Travelodge to go Network Wide on Oct 1st

[KevinEdwards]

Hi,

I'm delighted to let everyone know that following a successful trial with a handful of affiliates Travelodge will be opening up their programme to all affiliates on October 1st.

The programme has been an outstanding success so far and fits perfectly with the affiliate channel. It's a programme affiliates have wanted for years and having previously been involved with the short-lived Premier Travel Inn campaign I know it's an area that has yet to achieve its full potential.

So here's a bit of information about Travelodge and why you should think about promoting them...

Currently 85 per cent of the company’s bookings are made online. Recent advancements include allowing customers to pay for breakfast when booking a room. Payment is required upfront leading to very few cancellations. But you don't need to worry on this front as we've factored a deletion rate into the CPA meaning we approve 100% of sales daily.

Travelodge is rapidly growing having pledged to build more than 200 hotels, amounting to 20,000 rooms by 2012.

Annually more than five million reservations are made online, attracting more than half a million users each week.

Seasonal sales offer another compelling reason to promote Travelodge. The recent summer sale promotion created an additional 100 bookings per minute positioning Travelodge in the number two position on Hitwise on its first day of trading for travel and accommodation sites.

On the sale launch date, the site was hit by 2 million visitors, generating a 100% increase in hits, (the highest ever received). Eight times more room sales were made and 20% of sale inventory was sold.

Conversion (click to sale) consistently exceeds 10% across the board and that inevitably results in a healthy EPC.

We will be moving to a % of basket value model in line with the full launch. We will also endeavour to supply a product feed featuring all hotels.

I'll confirm further details closer to the time but will be opening up the programme very shortly in order to give you plenty of time to join. Once you've applied your application will sit in pending until October 1st when we begin to process approvals.

One thing I should mention is PPC. We've successfully worked with two PPC affiliates to complement TL's existing traffic on purely generic search terms. I don't want to jeopardise this in any way so will be firmly restricting PPC activity on the programme.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to let me know.

Kind regards,

[KevinEdwards]

Hi there,

I'm delighted to announce the full, network wide launch of Travelodge.

We will start processing the bulk of pending transactions today and it's also open for all new applicants to join.

There are a few changes/points of note that you should be aware of.

The campaign is now being run without cap so there are no concerns around over-delivery. The commission rate has also changed from a flate rate CPA to a % of basket value. This is 3.6%. Whilst on face value this may seem low for hotel bookings you should delve deeper into the published stats and understand how well suited to affiliate marketing this client is.

Converting at over 10% click to sale your EPC for this programme should be in excess of other hotel merchants you're pushing who offer higher commission rates.

Currently more than 85% of bookings are completed online and Travelodge is aiming for 95% in the not too distant future. You can also book breakfast bumping up the average order value to just shy of £90.

Travelodge is working closely with two PPC affiliates on generic paid search activity. Therefore I'm going to restrict any other sponsored links on this campaign as I'm keen not to cannabalise the traffic as well as keep a good percentage split of affiliate activity.

Having said that, if you have a compelling reason to want to promote via PPC then I'm open to ideas and suggestions so please drop me a line.

Travelodge is particularly keen to hear from any affiliates with regional content sites. Some locations sell better than others and Travelodge is keen to work with sites that focus on lower occupancy areas. I have some topline data on these locations but hope to get some more in the not too distant future.

Other than that I don't think there's much to add. If I've not covered anything then drop me or Rachel Humphreys rachel.humphreys@affiliatewindow.com an email. Rachel will be managing this programme and is keen to hear all your feedback.

Many thanks,