So I can’t share the enthusiasm from Lastminute.com who are “very happy to announce that the lastminute.com affiliate programme is now exclusive on the TradeDoubler network.”

Closing date on CJ is September 2010.

Post from Rob Barham's: Affiliate Marketing for the Travel Industry blog.

Is there anything more annoying than having to change links ?

Related posts:

1. Opodo Affiliate Programme
2. When Customers Pay More For Using Affiliate Links
3. Who paid my mortgage this year

TourCMS is a reservation system used by 70 or so small tour operators and specialist holiday providers such as adventure holiday companies. Most of these companies are available via an affiliate network (“marketplace”) run by TourCMS.

If you send traffic to the tour operators’ own websites then the TourCMS tracking will ensure you are paid for your marketing efforts. One feature that caught my eye and interesting in these days of constant mumbling about voucher codes ruining the affiliate arena, the tracking works on first click attribution.

The standard terms are that TourCMS pay 6% on an average transaction value of 1000 GBP (1600 USD). Alternatively if you wish you can use the TourCMS affiliate system for tracking but handle the money transfer side yourself on whatever commission model you devise with the merchants…. So if for example, you suspect that a specialist tango holidays in Argentina tour operator will be converting a lot of your traffic offline you can propose a pay per click model.

All products are geocoded and have images, dates, prices & availability available via XML. You can use some basic JavaScript widgets to quickly add products to a site if XML is not your thing. Here’s an example of a “ticker” widget:

One downside of the TourCMS system is that once you have signed up as an affiliate you have to contact individual suppliers to suggest they work with you. However there is an email system so you can send an alert to them all (with a click to connect link contained within). This makes the process a little easier. Or you can contact them individually (their full contact details are available in the system).

Post from Rob Barham's: Affiliate Marketing for the Travel Industry blog.

TourCMS introduce multiple tour operator affiliate network

Related posts:

1. Marketplace for niche holiday companies
2. Free hosting from Affiliate Network
3. Three important things to get right for affiliate marketing

As explained on the Sunshine blog there will be new reporting available which will include making available which specific hotel the customers have booked.

There is a couple of other features from Paid On Results that I am fond of. First is their “daily summary” email which gives you details of new pending / confirmed commissions for that day.

Secondly, they have a “payment on demand” feature – once you have been paid by them twice you move onto their Payment On Request payment model (if you are being paid by BACS) this is a faster payment model allowing you to request payment at any time, for all validated sales made to the date you request payment.

Post from Rob Barham's: Affiliate Marketing for the Travel Industry blog.

Sunshine Affiliate Programme

Related posts:

1. Sunshine.co.uk Affiliate Banners
2. Magpie embrace affiliate model
3. British Airways Affiliate Programme

It’s quite nice and everything, it just seems a little bit strange to write all that and not even include a real name ! ?. I suspect this is something like an off shore / out sourced service that the company concerned are using. I don’t think that is a very wise way to operate an affiliate programme.

Dear Associates,

I hope this letter finds you well.

After talking to many experts, we have come up with a strategy to enhance our relationship and help you to capitalize maximum from our affiliate program. And this is the first step in the same direction.

I am a new affiliate manager working for —— affiliate program and I have something to offer you to take our relationship to one step ahead.

In order to take care of your each and every need I am here dedicatedly handling —— Affiliate program for you. I will not only help you get your order process and provide you with creatives on time; but I will talk to you and listen to you, your views and your suggestions. I will make sure your queries and problems are resolved within the given time frame. I will provide you weekly updates about our top selling products, new products, new banner, new feeds, etc.

I am here to serve you, so that you can get maximum return out of our affiliate program.

I and our entire —— affiliate team want to provide our associates the best affiliate program service experience in order to help them earn maximum out of our program.

Obviously, this will not be possible without your coordination and support. So feel free to email me or talk to me to quickly resolve your issues or in case if you need anything to maximize your campaigns; below you will find my contact details (Email and Live chat ids).

I am looking forward to hear from you.

