• by Harvey Chipkin , Columnist, September 11, 2018

SmarterTravel had a pretty good thing going. With 12 brands, including high-profile names like Airfarewatchdog, BookingBuddy, Jetsetter and Oyster.com reaching more than 200 million unique visitors monthly, the publisher had solid reach among savvy travelers.

It also boasted a strong B2B component, but one that was limited to larger partners. It thought it could do a lot more to monetize its content, so it looked to a company called Partnerize to expand its reach through that company’s SaaS (software-as-a-service) platform.

In a recent announcement, Partnerize revealed the results of its launch of SmarterTravel’s SmarterAds program for travel publishers. In the first weeks after the launch, enrollment in the program far exceeded expectations as many travel publishers moved to capitalize on a lucrative new revenue stream.

In the first months after launch, the program grew by 65%, reduced partner onboarding time by 50% and decreased operational resources by using a consolidated platform with real-time reporting and richer partner insights.

SmarterAds is a turnkey, self-service solution designed to enable travel publishers of all sizes -- bloggers, influencers, etc. -- to monetize their traffic through a suite of products.

As part of the SmarterAds program, the parties share visitor metadata in order to deliver customized messages and offers based on where a visitor is on the path to purchase.

Holly Brim, a marketing manager with Partnerize, offers this example of how the program works. Say you’re a travel blogger and there’s a widget on your site where a reader can insert potential travel dates. When appropriate, a BookingBuddy ad will pop up. If that leads to a click-through to BookingBuddy and subsequent revenue production, the blogger is paid a commission.

More, the program can be customized to drive premium purchases  like first-class air travel or a longer hotel stay. Using Partnerize ‘s platform, which encompasses a comprehensive landscape of travel sites, SmarterTravel would be able to see which sites are promoting the appropriate traffic for its readers. The company can then create its own marketplace and ecosystem, making it easier for the brands it manages to reach potential customers as well as providing consumers with far more choice.

The Partnerize Partner Management Platform, according to the company, is an end-to end solution for forming, managing, analyzing and predicting future results of partner marketing programs using artificial intelligence.

Brim describes this as a whole new approach to partnership, different from traditional affiliate networks in being more transparent and quantifiable. Brim said Partnerize’s analytics are robust and can be used to adapt to any parameter: seasonality, length of stay, price category, etc.

In a technology world dominated by giants, it’s critical to have partners -- if they’re productive. If those partners can generate more eyeballs for your content, it can be a marriage -- or many marriages -- made in heaven.