Travelpayouts: Advertisers overview

Things to learn about your competition before building an affiliate program 

To make your affiliate program stand out from your competition and attract publishers who can be your brand’s best ambassadors, you must pay attention to various components of competing affiliate programs, including:

• The commission rate and why commissions are paid.
• The validation period (the time between transaction tracking and being validated). For example, in the accommodations category, some advertisers validate commissions as soon as a client checks into a hotel, while others only validate commissions after the checkout date. 
• Whether sales are attributed for the desktop version or mobile version of the website.
• The number of languages on the website. The more languages that are available, the wider the audience will be and the more sales will be generated.
• Forbidden and allowed types of traffic. In affiliate marketing, it’s important to strike the right balance between allowed and forbidden types of traffic. Though it’s true that advertisers often forbid certain types of traffic to avoid fraud, forbidding too many may make it difficult for publishers to promote your program. The best solution is to look at which traffic types your competitors allow and forbid, then map out your own strategy.
• The variety of partnership tools. Take a look at the tools your competitors offer. If their toolsets are large and include advanced tools like widgets, White label, or API, make sure you broaden your toolset as well. Travelpayouts makes it easy, as we offer a widget builder that allows you to create widgets hassle-free.

Categories on Travelpayouts 

Travelpayouts partners with brands in a wide range of categories including:

• Accommodations
• Airport Lounges
• Bank cards
• Bikes and scooter rentals
• Bus transportation
• Car rentals
• Cruises
• Flights
• Food
• Insurance 
• Loyalty points
• Package tours
• SIM-cards
• Tours and activities
• Train tickets
• Transfers
• Travel compensation 

Let’s take a closer look at these categories and some of the programs within them. 

Accommodations 

Accommodations is one of the top-performing sectors in travel and has great appeal to publishers, as they can promote a lot of accommodation options that resonate with different types of travelers. So, almost everyone who wants to travel is a potential customer. 

For brands, launching an accommodations affiliate program is the perfect way to partner with a wide range of publishers and increase exposure.

Booking.com WW

This brand offers the largest selection of accommodations online, with more than 29,475,748 bookable rooms in over 2,563,380 properties and over 1,550,000 room nights reserved daily.

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel site with over 500 million reviews. The website allows users to find the lowest hotel prices by comparing over 200 hotel sites.

OYO 

OYO offers a huge variety of more than 850,000 rooms in over 23,000 hotels in more than 800 cities around the world.

Airport Lounge

With airport lounge affiliate programs, publishers can offer travelers a unique product and help them make the most of their airport experience. This is a low-competition niche on Travelpayouts and all partnership opportunities are welcome. 

Priority Pass

Priority Pass is the world’s largest independent airport lounge access program offering admittance to over 1,300 lounges across the world.

Bike and scooter rentals

Today, many travelers see bike and scooter rentals as a valid alternative to car rentals, as they are cheaper, more eco-friendly, and help travelers avoid traffic jams and parking fees. These benefits make bike and scooter rentals a profitable affiliate category with low competition. That’s why now is a perfect time to build a bike and scooter rentals affiliate program to see major success with Travelpayouts publishers. 

BikesBooking.com

Booking.com is an online booking service for motorcycles, scooters, quads, and bicycles all over the world. BikesBooking compares the prices of 950 rental companies from over 40 countries. 50,000 vehicles are available for booking in more than 2,000 locations around the world.

Bus transportation

With fuel prices soaring and road congestion increasing, travelers are looking for more sustainable and hassle-free ways to get from point A to point B, which is why many are opting for buses. This accounts for the fast growth of the bus transportation niche and explains its high earning potential for both publishers and advertisers.

Flixbus US

Flexbus US is a growing US bus network and the largest bus network in Europe with 2,500 destinations in 39 countries.

Busbud

Busbud allows travelers to book bus tickets from over 3,900 bus companies connecting more than 21,000 cities across over 80 countries with more than 2,300,000 bus routes.

12Go

This platform sells tickets for buses, trains, ferries, and charters for more than 5,000 destinations in over 100 countries worldwide.

Car rentals

Car rental affiliate programs have a large audience, as they allow people to travel their own way and see more of a destination than they could without a car. This is why the car rentals category attracts a lot of publishers and car rental affiliate programs offer brands a hassle-free way to find top-level partners that will promote affiliate offers. 

Rentalcars.com

Rentalcars.com is the world’s biggest car hire booking service arranging car hires in 167 countries with over 60,000 locations in 40 languages.

AutoEurope (EU,UK)

AutoEurope is an online service for booking cars in over 180 countries around the world. 

Economybookings.com

Economybookings.com is an online car booking platform allowing travelers to choose from 175,000 cars in 20,000 locations around the world.

Cruises

Cruises are one of the fastest-growing sectors in travel as more and more people start considering going on a cruise vacation. The high average booking value makes the cruises category attractive for publishers and allows advertisers to scale their business and sales. 

Cruise Critic

Cruise Critic is the leading cruise reviews site, which hosts the largest cruise community in the world. Cruise Critic features more than 650,000 cruise reviews as well as advice and information from a team of cruise experts on everything from choosing a ship to planning your time in port. 

Flights 

Millions of people search for flight tickets every day. This makes the flights sector one of the most popular among publishers and allows advertisers within the category to get more influential publishers on board.

Aviasales

Aviasales is one of the largest online search engines for flights around the world. The service helps thousands of people compare airfares from 726 airlines as well as dozens of travel agencies and systems.

CheapOair

CheapOair is a leading provider of airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and vacation packages, which it offers through its extensive partnerships with top travel brands and wide inventory.

