Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online, it gets easier if you like to travel. Whether you run a travel blog or you spend a lot of time traveling and you have a lot of knowledge about the travel industry, engaging in travel affiliate marketing is an easy way to make money.
The fact the a lot of people like to travel makes your job even easier. So, as an affiliate marketer, blogger, or vlogger who wants to concentrate on the travel niche, you will not have to be convincing people to travel.
The only challenge you will face is convincing them to get their travel material through your affiliate link. You will have to give them enough reason to go through you. Together with quality content and many other factors, choosing the right affiliate programs is key.
- What is Affiliate Marketing?
- How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
- What Are Some Benefits of Affiliate Marketing?
- How Can You Choose The Right Affiliate Marketing Program?
- How to Make Money From a Travel Affiliate Marketing Program
- What Are The Best Travel Affiliate Programs?
- How Much Can You Earn From Travel Affiliate Programs?
- How Long does it Take to Make Money Affiliate Marketing?
- Why is Affiliate Marketing so Hard?
- Why do Affiliate Marketers Fail?
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is an online sales tactic that lets a product owner increase sales by allowing others targeting the same audience—“affiliates”—to earn a commission by recommending the product to others. At the same time, it makes it possible for affiliates to earn money on product sales without creating products of their own.
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Simply put, affiliate marketing involves referring a product or service by sharing it on a blog, social media platform, or website. The affiliate earns a commission each time someone makes a purchase through the unique link associated with their recommendation. Done well, this performance-based opportunity can become an important part of your business by netting you a healthy income.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
To participate in an affiliate marketing program, you’ll need to take these five simple steps:
- Find and join an affiliate program
- Choose which offers to promote
- Obtain a unique affiliate link for each offer
- Share those links on your blog, social media platforms, or website
- Collect a commission anytime someone uses your links to make a purchase
Commission rates vary dramatically, depending on the company and the offer. On the low end, you’ll earn about 5% of the sale but, with some arrangements, you can earn as much as 50%, usually when promoting a class or event. There are also affiliate marketing programs that provide a flat rate per sale instead of a percentage.
If you’re wondering how to get your feet wet in affiliate marketing, you’ve got a few options. Not every company offers affiliate programs—some businesses manage their own affiliate programs while others use an affiliate network.
An easy way to find affiliate programs is to visit an affiliate marketplace or platform. Browse your niche to find top performing affiliate platforms. Here are some of the most popular:
Another option is to visit the websites of the products and services you use and like to see if they have an affiliate program. Large companies often have programs they promote on their site, such as Amazon Associates or the Shopify Affiliate Program.
You also can take a more direct approach. Reach out to the owner of a great product you come across and see if they offer an affiliate marketing program. If they don’t, they might be happy to set up an arrangement with you, such as offering you a special coupon code to share with your followers.
The best deals often are found when you’re the first to inquire and have a relevant distribution channel, such as approaching the seller of a new fitness product if you’re a health and wellness blogger.
Affiliate marketing programs will have terms of service you need to follow, so read the fine print. For example, your link usually will have a cookie with a specified timeframe, and some programs don’t allow you to purchase pay-per-click ads using the product or company’s name.
Choosing your first affiliate program
As you brainstorm products or browse through affiliate platforms, the most important criteria to keep in mind is that the product should be aligned with your audience, or the audience you hope to build. Ask yourself, is it something your target audience would find valuable? Does it fit with your area of expertise?
A food blogger probably wouldn’t promote beauty products, for example. A wide range of other products would make more sense, such as cookware, meal kits, gourmet ingredients, or even aprons.
Also, make sure the product or service you’re promoting is a fit for the platform you’re promoting it on. For example, home decor and clothing are well suited to image-heavy platforms like Instagram. However, if you’re promoting more in-depth purchases, like software, your review may convert better on longer-form platforms, like a blog or YouTube.
