… This post contains some affiliate links. Which is kinda the whole point of the story …
It’s been years since I first shared this story and it’s fair to say a few things have changed since then.
You see, I’m one of those bloggers who started out as a Booking(dotcom) affiliate and for a long time it was great. But I found it a little unnerving that it wasn’t easy to ever get in touch with a human to ask them a question about my account.
Then I came across Stay22, a travel tech company that not only works with Booking but with lots of other agencies including Expedia, VRBO, Trivago, Agoda, Kayak, Trip Advisor and more.
At first I was only adding Stay22 links to some of my stories, but then I decided to add their script to my website to make it super simple and easy to get lots of affiliates bookings. And this is what happened to my results…
One of my favourite things about Stay22 is that REAL PEOPLE get back to my emails and quickly too. I’ve asked so many questions and they’ve always been so helpful and patient, and have even sent videos that they’ve personally recorded to walk me through the answers to my questions. And as well as covering lots of travel clients they recently introduced retail affiliates too.
Now they’ve introduced a referral program which means if you use my link you’ll get a US$100 bonus after 100 confirmed bookings, and I’ll get a lovely bonus too.
So if you haven’t already signed up with them, just click this link for that extra boost to your payouts.
Inspired by this change, I’ve decided it’s also time to update this post. To add some of the new affiliates I now work with and remove some of the dead wood that I let go. Ready to peek behind the travel affiliate program curtain? Follow me.
Why use travel affiliate programs?
My affiliate journey began when I did the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course created by the affiliate wizard Michelle Schroeder-Gardner and was all excited about how I could make travel affiliate programs work for my blog.
For those who don’t already know, Michelle has made over a million dollars a year blogging (yup!) and affiliates make up a big chunk of that amount. She shares some of her tips in this free 36 page e-book on affiliate marketing if you’d like to find out more about her incredible story.
When I first started my blog I didn’t have a plan. I just wanted a fun outlet to write about random things that I found interesting.
My early posts included pieces about why only female mosquitoes bite and my take on pedestrian crossing etiquette, but then I realised I wanted to concentrate on travel, and that I wanted to give my blog a chance to actually become something.
So one year I took all of my tax return money and invested it in myself.
I turned to a professional website designer and a few weeks after her job officially ended I realised I could either spend hours on YouTube tutorials, worrying that I was about to break my website every time WordPress emailed me about something, or I could pay her a monthly fee to keep the behind the scenes running smoothly while I did all the other work.
It was a good decision, but of course it meant that there was money going out of my travel blog every month and for a long while there was absolutely no money coming in.
Over time my blog has found lots of lovely new readers (thank you!) and that makes me very happy. But it also means there are times when I receive ‘visitor overage charge’ invoices from my website host.
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You see, as well as paying an annual fee for hosting if I get more readers in a month than I have in my plan, I pay extra.
Of course it’s a bill that I’m very happy to pay because it means the blog is doing well, but the reality is that as well as investing my time, I invest actual money into my blog every month.
I realised I needed to find a way for the blog to make some money and I didn’t – and still don’t – want to have ads on my site. I hate it when distracting ads pop up on sites that I’m reading so it’s a hard pass from me on that one. Which means I needed to find another way.
How travel affiliate programs work
Travel affiliate programs work the way all sorts of other affiliate programs work, and that’s by placing special links on websites or sharing them through social media so a business can tell how someone found them and pay a little something for the referral
Some travel bloggers also promote affiliate offers through reels, destination guides, or product videos. If that’s something you’re looking to do, an online editing tool can help you add subtitles to video so viewers understand recommendations clearly even when watching without sound.
So if you read my blog post on new Sydney hotels you’ll see there are links to the hotels. Some are affiliate links with the hotel company themselves, some go through affiliate third party sites, and others are affiliate free if there isn’t a good affiliate fit, because I will still share a great recommendation whether it has an affiliate option or not. Then if someone clicks on one of those links and makes a booking within a certain period of time, I get a small percentage.
Once you join affiliate marketing programs there are hundreds of businesses to choose from. As I don’t want to pimp my blog out with loads of random links to things, I’m rather picky and often say a polite no thank you after being invited to join travel affiliate programs that aren’t right for me or my readers.
Some of the companies I do have affiliate relationships with include…
Sometimes sites have cookie periods, so if you click on a link, go away to think about it for a few days and then go back and buy the blogger still gets something. Others don’t use cookies so we only get something if people book when they’ve click through from our site.
Other ways my travel blog makes money
I’ve only recently decided to include ads on my site and am still deciding if I keep those or not. For the longest time I kept my site pure without any ads at all, but then after realising I was so accustomed to seeing them on almost every other website in the world I figured I’d give it a go and see how I feel about it again in a few months.
Another way I work with businesses is on sponsored posts.
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As the name suggests, this is where a company sponsors a story, and it gives me a chance to share a travel tip or some information that you can use on your travels, while being able to keep the blogging lights on.
Regardless of whether a post is sponsored, or if I’m hosted somewhere, I write honestly and don’t let it affect the story.
I also say thanks but no thanks to all sorts of businesses that I don’t believe in or agree with. Online casinos need not apply. Seriously guys, stop emailing.
But I love it when I get to work with companies that are a great fit, and when I can share new things with you guys to hopefully make your travels even better.
So now you know how you’ve been helping lots of bloggers out when you’ve read our stories, clicked on affiliate links and bought something. And on behalf of all those bloggers out there, working away to make their dreams come true I thank you.
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