If you’re anything like me, you probably started your blogging or content creation journey full of hopes and dreams of passive income. Then you quickly realized that navigating the world of content monetization can be tricky and time-consuming.
Or maybe you’re at the beginning of your creator journey. Even better. Then you get to do the affiliate marketing thing right from the start!
And this where Travelpayouts comes in, trust me, it’s a game-changer. From flights and hotels to car rentals and travel insurance, it’s all there, ready to tap into and share with your audience.
In this article, I’ll walk you through why Travelpayouts is the ultimate one-stop shop for bloggers and creators like us. And how their new AI tool, Emerald, can help you earn more passive affiliate income. So grab a cup of tea, get comfy and let’s dive in.
🌟 ALL-IN-ONE MONETIZATION
Join the No. 1 travel affiliate platform for creators and bloggers. Use code SUNSHINESEEKER to receive a $25 bonus!
Article overview
What is Travelpayouts?
Travelpayouts is an all-in-one monetization platform specifically designed for the travel industry, connecting bloggers, content creators and marketers with travel-related companies and services.
It offers a wide range of affiliate programs, including flights, hotels, car rentals, and travel insurance, enabling you to earn passive income by promoting these services through your websites, blogs and social media channels.
And just in case you’re completely new to this…
🔗 Affiliate marketing >> is a performance-based marketing strategy where you earn a commission by promoting other people’s products and driving sales through your unique referral links. It is my absolute favorite way to earn because you don’t have to deal with anything other than creating the content.
💸 Passive income >> is money earned with minimal effort or active involvement, often generated from investments, rental properties, or online businesses like affiliate marketing. It allows you to make money while you do other things. In other words, it gives you more freedom.
And that’s what we travel creators should be all about. Yes, brand collabs are great, but passive income is what will give you the freedom I know you’re dreaming of.
If you’ve read my step-by-step guide to becoming a creator, you know that I recommend Travelpayouts as your first step towards monetization.
Who is Travelpayouts for?
If you’re a content creator in the travel niche, Travelpayouts is for you. Yes, even if you don’t have a website yet, you can still use affiliate links.
But other niches can also make money with travel affiliates. Maybe you’re a history creator who can link to incredible historic sites and guided tours. Or maybe you’re a lifestyle blogger who recently visited an amazing cave hotel in Matera and want to share it.
Travel agents can also get a lot of value out of the Travelpayouts platform. The sky is the limit!
My best converters are my blog posts, email newsletters and Instagram Stories. But I also use affiliate links in my freebies (to build that list), in the digital products I sell, link in bio on Instagram and on my travel resources page.
Highlights
💰 Low minimum payout – I recently switched my Agoda links over to Travelpayouts because they offer a higher commission and a lower payment threshold, only $50 with PayPal, compared to Agoda’s $200.
💵 Single wallet withdrawal – I know how frustrating it is to have $50 on one platform and $22 on another – just waiting and waiting to get paid. But with Travelpayouts, you earn everything in one place, meaning you can withdraw way quicker. Ka-ching!
🌐 Valuable tools – A Chrome extension and WordPress plugin make creating links and adding widgets so much easier. More on other features below.
🗓 30-day cookie – I like that Travelpayouts gives us a long cookie lifetime, which means your readers have a month to make a purchase from the time they click.
👥 No minimum audience required – unlike brand deals and ads, you can start earning from day one, even with a small audience.
🚀 Higher commissions – Travelpayouts are sometimes able to negotiate a higher commission than the direct partner program. Why? Because we are now over 550k users on the platform, which gives them some serious bargaining power.
📈 Analytics – Travelpayouts also just released Content Analytic, a free feature that helps you earn more. Get page-level and tool-specific insights, unique visitors, and more.
✅ Easy to use – Some affiliate networks are super complicated, but not Travelpayouts. It couldn’t be easier to navigate the dashboard, and they have lots of resources for learning.
🎁 A gift from me to you – Sign up with Travelpayouts using this link and code SUNSHINESEEKER to receive a $25 bonus!
Brands
Travelpayouts partners with 100+ travel brands, including some of the biggest names in the business. My best converting programs are Booking.com, Agoda, Viator, GetYourGuide, Welcome Pickups, and Airalo.
Others worth mentioning are TripAdvisor, Klook, Vrbo, DiscoverCars, Kiwi, Rental Cars ++.
Sometimes they also run promotions with higher commissions for selected brands, which I love.
Travelpayouts tools & features
What sets Travelpayouts apart from other traditional affiliate networks is the variety of tools and innovative solutions that can help you earn more.
Emerald
Let’s face it, running a travel blog is time-consuming. I don’t think most people understand how much goes into it. But to achieve freedom, you have to escape the rat race of trading time for money. And that’s why I think the best tool Travelpayouts offer is Emerald.
What is Emerald you ask? Emerald is your personal AI blogging co-pilot that:
Scans your articles to understand your content.
Seamlessly places affiliate tools from top travel brands where they’ll perform best.
Requires very little effort – install the script and let Emerald do the rest.
