Loosing Commission

[Granada]

How much commission do affiliates loose, because of the 'direct booking numbers' shown on the tour operators sites.?

I been told on numerous occasions this month, that they looked at the price on my site, then phoned up Thomson who beat that price by between £50 and £100.

They aren't the only ones by the way.
Isn't it time these numbers were removed.?

[Chris Clarkson]

Hi,

It's certainly not ideal. They aren't very likely to ever drop the phone numbers, as an affiliate you just have to weigh it up with the commission offered and EPC.

There are of course other travel programmes that don't show telephone numbers, including our own.

Chris C

[Travel Pixel]

no excuse IMO for phone numbers on websites (apart from essential contact info) coming via an affiliate link.

If you see one drop it like its hot and move on to a competitor. Or ask them to remove the number on an aff link...

Dave

[accelerator]

Although I don't have figures I feel sure this is a big problem for affiliates, so as suggested look for merchant websites that don't have telephone numbers, ask for coding that makes the phone number disappear when an aff link is used, or perhaps even see if you can get a trackable discount code for your site which the customer can use when phoning the merchant up.

[henry01]

I agree, phone numbers should not be put all over the place esp when from an aff' link.

Take for example Expedia/hotels.com - the visitor is almost advised to phone them, every search result has 'book online or phone blah blah' bye bye commision :-(

[retrolink]

Originally Posted by Granada I been told on numerous occasions this month, that they looked at the price on my site, then phoned up Thomson who beat that price by between £50 and £100.

Phone up Thomson? As a Discount Voucher site, I now get given £5 per Thomson holiday booking so phone numbers don't make much difference at all to their programme anymore! 0.25% commission is what Thomson holidays works out at!

There are many more merchants to promote, just pick wisely...

Sunshine.co.uk is probably the most recent merchant who is working hard to help affiliates wherever possible and, as far as I can see, affiliates are very happy with them... I made a £112 commission from Sunshine on a blog that doesn't even see much traffic, so Thomson vs Sunsine is an easy choice for me at the moment!

Cheers,

Nick

[cottageguy]

A merchant would be mad not to show a telephone number. If people want to book by phone they won't change their habits - they will find a different supplier.

The answer is to use dynamically-generated phone number from your cookie, with the call centre staff automatically alerted that this is an affiliate number, and a dynamically-generated code on-screen which they ask the customer for. Or your own number, if you are a big enough traffic generator.

This is not technically challenging, although it requires effort.

Jon

[jellis]

I agree with Jon - there will always be customers who prefer to research online and then book on the phone.

Telephone bookings will often result in higher conversion rates as well as much higher average transaction values due to the operators' ability to upsell/cross sell and to find the perfect product for the customer. This in turn leads to great customer satisfaction and more often than not increased repeat business.

You will also find that with higher revenue or more complex bookings, the customer will feel reassured to see a call centre number where or not they decide to use it.

At Superbreak, all of our affiliate pages contain a telephone number which is dedicated to our affiliate channel. Each page also requests the customer quotes the unique parter code displayed. The call centre operator is then prompted to ask for the code to enable us to track the booking and reward the affiliate.

Cheers

Jo from Superbreak

[Granada]

All very noble from Superbreak, but are you telling me your call centre staff record all the transactions.?

[jellis]

As we have a telephone line dedicated to affiliate calls, the staff know that it is an affiliate booking which needs to be recorded.

Like anything in this world, there is not a 100% guarantee. However, the advantages of having a telephone number there and actually getting those bookings far outweigh losing the customer in the first place to a site where there is a telephone number which gives the customer both reassurance and a route to extra assistance with their booking if required.

Granada - if you fancy a trip to York, I will more than happily show you round our new offices and new call centre so that you can meet the staff, listen into some calls and see for yourself.

[mattg]

My finger in the air estimate on leakage to phone would be as much as 50%. That's a hunch, I don't have a great deal of data to support it.

Maybe Jo @ Superbreak could say if that is ballpark for them - affiliate phone sales vs affiliate online sales.

The booking experience on sites can be poor, especially if you consider the technical literacy of the average punter, which will be much less then people who read here. Picking up the phone must be so much easier for many people.

This is not a new problem, phone numbers (& more recently, URLs) in printed brochures have long been a bone of contention between the 'trade' (ie travel agents) and tour operators.

It's an eternal tug of war between distribution and product and comes down to who-needs-who the most. (Or perhaps, what the side with the most leverage think they can get away with).

Obviously with hard copy there are logistical issues with printing numerous versions of the same document. Online, technical excuses are just that. An operator with a will could implement it, respect to those that do.

I agree with Jo that a phone system with tracking, even if there is some leakage, is much better than none at all.