TripAdvisor Affiliate Program (2024)
TripAdvisor is a travel platform that provides information, reviews, and recommendations on hotels, flights, restaurants, and experiences.Â
It is the world's largest travel platform, with over 150m monthly visits.Â
In this review, you will learn everything about the TripAdvisor affiliate program.Â
Learn how much you can earn as a TripAdvisor affiliate and if the program is worth your time and effort.Â
TripAdvisor Affiliate Program Overview
Commission: 4% or 40%
Cookie Duration: 14 days
Where to Join: CJ Affiliate
Payment Options: Payoneer, Electronic Funds Transfer
TripAdvisor Affiliate Program
The TripAdvisor affiliate program can be joined through CJ Affiliate.Â
According to the TripAdvisor website, the program can also be joined at the Awin affiliate network. However, at the time of writing this review, I could not find the program on Awin.Â
TripAdvisor does not mention any requirements except for having a website. However, you can also promote TripAdvisor on social media. Having a website is just a requirement for getting accepted to the program.Â
There is no requirement for any minimum website traffic:
You are welcome to apply for the Affiliate Program even if you're just getting started. When we review applications, we focus on the overall look and feel of the site, and decide whether it's the right fit for our program. Tripadvisor reserves the right to reject sites that we feel do not align with our brand.
As long as you have a genuine travel-related website that does look spammy, you should be accepted to the program.Â
The cookie duration is 14 days.Â
TripAdvisor affiliates are provided with various logos, badges, banners, and widgets.
You can generate deep links to any page on TripAdvisor with the CJ Deep Link Generator.Â
The program does not offer any API solutions.Â
TripAdvisor Affiliate Program Commission
The TripAdvisor affiliate program is a little different from other travel affiliate programs.Â
TripAdvisor affiliates earn commissions for clicks from Tripadvisor to any Tripadvisor booking partners.
Even though this might seem amazing, as getting clicks is easier than generating sales, it is not as great as it seems to be.
The TripAdvisor affiliate program commission is 40%.Â
However, similarly to the Booking.com affiliate program, affiliates don’t receive a percentage of the booking amount.Â
You only receive 40% of the TripAdvisor commission.
TripAdvisor's commission is around 3% per completed booking, but it is unknown how much they earn just for a click.Â
They only mention that your commission per click depends on factors like the given booking partner, hotel, seasonality, and length of stay.
Therefore, it is impossible to determine your commission per click.Â
What is possible to calculate is at least an approximate amount.Â
The TripAdvisor affiliate landing page includes examples of possible earnings:Â
170 clicks sent to TripAdvisor - $60 ( that would be $0.35 per click)Â
6100 clicks sent to TripAdvisor - $1720 (that would be $0.28 per click)Â
870 clicks sent to TripAdvisor - $550 (that would be $0.63 per click)Â
CJ Affiliate shows that the program has 3 month EPC (earnings per click) of $14 (CJ Affiliate EPC is based on 100 clicks).Â
Therefore, based on CJ Affiliate data, TripAdvisor affiliates currently earn around $0.14 per click.Â
Of course, EPC constantly fluctuates, and it will be different when you look at it. However, a radical change will not occur unless TripAdvisor changes the commission.
What was mentioned above applies to just hotel bookings. Affiliates don’t earn anything for clicks to flights, car rentals, or any other offers on TripAdvisor.
Besides hotel bookings, you can only earn a commission for booked experiences.Â
The cookie duration is the same, but the commission is 4%. This commission is calculated from the price of the particular experience and not from the TripAdvisor cut.Â
Can You Make $1,000 a Month as a TripAdvisor Affiliate?
TripAdvisor pays per click but pays very little.Â
Let’s calculate how many clicks it would take to get to $1,000 with the current EPC of $14 ($0.14 per click).
You would need 7143 clicks.Â
How much website traffic would you need for that many clicks?Â
It would all comes down to your conversion rate.Â
TripAdvisor claims that they have above-average conversion:
We offer one of the highest commission payout structures, and have above average conversion rates (30%+).
I think this is very misleading as many people will think they will have a conversion rate of 30%.
But that is impossible. The 30% conversion rate is for the TripAdvisor website.Â
It is unsurprising that 30% of people click on some hotel listing when searching for hotels on TripAdvisor. Actually, I would expect the conversion rate to be even higher than 30%.Â
But you, as an affiliate with a travel blog, can expect a normal conversion rate as with any other similar affiliate program. Â
A standard conversion rate for sales is 0.5% - 1.5%. However, your conversion rate will be higher since TripAdvisor pays for clicks, not purchases.Â
You cannot expect to have 30%, but I can imagine that you could have 5% conversion with quality content.Â
If you had a 5% conversion rate, you would need 142,000 people reading your content with TripAdvisor affiliate links to get around 7100 clicks and earn $1,000.
The travel niche is very competitive, and getting such traffic would not be easy.Â
How to Promote TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor recommends focusing on placing their affiliate links inside of articles rather than using social media and banners.
This is good advice not just for their affiliate program but for all similar travel affiliate programs.Â
Promoting on social media or placing banners on your website is easy, but the conversion rate will always be higher from affiliate links inside your articles.
More and more people have banner blindness due to their prevalence and intrusive nature. Your banners can be huge and strategically placed to be visible at all times, but most people will ignore them anyway.
Focus on publishing high-quality travel content and link to relevant hotels and experiences for the particular city.Â
The recommendation should flow naturally with the rest of your content.Â
Don't make it look like a TripAdvisor listing.Â
The travel niche is highly competitive, and generating significant traffic is difficult.Â
You will have to publish a lot of high-quality long SEO-optimized articles before you start seeing any clicks and sales.Â
If you are an active travel blogger who regularly travels, you have a big advantage over all other travel bloggers who don’t.Â
Producing high-quality travel content is hard if it is not based on your experiences.Â
Summary: Pros & Cons
Here is a concise summary outlining the primary pros and cons of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
Pros
- You get a commission for just clicksÂ
- 14-day cookie duration is decent for a booking affiliate program
- Established brand - the world's largest travel platform
Cons
- Commission for a click is low
- Travel niche is very competitive
- You can only promote accommodation and experiences
Should You Become a TripAdvisor Affiliate?
The TripAdvisor affiliate program is different from other booking affiliate programs.
Affiliates earn for clicks rather than sales, which may sound very attractive.
Nevertheless, the commission for a click is just a few cents, so to earn any bigger amount, you would need to generate a lot of clicks.
To generate a lot of clicks, you would need to have a big traffic which is not easy in a travel niche as it is very competitive.
Besides hotel accommodations, TripAdvisor affiliates can also promote experiences. Unlike hotel accommodations, you don’t earn for clicks but for sale and receive 4% for each.Â
If you decide to join the program, I recommend focusing more on the experiences as you can earn more.Â
Unless you have a big travel website, promoting accommodation through TripAdvisor will earn you next to nothing.Â