What Are Some Benefits of Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing offers several benefits to affiliates (i.e., you), one of which is its ease. Your side of the equation simply involves handling the “marketing” side of building and selling a product—educating customers. You don’t have to worry about the harder tasks, like developing, supporting, or fulfilling the offer.
Affiliate marketing is low risk. Since there’s no cost to join affiliate programs, you can start making money with an established affiliate product or service without any upfront investment. Affiliate marketing also can generate relatively passive income through commission—the ideal money-making scenario.
Though initially you’ll have to invest time creating traffic sources, your affiliate links can continue to deliver a steady paycheck.
Finally, successful affiliate marketing offers the potential to significantly scale your earnings without hiring extra help. You can introduce new products to your current audience and build campaigns for additional products while your existing work continues to generate revenue in the background.
Before you get too excited, know that great affiliate marketing is built on trust. While seemingly there are an endless number of products or services to promote, it’s best to only highlight those you personally use or would recommend. Even when a product interests you or fits within an existing hobby, becoming a great marketer for that product takes a lot of work.
How Can You Choose The Right Affiliate Marketing Program?
Good commission
Affiliate marketers make their income from commissions. It is only logical for them to go for affiliate programs that pay a higher commission.
Cookie length
Look for affiliate programs that grant a cookie period of up to 30 days or more. The cookie length is important because you will be able to convert many more visitors. This means that if a visitor goes to the site through your affiliate link and makes any purchase immediately or even after 30 days, you will earn a commission.
Support
This is another important thing you need to check when choosing an affiliate program. Most often, you will need assistance when using the program. This is where the support comes in. The affiliate program needs to have welcoming and readily available support to help with all your questions.
Approval rate
It is also important to check the approval rate of the affiliate program. The higher it is, the more money you will earn. For example, if the advertisers approve 90% of the traffic you bring, you will earn more money than when they approve only 20%.
Minimum payment
The minimum payment of the affiliate program should also influence your choice. The smaller the minimum payment, the faster you will get income to reinvest into your campaigns.
How to Make Money From a Travel Affiliate Marketing Program
Affiliate marketing
Purchase traffic from any platform and direct it to your landing page. This is advantageous because you pay a minimal fee for traffic to get the target pages that have a high conversion of visits to purchases. This method will help you to earn lots of money from the travel niche.
Own a Travel Blog
Another way to earn from the travel niche is through blogging. Here, you need to make the quality of the content on your blog good and interesting to attract lots of visitors. There are plenty of ways to monetize the content.
On the blog, you can place the affiliate links so that when your visitors click on the link and make a purchase, you earn a commission. It is better to dedicate the blog for traveling so that your affiliate links should not be out of place. With this, you will get much more quality traffic.
Mobile Applications
It is possible to build mobile apps that your visitors can use to access different travel products and services. You can create a paid version of the app with added advantages. This will generate your income but the process of building an app is not as easy as creating a blog.
Social media
Using popular social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, etc, you can easily earn money from the travel niche. The more followers you have, the greater the chances of you earning more. You can create review videos of travel products on Youtube and add the affiliate links in the description of the video.
Also, you can post interesting news and pictures on your social media together with your affiliate links. When your followers click on the links and make purchases, you earn commissions.
Ebook
If you are someone with a passion for writing and have a lot of experience traveling, you can write an ebook about your traveling experiences. It is almost similar to blogs but it also captures a new set of audiences. You can recommend and tell your readers about the services you used and how it will help them in their travels.
Make sure you insert the affiliate links to the products you recommended in the ebook. Added with the profit from the sales of the ebook, you will also earn a commission from your affiliate links.
What Are The Best Travel Affiliate Programs?
1. Amazon Associates
Traveling is not always about booking tickets and accommodation. People also need to get the equipment they will be using during their travel such as travel gear, clothing, and other travel-related accessories. Affiliates can also recommend such things using the Amazon affiliate program.
Here, the commission is not calculated by volume. Instead, it is calculated depending on the category of the product you are promoting.
