p48-49 tech oct3 29/9/08 18:31 Page 48
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Affiliate marketing: starter guide
Get it
clicked
Affiliate marketing is a way for agents to make money.
No, you don’t make the sale. But by enticing buyers,
.
c
om
you can still earn commission, explains Mark Lewis
iStockphoto
A
ffiliate marketing is hardly a new
How it makes you money
Agent opportunity
concept. At its simplest, it is a At last weekend’s Advantage conference in
means of marketing a product by Cost per thousand (CPM) was once the Spain, Hoseasons chief executive Richard
putting adverts on the websites of dominant model of affiliate relationships. Carrick argued that agents should be keen to
third parties – affiliates – that link back to That meant that for every thousand (M in the become affiliates of operators.
your own site. In referring potential clients roman numeral) clicks, affiliates got paid a But agents don’t necessarily see it as a
through to suppliers, affiliates do a very certain amount of money. good idea, and have been slow to respond.
similar job to a travel agent. So does this rep- Now the most popular way of doing If a user clicks through and makes a pur-
resent a threat to agents or an opportunity? business is cost per acquisition (CPA). For chase, the affiliate will typically get between
Giles Parnwell, head of travel marketing at 6-7% of the sale price as their commission.
How it works Affiliate Future, that makes “affiliate Traditional agents might get double that by
The sophistication of the software might marketing the purest form of marketing.” making a commissionable sale in the normal
belie its simplicity. But the most important Operators have close to zero risk, because way. So why do themselves out of money?
element is the ability to trace the electronic they only pay the affiliate if they make a sale. Carrick counters: “Agents sites are getting
path a web user takes once he has spotted And operators know their affiliates must a lot of traffic which is not turning into
one of these adverts. If the surfer ends up work hard for them – or they won’t get paid. sales. And any sale is better than no sale.”
clicking through to the site, the affiliate
might cash in. If the user goes on to buy, the Making money
affiliate will definitely earn (see box). websites are already hoovering up surfers Big operators such as Tui Travel and
As long as it has some kind of mechanism interested in holidays, is obvious. Hoseasons run their own affiliate schemes,
for collecting cash for clicks, any website By posting adverts for operators and other which can be accessed easily from their web-
with linked adverts could be described as an suppliers on their site, agents can earn sites. But specialist technological middlemen
affiliate. The implication for agents, whose commission when visitors click through. have sprung up to give operators the easiest
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