Regards,
–
Affiliate Manager

Post from Rob Barham's: Affiliate Marketing for the Travel Industry blog.

Outsourcing Affiliate Management ?

Related posts:

1. Travel Affiliate Marketing Glossary

So it was interesting to see that the Flybe Affiliate Programme has launched on Tradedoubler. There’s actually a whole load of airlines available to promote at TD – mostly of the “flag carrier” variety.

About Flybe

Flybe is one of Europe’s largest and most successful regional airlines, with 202 routes serving 13 countries, operating from a total of 70 departure points (38 UK and 32 European airports). Their route network is 76% domestic UK, 14% European business and 10% European leisure destinations.

Flybe Affiliate Programme Details

• Flybe will pay affiliates 1% of the total basket value of a Flybe flight
• The Flybe affiliate programme has an average order value of £188.48 (average over the past 2 months)
• 30 day post-click window
• An API feed is available to all affiliates on request, if you would like access to this, get in touch with Tradedoubler after you have applied for the scheme

Post from Rob Barham's: Affiliate Marketing for the Travel Industry blog.

Flybe Affiliate Scheme

Related posts:

1. Air Southwest Affiliate Programme
2. First Choice Affiliate Scheme
3. Lufthansa Affiliate Scheme

After what turned out to be around a year as a full time affiliate, at the turn of the year I had a nice offer to be part of something bigger and joined an e-Commerce outsourcing company called “Boozt”. Boozt designs and operates etail websites for fashion brands. The services on offer also include the warehousing and fulfilment of the goods. We work like a super ultra affiliate and get a cut of the revenue generated.

Affiliate Marketing Strategy

I’m not hanging up my affiliate marketing mouse and laptop though, Oh no. I hope to be able to use the cushion of a steady income to outsource some of the boring bits?!, perhaps acquire some memorable domain names and do a bit more experimenting with my existing sites. One thing I do have to work on now I have less time though is to get over my twin addictions of stats checking and domain name buying.

My New Blog (Theme)

Unless you are reading from the RSS (hmm, hope that is still OK?!), or viewing the mobile version, you have probably noticed that I have given the affiliate4travel site a makeover. After I spotted those 2 nice wordpress travel themes from woo the other day I bought them. Since they do three for the price of one I also bought a more “corporate” theme called delegate which is what you are seeing now. I am really impressed with the custom woo back end and options. Makes using WordPress even easier. Please let me know what you think of the new design and if you can spot anything that sucks.

Post from Rob Barham's: Affiliate Marketing for the Travel Industry blog.

New Job Rob, New Blog Rob

Related posts:

1. Lastminute.com Affiliate Blog
2. Discount on StudioPress Themes
3. Sunpress plugin for beginners

I will try and report back in more detail later, after I have tried it out on a few sites.

What Is Skimlinks?

Skimlinks is a service that will convert normal hyperlinks into affiliate links automatically. The links look the same to the user and the system can be used in-conjunction with any existing affiliate links you have.

They seem to have thought of everything – there is a URL shortener so you can monetise e.g. twitter links, there is also the skimkit software which helps you find products and their images and deeplinks. There are other goodies too, like exclusive discount codes.

The main advantages that I can see are:

• Save Time – Concentrate on great content and marketing or analysis.
• Save Time – No need to sign up for hundreds of affiliate programmes across multiple networks.
• Aggregation – Great for smaller affiliates – all your cash will be in one place so no having to wait to hit a payment threshold.
• No Worries – When a merchant changes network.
• Deeplink More – Have you ever linked to a merchants homepage because you couldn’t be bothered deeplinking? now you can deeplink away and that will most likely enhance your conversion rate.

The disadvantage of Skimlinks could be that you take a hit in the pocket – they take 25% of the earnings.

Which Travel Companies Use Skimlinks?