Categories that will be recommended on a travel blog such as apparel, bags, and other accessories will give the affiliate a commission of 7%. Other products from the hiking or camping category have a commission of 5.5%.
2. Booking.com
Booking.com is perhaps the most widely recognised platform for accommodation through online. Millions of people use it book hotels and accommodation online so you’ll have high chances of earning huge commission through Booking.com affiliate program.
You can earn a whopping commission of 25%, yes, you will receive 25% of the commission Booking.com earns on each stayed booking generated. The longer they stay (who books a room using your referral link), the higher commissions you will earn. It’s as simple as that.
You can earn up to 40% depending upon the bookings that you make in a month.
The payments are usually made through PayPal, one month after the property has confirmed the guest has completed their stay (who used your referral link to make the transaction for their stay).
Over 1 million rooms get booked: Did you know that through Booking.com, there are over 1.2 million rooms get booked every single day? That’s insane amount of bookings, right? That means, you’ll have greater chances of earning huge commissions by promoting hotels and accomodation through Booking.com platform.
Lots of promotion tools: Booking.com affiliate program provides a ton of promotional tools for you to promote their hotel stays to help you earn more commissions through your site. They offer banner ads, search box, deals finder, WordPress plugins and many more to promote their hotel stays.
Yes, Booking.com does have a dedicated affiliate customer support team which helps you with anything that you need help with their affiliate program.
3. Airbnb Affiliate program
Airbnb is one of the most popular accommodation websites with a unique affiliate program. Affiliate marketers can benefit from two features here – the Guest and Host affiliate programs. The Guest affiliate program gives you access to use any of Airbnb listing on your blog or website. You will get a commission when anyone makes a booking through your blog.
The Host affiliate program lets you showcase Airbnb hosting opportunities on your blog. You will get a commission when any of your visitors signs up as a host.
The Airbnb referral program can help you earn good profits by just referring to others. Users can earn up to $72 for every successful referral and about $5000 travel credits for each account.
4. Kayak Affiliate program
Affiliate marketers can access this program through Travelpayouts. You can earn a commission of up to 50% every time someone books a flight from your affiliate link. The downside to this affiliate program is that their cookie length is only 30 minutes. This means that you will earn the commission only when the visitor books a flight within 30 minutes of visiting the website from your link.
To join this program, all you need to do is to apply for it from your Travelpayouts account. Once this is done, your request will be processed within a period of 2 days, then you can begin working with them when the request is approved.
5. Wego affiliate program
This is another affiliate program that offers flight and hotel bookings where affiliate marketers earn a commission when visitors book flights or hotels through affiliate links. It is open for everyone who wants to earn extra cash and loves traveling.
This affiliate program is unique because it does not pay using the commission system. Instead, you will get paid through what they call “exit clicks”. An exit click is valid when a visitor follows your affiliate link and opens the Wego search results and goes further to one of the partner sites, such as Booking.com. This way, the affiliate can earn about $0.05 to $0.40 per flight click and $0.20 to $0.80 per hotel click.
You will get pay through PayPal or Wire transfer between the 15th and 20th of each month. The minimum amount required for withdrawal is $100 for PayPal and $500 for bank transfer.
6. TripAdvisor’s Affiliate program
TripAdvisor is well-known among travelers. Its affiliate program has lots of different things you can recommend to your visitors. You will find hotels, tours, tickets, etc, to recommend.
TripAdvisor’s affiliate program is managed by CJ Affiliate making it even better and easier to use.
Affiliate marketers will get a 50% commission when a visitor clicks on the affiliate links on their blog or website. TripAdvisor also offers incentive programs to its affiliates by paying those who drive traffic back to TripAdvisor’s website.
7. Sandals Resorts
Sandals Resorts is a well-known Caribbean resort travel company offering luxurious vacations for those who can afford it. Affiliates will earn a commission for referring people to book their stay in any of their Sandals resorts or participate in any of their activities. Their affiliate program is managed through CJ affiliates.