I can’t tell you how much time I have spent creating affiliate blocks for every, single blog post. Oh, how I wish I had Travelpayouts in the early days.
As you can see below, Emerald has three features; smart recommendations (affiliate boxes), best-fit affiliate links (link insertions) and travel service previews when people hover over your links.
Emerald understands your content and changes the titles, text and affiliate offers depending on what will give you the best chance of converting to bookings. Each of these features can be turned on or off at any time.
For my articles where I specifically mention hotels, it often includes the same hotels in the boxes. Also showing the current rating and number of stars, which is great because keeping that updated manually would be a pain in the 🍑.
But don’t worry, if you don’t want these tools to show up on specific pages, just exclude them.
LinkSwitcher
Another tool I love. If you, like me, had signed up for many direct affiliate programs before joining Travelpayouts, you don’t have to change every link manually. Just turn on LinSwitcher and choose which links you want to convert.
Widgets
Many of the programs inside Travelpayouts also have their own widgets that you can use alone or in addition to Emerald. Here’s an example of a widget I often use from Discover Cars.
Travelpayouts Academy
You can take free courses about how to use Travelpayouts, SEO for affiliate revenue and how to make money as a content creator. This is a great bonus for new creators, even veterans like myself can learn a thing or two.
If I’d had this when I started travel blogging in early 2015, maybe it wouldn’t have taken me 4 years to make my first proper affiliate income.
Quick tips for succeeding with affiliate marketing
- Know your audience: Understand who your readers are and what they are looking for. Tailor your content to meet their needs and interests. Don’t suggest only luxury hotels if you know your readers are budget travelers.
- Understand user intent: Identify the purpose behind your audience’s searches and create content that directly addresses their queries. Some keywords will drive traffic, while others will convert into affiliate sales. For example, an article about the best hotels in Rome will convert better than an article about safety in Rome. But write for both.
- Choose the right affiliates: Partner with reputable and relevant affiliate programs that align with your niche and audience interests (easy to do with Travelpayouts). The better known the brand, the more bookings you’ll often get.
- Create high-quality content: Produce engaging, informative, and valuable content that naturally incorporates affiliate links in several places. Sharing your own experiences from a 1st person perspective is the way to go.
- Be transparent: Clearly disclose your affiliate relationships to build trust and maintain credibility with your audience. Only recommend products/services you have used yourself, or do the research for your audience. Also, don’t be afraid to talk about bad experiences, this will only build trust.
- Leverage social media and email: Promote your content and affiliate links on social media platforms to reach a broader audience.
- Track performance: Use Travelpayouts’ analytics tool to monitor the performance of your affiliate links and understand what’s working and what’s not. The best-converting content is often not what you think. I have one article that only gets 200-300 views a month, which converts better than my top 3 articles traffic-wise.
Why I recommend Travelpayouts
Earning passive income through affiliate marketing is the best feeling. Yesterday, I cried in Pisa Botanical Garden because I was so grateful for all the wonderful experiences this blog has given me.
There I sat on a bench next to a beautiful mansion and palm trees, eating my takeaway pizza with a view of the Leaning Tower. Then a $99 commission popped up on my phone, without doing any work that day.
Now, this isn’t unusual nor a life-changing number. But the whole setting got the best of me. So there I was, crying of happiness. And that is exactly what I want you to experience too!
Of all the affiliate networks I have used in my 10-year creator journey, Travelpayouts is the best and easiest to use. They are a great partner to have.
Going direct isn’t always better, because it can be hard to keep up with different login information, links and features. Well, no more. Bye bye, never-ending spreadsheets.
With Travelpayouts, you can access 100+ affiliate partners all in one place. Easily switch to Travelpayouts links thanks to LinkSwitcher, and let Emerald do a lot of the heavy lifting. Combine that with 24/7 customer support that has an average response time of 26 minutes, it can’t be beat!
How much can I earn?
Travelpayouts says: “Some of our affiliate partners make $3k – $5k per month. On average, our partners earn $15 per accommodation booking and $23 per car rental booking.”
Of course, it all depends on your traffic, audience demographic, number of links, etc.
This travel blog makes an average of $150 in affiliate commission a day. That is in addition to Mediavine ads, brand collabs and digital product sales.
Travelpayouts or Stay22? I love both. With Stay22 most of my income comes from their pop-up, which means I can use Travelpayouts for the rest. Contact your dedicated affiliate manager to see how you best can utilize both platforms.
Are there any cons?
I always try to balance my reviews with some negatives as well. But to be honest, I had to think long and hard to find something here.
Some of the brands don’t pay a commission for in-app purchases, but that isn’t uncommon in the affiliate world.
It can also be harder to achieve raised commission rates. Travelpayouts’ affiliate reward is 60–70% of their revenue, depending on your volume. Their threshold for increased commission is $3,000 per month, while I have successfully negotiated higher percentages from just $500 with direct programs.
But that’s about it.
Since 2011, Travelpayouts has paid out more than $80 million to its affiliate partners. So why shouldn’t you get a piece?
🍰 What now? – Don’t forget to sign up with Travelpayouts using this link and code SUNSHINESEEKER to receive a $25 bonus!
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