When I do a search for UK and the “travel, flights & hotels” category there are 324 merchants listed in the Skimlinks directory. So the answer is that most travel merchants are available through Skimlinks. They have however included some very vaguely travel merchants such as The Ordnance Survey and Millets in that total of 324 though. By comparison, when I checked the USA section there were 104 merchants listed. For some merchants you’ll also be able to see the average basket size and conversion rate. Some affiliate networks offer this too of course but with Skimlinks it’s all in one place.

Tiered Commission

There isn’t too much of this in the travel industry, but tiered rates of commission do exist on some – Expedia, Hotels.co.uk, Holiday Extras Air New Zealand, Ramada Jarvis, Butlins, are examples off the top of my head. In these cases, assuming Skimlinks can find their way into the top tier, then the 25% cut that skimlinks take would be made up for in many cases by the extra commission.

Skimkit – Content Creation Tool

Over to youtube for an overview on this one….. I can imagine it being very useful for e.g. gadget and fashion bloggers, will let you know if I can find some good uses for the travel sector too.

Disclosure : Skimlinks are operating an affiliate / referral scheme off their own… If you use my referral link to join Skimlinks I will get 10% of your earnings for a year. It’s not taken out of your earnings though, it’s from Skimlinks own margin.

Post from Rob Barham's: Affiliate Marketing for the Travel Industry blog.

Skimlinks Review

Related posts:

1. UK affiliate marketing networks
2. Who paid my mortgage this year
3. Merchant Merry Go Round

The short answer : This blog is hosted by EZPZ Hosting, I am also happy with the hosting I have at native space & Evo Hosting. All of the latter offer cPanel hosting. I use Heart Internet for domains and like the control panel but don’t currently have any hosting there.

Best Hosting For Affiliates

Because affiliates want their sites to perform well, there is no real difference between what would be the best hosting for an affiliate compared to what would be the best hosting option for any webmaster. If you are a full time affiliate then of course it’s even more important that you get as close as possible to 100% uptime, fast and reliable support and reliable backups and security.

Buying Web Hosting – Tips

• Time saver – sign up to a host that offers installation scripts such as installatron & fantastico deluxe.
• Don’t get sucked in by cheap introductory offers – moving hosts is in general a hassle.
• Keep hosting & domains separate - gives you more control in “last resort” situations.
• cPanel control panel – not the prettiest but does a great job. Some hosting companies build their own and they are usually lacking in one way or another.

Why Reseller Hosting ?

Many affiliate marketing dudes are domain name kleptomaniacs and end up with a domain collection in double figures or more in no time, the solution for all those domain names (if you want to keep your domain / site ratio respectable) could well be a reseller hosting account.

• It’s often much cheaper to take a reseller account than a standard hosting account.
• Each website sits on it’s own account so it’s easier to sell the site.
• You always have the option to actually start charging for hosting.

UK Hosting For SEO ?

There is often talk that you are best of with UK hosting for UK SEO. I think this is a bit over done but you may find your site loads faster if your site is hosting on a UK data centre so that’s worth something. Also paying in £ you don’t have to worry about exchange rates when it comes to renewal time.

From an SEO point of view, if you are using .co.uk / .org.uk domains then you should be fine to host in the US or elsewhere. If your website is on a .com / .net and you are targetting UK customers, you are probably best of with UK hosting, but if you aren’t, it’s not the end of the world. Just make sure your site sends others signals that you are targetting UK users. Here’s a few ideas :

• A UK postal address published on the site.
• An entry with your UK location in Google Maps and equivalents.
• Links from .co.uk / .org.uk sites.
• Entries in UK specific directories.
• There is an option in Google Webmaster Tools where you can specify Geo-Target.

Post from Rob Barham's: Affiliate Marketing for the Travel Industry blog.

Web Hosting Tips

Related posts:

1. Pronet Hosting – “Insane” Offer
2. Free hosting from Affiliate Network
3. Google Domain Parking

OK, not a cruise ship.

A mini tidal wave of cruise companies have hit the affiliate industry recently.