Affiliates will earn a 4% commission for every booking. This will result in high earnings considering that rates per night range from about $150 to $2000. They offer a 60-day cookie to affiliates.
8. Cruise Direct Affiliate program
From the name, you should already get a hint. This is one of the best options for affiliate marketers who are looking for cruises to recommend. You will have lots of options to choose from.
One of the best things about their affiliate program is that the cookies run for 45 days.
Affiliates will earn a 3% commission of the sale. This may seem to be a small percentage but you need to understand that cruises come with an average price of about $1000 per person. So the amount you will be receiving is not small.
9. EconomyBookings
This is a platform where users are able to compare and find the best and cheapest prices for car rental services. It covers over 150 countries worldwide and they have been working since 2008.
Affiliate marketers will earn a commission of 60% from every booking and a cookie length of 30 days. You can join this affiliate program through Travelpayouts.
10. Hotels.com
This is another good affiliate program that affiliate marketers can benefit from. It is a part of the Expedia affiliate network. Affiliate marketers will earn a commission when bookings are made through their affiliate link.
Partners can not work directly with them. This is possible only through intermediary networks. People located in Canada or the US must work with can work with them only from cj.com.
The commission affiliate marketers will earn for a booking is about 4.92%.
How Much Can You Earn From Travel Affiliate Programs?
There is no limit to what you can earn with a travel niche using affiliate marketing. the good thing about a travel website, you have so many products to promote, flights, hotels, car rentals.
Cruises, road trip accessories, travel accessories including luggage, the list is endless, so it just depends on how much time you have to create content.
How Long does it Take to Make Money Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing takes about 12 months to start seeing success. There seems to be this overall assumption that affiliate marketing is somehow different from every other business. People don’t plan ahead – they just jump in and expect to make money online without performing any market research, without putting in many hours of work, and by simply following some e-book or get-rich-quick “training program” they found online.
Pretend for a moment that instead of getting started with affiliate marketing, you were starting a pet store. Would you just purchase the closest retail building to your home and start selling whatever pet supplies you could get your hands on? If so, you would probably fail.
Instead, you would research the perfect location within a wide radius. You would check out who your competition is and decide if it’s really worth competing with them. You would find out exactly what your potential customers want and then find the best places to source those specific items. And you most certainly wouldn’t expect to start making money in 3 weeks.
Most small businesses take 3 to 5 years before they ever see their first dime in profit!
Yet, when people start an affiliate marketing business, there is normally almost no research done. People just decide on a topic at random, build a WordPress site, and start writing articles. Just like failing to plan for any other business, failing to plan out your affiliate marketing business will also have disastrous consequences.
Fortunately, affiliate marketing does not require much start-up capital at all, so you won’t lose out on thousands upon thousands of dollars like other small business owners would, but you do lose out on all that time you spent trying to build your affiliate site and inevitably become disgruntled that “affiliate marketing doesn’t work anymore.” Dream shattered.
On the positive side, it doesn’t have to take 3 to 5 years to succeed with an affiliate marketing business. You should expect to work for about 1 full year before you start seeing some decent revenue. If you want to push that closer to the 6-month mark, you MUST do proper research.
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Fortunately, there are a lot of places that can help even the newest individuals perform proper research, find a great niche, and build an SEO friendly website that search engines will love.
Why is Affiliate Marketing so Hard?
Like any business model, there are drawbacks and challenges to affiliate marketing as well, including:
- Time: It takes a commitment and experimenting over a length of time to generate the amount of traffic needed to result in income.
- Lost payments: Affiliate hijacking can occur in which you’re not given credit for your referral. Some companies fail to pay their affiliate marketers.
- Lack of control: You have no control over the businesses’ fulfillment of a given product or service. A bad affiliate referral can ruin your credibility with followers, so it’s crucial that you research and select quality businesses.
- Competition: Affiliate marketing is highly competitive. Many affiliates promote the same products and compete for the same traffic and customers. It can be difficult to get approved as an affiliate for popular companies or products.
