Travel brands make best use of affiliate marketing

The travel industry is making the most successful use of affiliate marketing, according to research from E-consultancy.

Sponsored by buy.at, the UK's largest independent affiliate network, the survey into how brands (merchants) use affiliate marketing found that travel marketers spend an average of 16 per cent of their online budget in the channel to drive 18 per cent of their online sales.

The survey also reveals that 84 per cent of marketers in the travel sector say that affiliate marketing drives a high or medium volume and 56 per cent report it is very cost effective for customer acquisition compared with 35 per cent saying paid search is very cost-effective and just 8 per cent for display advertising.

None of the travel brands surveyed consider affiliate marketing to be not 'cost-effective' but over half thought online display advertising is not cost-effective and over two-thirds think mobile advertising is not cost-effective.

This follows the news that 71 per cent of travel companies have increased their spend on affiliate marketing over the past two years and around a quarter of travel firms have at least doubled their investment in the channel.

Some 63 per cent intend to increase their spend in the channel over the next two years.

Kevin Cornils, CEO of buy.at, commented: "Affiliate marketing is particularly effective for the travel sector because of the diversity of publishers, ranging from those who create targeted and relevant content for a campaign, integrating sophisticated tools such as 'travel wizards', to those that harvest the long tail through niche sites and blogs.

"Successful aggregators such as Expedia and Lastminute have made excellent use of this channel".

Duncan Barraclough from LateRooms.com added: "Travel has always been a leading industry within affiliate marketing.

"Reflecting on strong growth over a two-year period, LateRooms has certainly upped the affiliate investment in terms of time, resource and service delivery.

"Our affiliate programme's ROI means it is a sustainable and successful marketing channel.

"We see continued investment, development and success for both us and our affiliate partners as we take this forward".

Linus Gregoriadis, Head of Research at E-consultancy, commented: "The affiliate channel is viewed as particularly cost effective by advertisers in the travel sector, which is a real stronghold for affiliate marketing.

"Advertisers recognise that there are many excellent affiliate publishers out there specialising in travel who can deliver high-quality traffic and incremental sales".

The survey found that the majority of travel companies prefer to manage their affiliate marketing directly with a network and three-quarters work with just one or two affiliate networks.

Barriers to further growth in this sector include restricted budgets, which are considered a 'major' or 'minor' barrier by more than half the sample.

Some 68 per cent also see 'lack of internal resource' as a barrier compared with 61 per cent of respondents who work in financial services.

More than half the travel marketers surveyed also see difficulty in attracting affiliates as a barrier and a third consider problems with tracking as a barrier.

In September 2007, E-consultancy analysed over 700 responses to its research request, which was emailed to its database.

Of these 239 were UK merchants, "working in the UK for a company which sells online through the affiliate channel".

Back to top