This is a discussion on Hi within the Introduce yourself! forums, part of the Affiliate Marketing category; I found this forum while looking over ePlanner's website analytics (inbound link from My tip for the 2009, fastest-growing Travel ...
Introduce yourself!New to AF? We'd love to for you to say hello to our community here.
ePlanner has been able to launch with such a wide range of travel options by partnering with trusted affiliates and will be connecting with more for accommodation & activities very soon (via XML, so as to consolidate the results and retain control over the user experience). ePlanner will also be offering its own affiliate program in the near future (referral or a fully customised white label option).
I look forward to contributing to the forum where possible and learning from its members experiences and expertise.
Thanks Tim, I was quite surprised actually as we have not done much to market ePlanner to date (as we are just waiting on a couple of features to be completed first).
I hope my link above is not frowned upon? I just thought it natural to mention our website when introducing myself and where I am from.
Thanks Jim. Just out of curiosity, may I ask how you happened to come across ePlanner?
I thought as much. No follow seems to be standard with most blogs/forums now days from my experience.
While ePlanner caters to a different need than Wotif (mainly travellers who like to pre-plan an entire holiday/trip as opposed to those just wanting to book accommodation at the last minute) I am up for a challenge . ePlanner will soon be connecting with an additional source of accommodation content, at which point we will have last minute rates on par with Wotif.
Once this is done, I hope that you will test out our unique functionality (e.g. the ability to search by distance and to find activities etc close to where you are staying). We also plan on offering some fantastic incentives to book with ePlanner, so if the functionality and rates do not do the trick then maybe these will persuade you .
Perhaps that's why I fall a bit more into the Wotif model then! What I like with comparison sites is the ability to adjust my travel dates based on the prices, and compare across days either side.
I'm definately open to ideas, and I do find that more in the travel space than any other no-one comparison site consistently gets me the best service or indeed prices, so there must be lots of customers still up for grabs.
For what it's worth I'd consider A/B testing different backgrounds (eg a white one) and only a minor criticism, I'm not that fond of the font above the search box that much really - it's a little bit 90's somehow.
Ah, yeah the date/rates price matrix is great for last minute. We initially designed ePlanner with two search result views - the one visible now and a date/rate price matrix view. We will bring this second view back soon, but it was not compatible with our initial accommodation source (which provides a total price for a searched rate as opposed to the individual rate for each night).
You are absolutely right about prices. This is why we are doing something similar to travel meta-search websites, but with a uniform interface through which users can search, plan and book.
Thanks for the suggestion. We will definitely be doing A/B split testing in the near future.
I enjoyed the tenor video above, but wanted to talk seriously about your business. Can you talk more about your strategy? You've decided to enter a crowded space, and your site seems to be built around the dynapac concept?
I understand you'll be adding more inventory, so I'm interested to know if you have any thoughts on suppliers (eg some of the bigger chains) trying to fight thinning margins by taking back control of their online marketing, which makes it harder for affiliates.
Don't take this post as a criticism, I'm trying to open up a conversation about where your business is going to fit into the online travel puzzle...if you can make money, so can partners.
I can not go into great detail regarding ePlanner's strategy (for obvious reasons). You are correct that online travel is a crowded space (due to the fact that it is a huge market), but there is still a LOT of opportunity for companies that tackle real problems and innovate.
Whether suppliers pay a commission to a distribution website or pay to attract traffic to their own website, they are still having to incur a cost per sale. If the % that they pay distributors is less than the cost of attracting a direct sale then it goes without saying that it is within their interest to pay the distributor a commission.
With the cost of online advertising increasing (CPC and CPM), I do not see commissions dropping across the board any time soon.
Now the issue is, can ePlanner attract and retain travellers for a lower cost than it earns from the commission from travel products that they buy. I wont go on about why (would take up a few A4 pages + included some confidential information) but ePlanner is uniquely positioned to achieve just this.
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