Top 18 Best Travel Affiliate Programs In 2022

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18 Best Travel Affiliate Programs in 2022 Reviewed.
Travel is one of the most lucrative affiliate niches out there. If you help to sell a vacation package, a flight, or even just a hotel room, you can be part of a large transaction. Even a single-digit commission rate can be worth hundreds of dollars per sale.
The travel niche is as competitive as it is profitable. If you want to navigate this affiliate marketing niche, you need to know what practices and networks offer the best starting point.
In this guide, you'll get an introduction to the niche and learn about some of the top networks our Affiliate Lab members love and best affiliate programs for a range of sub-niches, including general travel, airlines, hotels, and tours.
You'll also see some of the best affiliate programs for insurance and travel accessories.
Let's start by breaking down the travel niche and how affiliates claim the awesome commissions that are possible.
Table Of Contents.
Affiliate Marketing And The Travel Niche.
The travel niche is a lot bigger than it might appear at first sight. It doesn't only deal with travel itself (though we will cover some networks and referral programs that deal with that specifically), but also accommodations, activities, and accessories.
The affiliate marketers that populate this niche include everyone from travel bloggers to extreme sports enthusiasts who write about their favorite destinations.
One of the great things about the travel niche is that you can layer many different offers into the same site or content .
For example, if someone wants to travel somewhere, they'll need somewhere to stay when they get there. They'll also want some things to do. If you're clever, you can help them do all of these things from your site with a gentle sprinkling of affiliate links.
No matter what you choose to base your site around, you need to know where to start. Let's look at how to find the best products for travel-based affiliate marketing.
How To Find The Best Travel Affiliate Products.
If you want to find the best products, start with the best merchants and networks. The resources offered by high-quality travel affiliate programs can help you get on your feet faster. You should ask yourself:
The development of images and banners The development of consumer research The cost of developing tracking tools to manage sales.
Beyond that, succeeding in any niche requires a certain degree of knowledge and enthusiasm. Many travel bloggers succeed because their excitement is infectious . People want more than the sights--they want the joy and wonder the travel blogs are communicating.
Selling takes more than just communicating, though. That's why you need to understand the buyer cycle if you want to work with travel affiliate programs.
Understanding The Customer Buying Cycle.
Understanding the customer buying cycle is an important part of surviving and thriving in the travel niche. Travel is expensive, so buyers are warier of paying for bad deals or working with untrustworthy partners.
Part of how you overcome that hesitation is by making sure that you're meeting the needs of your visitors at every stage.
We prefer the AIDA model. We covered this in detail in this helpful video.
Attention : First, the targeted visitor learns about the possibility of the product. This is done through advertisement. Interest : The visitor is presented with detailed information that clarifies what the product offers and what problems it solves. This can be done through general content. Desire : The visitor learns the ways that the product can speak to their specific problems or needs. This can be done through content that is targeted at a specific segment. Action : The visitor is compelled to purchase the product. This is done by making buying affiliate links attractive and accessible.
This model is decades old, but it translates well to online affiliate marketing. Using AIDA, you can target different keywords with different search intent to create a marketing funnel.
For example, commercial intent keywords (e.g. "best X for Y", product comparisons, product reviews) usually target people in the desire/action stage. These terms might have less traffic, but they will convert more often. For that reason, you can expect them to be more competitive.
On the other hand, "early research" type keywords (for the attention/interest stages) often have high traffic, but less buyer intent.

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You can use content that capitalizes on keywords in different stages to funnel people through the buying cycle and towards your commercial content.
Keep this in mind as you're building out your site, and your content strategy. For now, let's explore the difference between programs and networks before jumping into the best ones.
Affiliate Program vs. Affiliate Network: What's The Difference?
Affiliate programs and networks are closely related.
An affiliate/referral program is an arrangement that exists between an affiliate and a merchant for a product or family of products. Merchants may operate one or several referral programs depending on their needs.
An affiliate network is a type of platform that allows merchants and affiliates to coordinate on offers. It offers useful tools to both parties, such as dashboards, search engines, and ratings of other merchants and affiliate marketers on the network.
Affiliate networks typically feature thousands of referral programs from hundreds of different merchants, though they may choose to focus on specific niches.
Merchants like working with networks because it gives them access to a large base of affiliates. They also like how they don't have to manage the work of setting up contracts or handling the technical side of creating affiliate links.
Affiliate marketers like working with networks because they can choose from many different offers and manage them from one dashboard.