- Lack of ownership: The customers belong to the merchant. Your stats will let you know how many sales were made of what product, but in most cases, you’ll have no information about who made the purchase. This can make it difficult to tap into recurring sales.
Why do Affiliate Marketers Fail?
It was interesting to study and find answers on the success and failures of the affiliate marketers today. Here are some of the reasons why most affiliate marketers fail in their business?
- Huge competition– if you take a look around you, there are more competitors that are battling themselves on the top spot of the search engine rankings. So if you just ignore it and did not learn mostly on how affiliate marketing really works for us, you will definitely fail. If they fail, that means they give up on their dreams and they don’t continue to fight. However, if you still have the guts to fight and compete with the huge competitors around you, it may give you a better chance that you can be a big threat to them by learning more about affiliate marketing and to practice yourself.
- Lack of discipline– if you are not applying self-discipline yourself, this is another reason that affiliate marketers fail in their business. It will be in effect when you are not really motivated to yourself and lack of focus on your work. It may happen when you are in the middle of the work, you have done something else that is outside of your work like watching Youtube, playing online games, chatting, etc. You must not tempt yourself to make yourself useless, because it will only distract you and may lose your attention in working with your business through affiliate marketing.
- Lack of time management– if you have less time doing this, let’s say only 1-2 hours per day, you will not gain any success of your performance in affiliate marketing. One advantage that is specifically relied on by most affiliate marketers is time management. However, we don’t have to waste our time doing useless things but instead, try to focus on what you’re doing for the business. Just keep doing it until you see some good results. You may work in a flexible manner with a minimum of 2 hours but not more than 10 hours, so that you may have a perfect time for your business and for your other stuff with family and friends.
- No Passion, doing just for the money– it has been stated time and time again that if you are in this business just to make a quick buck you may do so and do so well but for the short term only. You are much better-doing something you love by choosing your niche wisely something you have passion about and then giving honest reviews about the products and do not do the hard sell on people. Also, it’s important you build trust and community with your readers
- Not studying further into the market– Just like SEO with constant changes in the search market, the same goes for affiliate marketing, you must adopt what you know and then put this out to your reader, recently there were new FTC regulations, next week there is this, and next month there will be that. So you must study and then apply constantly. This is where a lot of affiliate marketers kind of neglect and think they know everything without constant learning then applying new strategies. Keeping up to date with special offers and much more.
- Technical Challenges– Most people think you can get a website business setup in 4 steps, but with running a website and particularly one in which relates to affiliate marketing there are a lot of challenges that arise including constant design and structure with your site and interface issues such as emails, autoresponders and then registering with affiliate companies. Then you need to also track all of these affiliate programs in every platform.
- Making the most ROI– Monitoring your ads and seeing how much you are spending on Ads and how many sales you are getting per lead or impression is vital to your success. Programs like SpeedPPCwill help you tremendously. But this is expensive and again may require an investment on your part.
- Getting ready for expenses – All the tools and learning ebooks, tutorials, joining community sites will cost and we don’t know anyone who isn’t paying for their products they use that has made them successful today. If they have been successful ensure they are pretty unhealthy because learning the hard way costs time.
If you will overcome these main reasons why affiliate marketers like you will soon fail, think again! You can overcome it by putting yourself in a positive way and always have self-discipline, focus and motivation in order to become a successful affiliate marketer. Failure is not an option, you must get rid of it and always think that you will be successful by just staying focused at your business and affiliate marketing.
Lastly
Making money from a travel affiliate site is nowhere near as difficult as you might think. If your blog looks good, you have proper content, you target the right keywords, you’re actively promoting your site and gaining valuable backlinks, and you partner with the best affiliate networks then you should not face any problems making a good income from the travel niche.
Travel is like any other business. If you take it seriously, think outside the box, and provide valuable information that people desire, you will succeed. And like the chart above shows, there is a lot of money to be made in the travel industry.
