How Can Hotels Make the Most Out of Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to increase your business. In fact, some 42 percent of sales of Amazon, the single-largest online retailer in the world comes from its affiliate marketing program. And then we also have healthcare and hospitality services providers, financial institutions and almost every major business using affiliate marketing to boost their sales.

As a matter of fact, there are various benefits of hotel affiliate marketing and it’s time that hotels make the most out of it.

Therefore, in this article, I will discuss how hotels can leverage affiliate marketing programs.

Let’s begin by understanding how hotel affiliate marketing programs work.

How Do Affiliate Marketing Programs Work?

Affiliate marketing isn’t any rocket since. When you offer an affiliate marketing program for a hotel, you will find several bloggers and travel writers sign up as members. You’ve to provide them with an online dashboard where they can create affiliate marketing links.

Bloggers, travel writers, and other website owners will post these affiliate marketing links on their blogs and websites. Whenever anyone clicks on these links to make a hotel reservation, the property owner pays the successful affiliate marketer some commissions.

Usually, the amount of money you’ll pay as a commission to an affiliate marketer varies between two percent and 18 percent, minus taxes and other charges. This commission is decided on basis of the basic price.

The advantages of affiliate marketing for hotels are immense and it is opening several marketing channels at the same time. And they don’t cost anything to the hotel. You’ll pay only when there’s a confirmed reservation and get the money for the stay.

Proper Goals for Hotel Affiliate Marketing Programs

As we can see, the workings of hotel affiliate programs are rather simple. However, to make it successful, you need to set proper hotel affiliate marketing strategies and goals. Meaning, having a target that you can achieve for room occupancies at any time of the year for the hotel, through affiliate marketing.

The other goal is choosing the right kind of platform.

Generally, travel writers and bloggers are the best for promoting a hotel. Therefore, customizing an affiliate marketing program that allows such website owners to blend in affiliate links with their reviews or travelogues works well.

And thirdly, demographics. A hotel owner has to ensure that bloggers and travel writers that sign-up as affiliate marketers are reaching the right audience that would translate as guests for your property. This would depend on which segment your hotel falls into such as boutique hotel, resort or budget hotel.

Therefore, choosing the right affiliate marketers is also very important.

Proper Rates for Affiliate Marketers

Setting proper commission rates for affiliate marketers is imperative. That’s because hotels have to strike a fine balance between the actual cost of the room, taxes, and other service charges and their profits. Usually, affiliate commissions are paid from the profits.

At the same time, you also need to consider whether the same room is available cheaper elsewhere. 

For example, a lot of properties offer cheaper rates on OTAs such as Bookings.com, Hotels.com, Agoda.com and others. Therefore, these rates shouldn’t be lower than what your affiliate marketer is offering. You can maintain them at par with those rates on hotel aggregation websites but ensure that commissions are attractive enough to get several affiliate marketers to sign up for your affiliates program.

Competitor Analysis

One important factor to bear in mind is that affiliate marketers can promote any number of hotels through their websites and blogs. Meaning, they could also join an affiliate program offered by your direct competitors. Therefore, you’ve to do some competitor analysis.

Find out facts and figures about your competitor’s affiliate program, if they offer one. And the cheaper rates they could be offering on hotel booking websites. It’s important to strike a proper balance between their rates and yours because undercutting prices leads to unhealthy competition and a drop in profits.

Using Influencers for Affiliate Marketing

One of the best ways to avoid undercutting and loss of profits is by enlisting the services of influencers and micro-influencers for your hotel affiliate marketing programs. These influencers work through various social media platforms such as Instagram. And they have hundreds or even thousands of followers.

Generally, all influencers and micro-influencers earn money by leveraging affiliate marketing to their followers. They promote a specific brand or service. And you can use these influencers to promote your hotel business and bag more guests. You may have to host an influencer at the property for a day or two, for them to take videos and pictures to use with their social media posts.

Facts & Figures of Affiliate Marketing

Here’re some facts and figures about affiliate marketing that should encourage any property owner to leverage affiliate marketing for their hotel. 

• According to the European statistics portal, Statista, affiliate marketing in America itself is expected to cross the $8.2 billion figure by the end of 2022. That’s quite a large number.
• A Forrester report which was commissioned by Japanese online retailer, Rakuten, found some startling facts about affiliate marketing. 
• About 81 percent of advertisers and 84 percent of publishers use affiliate marketing to promote their products and services. Some 50 percent of all the companies included in the survey indicated that affiliate marketing accounted for over 20 percent of the annual revenues of these companies.
• Over 80 percent of these organizations allot over 10 percent of their marketing budgets to their affiliate marketing programs. 
• Between 78 percent and 92 percent of all consumers read blogs and reviews during the initial phase of buying something. And they base their final decision to place an order or buy something such as a hotel reservation, based on blogposts and favourable reviews. 

That’s also the reason affiliate marketing makes sense for property owners. They can bag this segment of consumers that read blogs and reviews. If you provide an affiliate marketing program, a blogger or website owner can include the link on their blogs and reviews. This leads a consumer to take instant decisions and proceed with the purchase.

Spreading to Foreign Markets

An affiliate program can also help hotels reach foreign markets rapidly. That’s because bloggers and content marketers in those countries would generally be providing content in the native language, along with affiliate links. This helps a property to attract more foreign visitors.

In fact, a lot of large retail companies and marketing firms have managed to spread their services and products to foreign countries through affiliate marketing. Amazon is one such example. Airbnb is another. Hotels can draw from the example of Airbnb’s affiliate program and its success to create and offer their own.

You can also offer special discounts in select areas or countries through an affiliate program to attract more guests. This is a wonderful marketing tweak that works well with affiliate programs, through bloggers and content marketers.

Custom Make Your Affiliate Program

One of the ways that hotels can make the most of an affiliate program is to tie it up with other travel essentials.

For example, you can provide a package that includes free airport transfers through an affiliate program. Though this might entail some expense, you can price the package accordingly.

And always create a program that’s friendly enough for travel bloggers and travel writers and reviewers to join and use. If you see the most successful affiliate programs, there’s something in common that would strike you. All of them are simple and have no complex needs or requirements from their associates.

Aim at Brand Awareness

For smaller hoteliers and property owners, creating a brand is very important to survive in a market that is largely dominated by large hotel and resort chains. Affiliate marketing helps you create brand awareness.

When scores of affiliate marketers- especially bloggers, travel writers and reviewers- write about your property, they’re directly contributing to your brand-building efforts.

The same holds true when you promote your affiliate program through influencers and micro-influencers: you’re building a superb brand image. And for every hotel, branding is an integral part of marketing. People are more attracted to hotels that have a brand rather than obscure or unknown ones.