every hotel site, where someone who has just asked about a wedding, an event, a group rate or a late checkout lands on a page that only says “we will be in touch”.
They are, by definition, someone who wants to hear from you. This is the cheapest placement to build because the page already exists and does nothing.
4. Should you put it in member and loyalty portals?
Yes: this placement gets the highest opt-in rate and the lowest friction, because the reader is signed in, has an existing relationship, and is already looking at account settings. A preferred-source selection sits naturally beside notification preferences and communication settings.
If you run a loyalty programme, this is where the feature earns most, and it is also where it is least visible to competitors.
5. Should you add it to the newsletter?
Yes: a newsletter is recurring and, by definition, reaches a list of people who already opted into hearing from you, so the ask can run once at launch and then live in the footer of every send at no ongoing cost.
The deeplink matters more than the button here, because email clients strip scripts. Use a plain link with your domain pre-filled and a tracked redirect so you can see the clicks.
6. Should you put it in the sitewide footer?
Yes, as a floor rather than a strategy: it is the lowest-effort placement and the one every visitor sees, for two lines of markup shipped once.
Footer conversion on any ask is low, and this one asks the reader to do something they have never heard of. Ship it because it is free and permanent, then measure it against a moment-based placement and expect it to lose.
7. Should you use in-room or checkout QR codes?
Worth testing: a card by the kettle, a line on the checkout folio, or a sign at reception reaches a guest at exactly the point they have formed an opinion about you, and it is physical placement your competitors will not think of for a year.
Point the code at a short tracked page on your own site that explains what the reader is being asked to do and carries the button, rather than at Google’s tool directly. You get the click data, and the reader gets context before a Google settings screen appears.
8. Should you add it to referral or gamified programmes?
If you run tiers or points, yes: an opt-in is a lightweight action that fits a points ladder better than a review request does, because it asks for a click rather than an opinion.
Read the next section before you attach anything of value to it. There is a real line here between recognising an action and paying for it.
9. Should you use a timed or exit-intent prompt?
Only sparingly, and never over a booking flow: an exit prompt on a long editorial page (a neighbourhood guide, an events page) is defensible, but the same prompt over an availability calendar is not.
If you use one, cap it at once per visitor and remember the dismissal. A reader who closes it and sees it again on the next page has learned something about you that is worse than the visibility was worth.
Should you incentivise the preferred-source opt-in?
Not yet, and the honest reason is that we could not verify whether it is allowed. The obvious next idea is to incentivise the opt-in: offer a discount, a late checkout, or loyalty points in exchange for being added as a preferred source.
Incentivised reviews breach platform policy, and Google enforces that. Preferred sources is a different thing: a private personalisation setting rather than a public endorsement, which is an argument that the same rule may not apply. It is a plausible argument. It is not a verified one. Google’s documentation on preferred sources, as of 26 August 2026, describes the button and the deeplink as ways to ask, and we found no primary statement from Google either permitting or prohibiting an incentive attached to that ask.
Advice a client acts on has to be better sourced than that. Until Google says something on the record, the risk is asymmetric: the upside is a slightly higher opt-in rate on a feature whose aggregate value is still unproven, and the downside is a policy finding against a domain that a hotel depends on for far more than this.
Ask for it. Do not pay for it. If Google publishes guidance that settles it, this page will change and say so.
What should you actually do on Monday?
Ship two placements: the footer, because it takes twenty minutes and catches everyone, and the single highest-intent moment you actually own, which for most properties is the booking confirmation.
Put a click event on both. In a month you will know which one is doing the work, which is more than anyone selling you a nine-placement rollout can tell you.
See also: How to add the button | Can preferred sources be gamed | Google Preferred Sources: the publisher’s guide