Travelpayouts can be both a great time-saver and a particularly effective tool if you are in a travel related niche.
This is in fact more than a travel affiliate program. Travelpayouts is a travel affiliate network that includes more than 100 affiliate programs many of which you may be familiar with, such as Booking, Tripadvisor, etc.
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In this review, we will examine how you can integrate the Travelpayouts platform and get the best out of it, either for your online monetization goals, or other services.
The history of Travelpayouts starts in 2011 when the business launches. It evolves very rapidly as the convergence of an experienced travel industry blogger and strategic partnerships leads to the design of custom search algorithms and the creation of this powerful platform.
Travelpayouts is currently the largest network in the travel niche and brings together the largest brands and over 350,000 affiliates, bloggers and content creators from around the world.
Travelpayouts describe themselves as “a pay-per-action travel partnership platform that includes travel brand affiliate programs”. They also say that it is “a platform where advertisers can generate sales and webmasters can earn commissions from each sale”.
This is essentially a “platform that brings together trusted brands, content creators, and travelers…".
Since 2014, lots of well-known affiliate programs have been added to Travelpayouts both locally and internationally as the tools have continued to be made available in more and more countries as well as translated in 59 languages, and counting...
From a potential affiliate standpoint, Travelpayouts can help content creators monetize their content by recommending trusted travel brands to their audiences.
Their online widgets can be customized quickly and easily so that you can pitch tailored offers to your audience. They also offer a white label option.
If you so desire, Travelpayouts will even educate you for free on how to succeed in affiliate marketing through their Travelpayouts Academy.
As stated above, Travelpayouts is not just an affiliate program, it is a network. It gives you simultaneous access to many different affiliate programs through a single platform. This is a prime feature of the Travelpayouts system.
The ability to connect to dozens of affiliate programs through one account on a single platform is particularly convenient.
You can manage all programs from your dashboard, view and analyze detailed statistics, and, if necessary, get the support you need for any of the programs listed.
The Travelpayouts support service operates seven days a week and is ready to promptly answer any question. In order to streamline redundant questions, free training is available to each affiliate.
Travelpayouts also maintains a blog and a platform with webinars, where the most common issues are explained in detail. All information is available free of charge.
To help you run your online business even more efficiently, bonuses are offered to each Travelpayouts affiliate account to help you obtain commonly needed services, including domains, texts, graphics, and courses.
To get started with Travelpayouts, first you create a free account. One single account is all you need for all your affiliate programs instead of multiple affiliate accounts.
From your Travelpayouts account, you will see all the essential things in one place. For example, you can view your affiliate commissions from all the affiliate programs from the dashboard and create affiliate links for all programs from the same interface.
Travelpayouts has no approval process, so your account is created instantly.
Once in your account, click on "Programs" and browse all the Travelpayouts partners. You can use the search filters at the top of the screen if you are looking for specific affiliate programs (e.g., hotels, cruises, flights, car rentals only).
Each affiliate program listed on Travelpayouts comes with information about the program such as the commission rate, cookie duration, etc.
To have all the necessary details in one place is truly an extremely convenient tool and time-saver. You will also learn about the programs’ widgets, banners, and other helpful information.
Note: You have to apply for each program separately. Travelpayouts account does not make you automatically eligible for their partners' programs. You still have to apply with each individual affiliate program as they all have different terms and acceptance requirements.
When you click on the join button for your first affiliate program, you will be prompted to "create a project." Think of it as the Travelpayouts application process.
You will be asked to provide Travelpayouts with a link to each platform you want to promote and some information about your traffic (i.e., your average monthly viewers).
Fortunately, you only need to do this once. You will be able to use the same "project" on other affiliate programs.
Of course, since the affiliate programs have different acceptance requirements as noted above, the same project can get you accepted to one program but might not get you into another one.
Some programs don't have any acceptance requirements, and all you have to do is accept the terms and conditions of their affiliate agreement.
There are many affiliate programs in the tourism niche and a great way to market them to your audience efficiently is with the Travelpayouts travel affiliate platform.
At the end of this review, we cover some pros and cons to help you make an informed decision about joining Travelpayouts.
To make money, you need to drive traffic to advertisers’ websites. This can be done through:
There are different traffic requirements for each affiliate program within Travelpayouts. These are detailed in each program’s description.
You must follow each program’s own specifications, or risk unpaid sales or even account suspension in some cases.
The terms of remuneration also vary by affiliate program, but almost all affiliate programs work on the CPA model, meaning that you will be compensated each time a visitor purchases a travel service through your referral.
As an example, let's say that a visitor to your website clicks on your affiliate link to the advertiser Viator’s site.
She/he purchases a Paris Airport shuttle fare for $30. The 10% percentage of sale specified in the affiliate program details is automatically credited to you.
Your main job is to get as many of these sale conversions as you can through your marketing activities.
As you might guess, visitors do not always purchase a service or product immediately. Some may return later or not al all, but cookies will remember to credit your visitors' sales to you.
Most advertisers offer cookies that are valid for 7 days, 30 days, in some cases up to 365 days.
Each advertiser on Travelpayouts sets its own cookie terms. Any sales made during the set duration of the cookie are attributed to you.
Like any other affiliate payout, the size of your Travelpayouts commission will depend on the terms of the affiliate programs you join.
This is where it is important to choose your affiliate products judiciously. While small commissions may be "easier", the arrangement requires a lot more conversions on your part to make substantial amounts of money.
High ticket sales get you higher commission amounts much quicker, but could require more command of affiliate marketing to pull this off.
Note that the commission on Travelpayouts can differ from the brand's in-house affiliate programs.
For instance, on Travelpayouts, the commission is 4% to 6% on average on completed hotel stays. Other programs may offer the same or higher commissions, e.g., 8% to 10%.
According to Travelpayouts, the top-earning affiliate programs are Agoda, Booking, GetYourGuide, Rentalcars, Tripadvisor, CheapOair, and Aviasales.
Aviasales is Travelpayouts' default affiliate program, and there are no requirements to join this program.
The advantage of being an affiliate in the travel niche is that you can promote many different services using the same piece of content.
The convenience of having all that Travelpayouts has to offer at your fingertips is that it makes it so practical for affiliates to efficiently cross-sell or upsell products.
That is where a lot of the money is made. And in the travel niche, you always have the opportunity to use a single post as a vehicle for promoting different offers.
That means, the same post on a travel destination could link to:
You can see the potential! The affiliate’s focus should be to create compelling content that is authentic and inspires readers to trust the recommendations.
“Warmed up” audiences lead to more conversions and purchases.
The end goal is to optimize this outcome.
While perfect is rarely possible, Travelpayouts has almost no significant drawbacks for affiliate marketers in this niche.