Kiwi.com

Kiwi.com is an airline search engine that creates combinations of flight, train, and bus tickets and offers them in a single itinerary.

Food 

Trying local food is one of the best ways to experience a culture to the fullest and maximize your travel experience. So, to help travelers build their wish-list itineraries, many publishers promote culinary experiences. For advertisers, the rising popularity of this category and its low levels of competition offer a great chance to boost sales and brand visibility.

EatWith

EatWith is the world’s largest community for unique culinary experiences led by one-of-a-kind hosts in over 130 countries.

KLOOK

KLOOK is an online platform offering travelers a simple way to discover activities, attractions, and things to do wherever they travel.

Insurance 

Insurance is a must for most international travelers, so affiliate programs in the niche have a huge earning potential. Insurance affiliate programs also have a wide international audience, which allows advertisers to extend their global reach and maximize their earnings.

Insubuy

Insubuy is a leading InsurTech company and online marketplace, which provides different types of medical insurance to foreigners visiting the US.

VisitorsCoverage 

VisitorsCoverage is a Silicon Valley-based insurtech company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company provides travel insurance to millions of global travelers in over 175 countries. 

Loyalty points

Loyalty points affiliate programs offer a lot of perks for travelers and help publishers maximize their affiliate earnings. In addition, this is a low competition category which means that it’ll take advertisers less time to get their affiliate programs off the ground.

Hilton Honors – Points.com

The Hilton Honors program partners with Points.com to sell Honors points to its members, whether they need more to book a hotel room or are stocking up for future trips.

Package tours 

Package tours are a popular choice for travelers, as they help travelers save money and allow them to experience more of a destination with minimal frustration. Thanks to the high average booking value of these tours, the category attracts a lot of affiliates. This means that advertisers within the category will have no problem drawing a pool of qualified publishers. 

Loveholidays

Loveholidays is the fastest growing online travel agency in the UK and inspires their customers to discover the perfect holiday.

Expedia UK

Expedia.co.uk is the largest online travel provider in the UK, serving millions of travelers every year. 

SIM-Cards

Staying in touch with friends and family is vital while traveling abroad, which is why international SIM cards are now in such high demand. Many affiliates promote SIM card affiliate offers to help their audiences stay connected overseas without incurring hefty roaming fees. 

Klook

Klook is an online booking platform for travel services and activities around the world with over 30 million visitors per month. The platform provides clients with seamless booking experiences and covers all kinds of travel services, such as transportation, accommodations, food, tours and activities, SIM cards, and more.

Drimsim

Drimsim is the first universal SIM card and free app for travelers that operates in 229 countries, providing stable communication, a fast Internet connection, and prices similar to those of local operators.

Tours and Activities

Tours and activities are one of the greatest untapped markets in online travel today. Why? Today, travelers want to make the most of their trips and try to turn every vacation into a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. In addition, the level of digitalization and online affiliate competition are still low within the category.

Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster is the official ticket marketplace for thousands of the world’s biggest events, performers, teams, and sports leagues. 

Viator

Viator, a TripAdvisor company, is one of the world’s leading resources for researching, finding, and booking the best travel experiences worldwide.

GetYourGuide

GetYourGuide is the booking platform for incredible travel experiences. Powered by a global team of over 500 travel experts, GetYourGuide helps travelers find the best things to do wherever they’re headed. 

Train tickets

With more and more people willing to travel in a more sustainable way, rail travel seems to be making a comeback. In addition, travelers see trains as a chance to save money, arrive right in the heart of the city, and avoid congested roads. This is why many affiliates include train ticket offers in their campaigns, which allows advertisers to find the right partners to easily promote their offers. 

Omio

Omio is a travel platform that allows travelers to compare and book journeys by train, bus, and plane according to their personal travel needs.

Rail Europe

Rail Europe is the leading distributor of European rail products. The company provides access to an extensive array of rail products from over 50 European train companies. 

Trainline

Trainline is Europe’s leading train and coach app. The company works with over 210 rail and coach companies to help their customers travel to thousands of destinations across 45 countries.

Transfers

Booking an airport transfer is a great way to start a journey off on the right foot and minimize stress. That’s why this service is so popular among tourists and so many publishers promote transfer offers. For brands, launching a transfer affiliate program is a great way to drive up sales and boost brand awareness. 

KiwiTaxi

KiwiTaxi is an international transfer booking company that provides transfers from airports and hotels in 102 countries.

Holiday Taxis

HolidayTaxis.com offers airport transfers in over 21,000 resorts in cities throughout 133 countries. The service provides highly reliable vehicles at a great value, with vehicle types that suit every budget and party size, from shuttles to private taxis to large coaches.

GetTransfer

GetTransfer.com is a booking service for transfers and car rentals with a personal driver at the best prices.

Travel compensation

Flight delay and cancellation compensation is one of the biggest pain points for travelers. To remedy this difficulty, many publishers partner with travel compensation affiliate programs. 

However, the competition is low in this category, which means there is a huge growth potential for travel compensation affiliate programs.

AirHelp

Since 2013, AirHelp has helped more than 10 million passengers understand their rights and receive up to €600 in compensation for delayed or canceled flights.

Compensair

Compensair is a service that helps customers get compensation for delayed or canceled flights efficiently and quickly.

Bottom Line

For brands, building an affiliate program is a great way to reach customers you were previously not able to target and skyrocket your sales. With over 300,000 publishers to promote your brand, Travelpayouts is a perfect launching point for your program. 

However, to have affiliates queuing to sign up, make sure you size up your competition. Once you’ve done this, make your affiliate program as attractive as possible to customers by offering a solid commission rate and powerful affiliate tools to drive conversions.