One of my former employers Thomson Cruises has been live at CJ for a few years but in 2010 they have been joined in the affiliate scene by a few others :

• Cruise giant P&O Cruises at Affiliate Window
• Ocean Village also at Affiliate Window
• Cruise.co.uk (who paid $1 million for domain cruises.co.uk) at Affiliate Future
• LowCostCruising.com at Affiliate Window

And from other cruise merchants that have been around longer, easycruise at Affiliate Future also deserve a mention as do DFDS who recently gave me Spotify Premium.

Speaking to an ex colleague about this they expressed surprise that the commission available is so much lower than available to cruise travel agents. Cruise agents are on high commissions yes but they tend to use these to give cash discounts / free parking / free insurance etc. Some cruise companies meanwhile give online discounts so in the future there should be space for affiliates to do OK from cruise.

Much to the relief of many traditional travel agents, online conversion for cruise holidays is rather low and will take a while to increase significantly but it definitely will over time… but think about the basket values… Around a year ago I read that Cruises.co.uk were converting around 10% online (ouch) and highest basket value back then had been £24k!

Post from Rob Barham's: Affiliate Marketing for the Travel Industry blog.

Cruise Holiday Affiliate Programmes

Related posts:

1. Marketplace for niche holiday companies
2. Travel programmes to promote in the credit crunch
3. BookMe2 affiliate scheme

OK Merchants, first let’s look at the potential problems having a discount code or promo code box in your checkout can bring :

1. The customer is in your checkout ready to pay.
2. They see the voucher code box and then they will most likely open up a new window / tab on their browser and use  a search engine to look for “your brand + voucher code”
3. They find a discount code worth 5% but it’s on an affiliate site and the user clicks a link costing you another 5% affiliate commission. OR
4. They find a page promising a voucher code but actually there is none, and then they are cross sold to one of your competitors. OR
5. They might not find any discount code but hate the fact that someone is paying less than them, keep searching and abandon the cart.

So…. we have gone from a scenario where the customer was happy to buy from a merchant to one where they either abandon checkout or in which they convert but the merchant has paid out commission for nothing – if there was a code too they are looking at even bigger loss.

Well, this has already happened in the travel industry to a large extent but another fear is that the merchant might be setting a trap for themselves that customers are being taught to only convert when they have a discount code – they learn to expect to be able to get one.

A third problem is that the wrong type of affiliate is being rewarded while the blogger / content type affiliate loses the cookie, and may be less enthusiastic to promote the brand in the future.

Here are some possible (merchant) solutions to this… Some strategic, some technical and one SEO…

• Instruct affiliate networks not to work with voucher code sites – but still this is hard to “police” and still people will search and might end up being “cross sold” to another shop.
• Don’t put voucher code affiliates on the top tier of your commission scheme – after all how much are they adding to your entire sales process ? They are just cherry pickers right ?
• Hide the coupon box but reveal it for certain types of traffic – lets say you want to run a promo code for a facebook page, you create a URL which includes the signal to either display the coupon code box or to apply the discount and give a message “your 15% facebook discount has been applied”
• Keep the coupon code box on the site but give it a name more like “gift certificate” – that way you can avoid people searching for “gift certificate” since they won’t expect to be able to have one without buying one.
• Create a page on your site which is optimised for “Your Brand + Discount Code” and get it to the #1 spot in Google… This page could explain that there are no discount codes available or have a small discount with a strong call to action (time limited).
• Keep the coupon box very discreet in the design. Don’t make it so obvious.

Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment. I’m particularly interested to hear from merchants that have done some research and audits into their voucher code activity. Also very keen to hear from other affiliates – assuming you’re not a voucher code affiliate do you purposely work harder for merchants that don’t have voucher code boxes in their check out? How much do you reckon you are “losing” to voucher code cookie monsters ?

Post from Rob Barham's: Affiliate Marketing for the Travel Industry blog.

Voucher Code & Affiliate Problems / Solutions

Related posts:

1. Blue Chip Vacation Voucher Code Changes
2. Hoseasons stops cashback and voucher code sites
3. The Perfect Affiliate Scheme ?