Jan 21, 2019
Written by
Sarah B.
To learn how affiliate marketers can best convert the increased interest in travel purchasing during Q1, CJ Affiliate turned to Sarah Bundy at the global performance marketing agency, All Inclusive Marketing (AIM). With a speciality in Travel & Hospitality marketing, AIM strategically manages and consults for brands such as Extended Stay America, Southwest Vacations, United Vacations and more.
Believe it or not, just after the holidays is a peak time for travel bookings. Travelers are thinking about the airline, hotel, and rental car bookings needed for early winter trips and spring vacations. This creates a lot of opportunity to connect with future travelers as they explore destinations, plan trips, book travel, and invest in new travel gear.
To maximize booking revenue, Advertisers need to understand what motivates a buyer. Anticipating where travelers want to go and why will help travel and hospitality brands convert more perusers into bookings and buyers.
Here are some tips from Sarah for both Advertisers and Publishers looking to maximize their Q1 travel booking revenue.
Everyone is talking about how to personalize the buyer experience. An easy way to do this is to create offers and packages that appeal to specific travelling personas: spring breakers, family vacationers, baby-mooners, honeymooners, etc. By identifying relevant traveler segments and creating imagery and verbiage that speaks directly to their needs and interests you’ll create an instant connection with travel bookers.
Pro tip: Partner with Publishers that offer customer targeting and personalization capabilities.
Publishers know their audiences best, so engage with your top Publishers to find out more about their site visitors’ demographics and create a segmentation strategy for which you can create imagery and calls to action with greater potential to convert.
Strategic partnerships in affiliate don’t just happen between an Advertiser and Publisher. More and more, we are seeing brands engage with other brands to diversify and grow their reach. If you’re a brand that is complimentary to another seller, such as a car rental company and a hotel, think about partnering with other sellers in the regions, and cross-selling and up-selling each other’s services and products on a performance basis.
Additionally, if you’re a retailer that sells travel-related products or gear, such as comfy clothing, bags and suitcases, running shoes, or even snow gear/beach gear, there’s an opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell your products with travel and hospitality brands targeting travelers to certain locations.
To increase conversion rates and spend, travel marketers can strategically geo-target travelers to present them with offers for their preferred travel destinations. Travelers who have shorter overall travel times usually can afford to stay an extra night in a hotel and add a car rental onto their trip, versus the traveler who has a longer travel time and who loses a day enroute. Thus, targeting buyers based on their geo-location can drive consumer bookings and increased revenue.
During the winter and spring, travelers located in the Pacific North West are more likely to travel to Hawaii, California, or Mexico to get out of the cold. travelers on the east coast of Canada and the US are more likely to go to the Caribbean, southern US, or southern Europe for winter and spring breaks. It’s usually cheaper, faster, and more convenient for travelers to visit places within a five hour or less travel time, and less than a two hour time difference from their norm. A travel campaign that is segmented by audience, based on their location, is a sophisticated yet simple way to increase bookings.
When looking to reach, engage, and convert travelers you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. However, you should leverage technology, insights and create a personalized experience to maximize booking and sales revenue with travelers during the busy Q1 travel booking season.
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About All Inclusive Marketing
AIM helps brands in the Travel and Retail sectors reach, engage and convert their buyers, and partners online. AIM is a certified CJ Affiliate agency and this year’s “Global Excellence” Award Winner at the Performance Marketing Awards for setting the standard of excellence in affiliate program management.
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