TopRanked.io Weekly Affiliate Digest: What’s Hot in Affiliate Marketing [Travel Payouts Affiliate Program Review]

Quick Disclosure: We’re about to tell you how the Travelpayouts affiliate program is pretty great. And we really mean it. Just know that if you click on a Travelpayouts link, we may earn a small commission. Your choice.

It seems like forever ago that the last big travel season was upon us.

And while we’ve still got a while to go until the next big one, there are a couple of things to look forward to.

For starters, Easter’s next weekend.

And the weekend after that, I hear there’s a bunch of people making travel plans to see the solar eclipse. (They’d better hope for good weather.)

So, now the question is this — people will be planning travel (many last minute), so how are you gonna monetize?

TopRanked.io Affiliate Program of the Week — Travelpayouts

Most of you are smart enough to figure out how to monetize people looking to travel. From Booking.com to Tripadvisor and everything in between, there are dozens of ways to do so.

But here’s a question: how do you join all of these programs (and more) in the quickest, most efficient way possible?

That, my dear friends, would be Travelpayouts.

Travelpayouts — Everything You Need to Monetize on Travel

Usually, I’d spend a little time introducing you to what our affiliate program of the week actually sells. But I think the Travelpayouts name on this one gives it away, so let’s get straight to the affiliate program.

Now, just in case you missed it before, Travelpayouts is simply a large travel affiliate program network. And by large, I pretty much mean “the biggest and the best”.

Every major brand is there. And on top of that, Travelpayouts is about as professional of an affiliate network as you’re going to find. So you can basically count on things running smoothly.

Of course, at the size that it is, it’s affiliate support does seem more geared towards pushing newer affiliates towards resources like its blog and “academy”. But, if you’re the sort who can survive without handholding from an affiliate manager, you’ll be just fine.

Travelpayouts — Affiliate Commissions

Since Travelpayouts is an affiliate network aggregating a bunch of other programs, that means commissions will vary. So will cookie life.

So, instead of writing about it, what I’m going to do instead is drop a table with every program available right now at the end of this review… which is coming soon.

Travelpayouts — Wrap Up + Affiliate Programs List

That does it for now. To get started with Travelpayouts right now, follow this link to their affiliate page.

Or, take a look at this table to see what you’re signing up for…

Program Name	Description	Reward Rate	Cookie Lifetime	Notes/Features
AirHelp	Helps passengers receive up to €600 in compensation for delayed or canceled flights	20–29%	45 days	Hot deal
Booking.com	#1 online booking platform for accommodations around the world, zero booking fees and content in 40 languages	4%	One session	App Attribution
Airalo	The world’s first eSIM store that solves the pain of high roaming bills by giving travelers access to eSIMs	12%	30 days
Viator	From wine tastings and walking tours to cooking classes and catamaran rides, Viator offers 300,000+ experiences	8%	30 days	Hot deal
GetYourGuide	Helps travelers discover the best things to do, including niche offerings they won’t find anywhere else	8%	31 days
Rentalcars.com	Encourages travelers to feel free while finding the right car in over 60,000 locations across 160 countries	6%	30 days
Kiwitaxi	International airport transfers in 100 countries with various vehicle classes and English-speaking drivers	9-11%	30 days
Go City	Multi-attraction passes for the top tourist destinations worldwide for up to 65% off the initial cost	3.4–6%	90 days
Economybookings.com	The most favorable prices for cars from more than 800 car rental companies, including all leading brands	3–8%	30 days
CheapOair	A provider of flight tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and vacation packages	$7–30	30 days	Fixed reward
Hostelworld	Hostel-focused booking platform with 36,000 properties in over 178 countries	5–7%	30 days
Tripadvisor	The world’s largest travel site with access to 1.4 million places to stay and 795 million reviews	8% + 50% CPC	14 days
trivago US	Compares hotel prices from more than 300 booking sites	40% CPC	30 days
Omio	Booking platform for trains, buses, and flights in Europe	6%	30 days
Tiqets	Instantly available mobile tickets for worldwide attractions	8%	30 days
Busbud	World’s largest selection of bus tickets	5%	7 days
Insubuy	Provides medical and travel-related coverage for foreigners visiting the United States	$1.5–150	30 days	Fixed reward
BikesBooking.com	Booking service for motorcycles, scooters, quads, and bicycles around the world	4%	30 days
Flixbus US	Intercity bus service across the US, including routes like Miami to Orlando	6%	30 minutes
VisitorsCoverage	Provides travel insurance for global travelers in over 175 countries	$1–100	30 days	Fixed reward
QEEQ	Car rental platform with over 7 million rental cars in ~200 countries	5–10%	30 days
Expedia UK	Travel planning and booking for flights, hotels, cruises, and more	3.5–7% + £0,9	30 days	Fixed reward
Discover Cars	Car rental comparison website offering rentals worldwide	23–54%	365 days	Exclusive
WayAway	Flight ticket aggregator with a membership plan offering 24/7 travel support and up to 10% cash back	1.1–1.3% + $10	30 days	Fixed reward
GetTransfer	Booking service for transfers and car rentals with a personal driver	7%	30 days	App Attribution
Agoda	Offers about three million hotels and accommodations in 200+ countries/territories	6%	1 day	App Attribution
Trip.com	Combines over 1.4 million hotels, 2 million flight routes, and 24/7 customer service	1–5%	30 days
12Go	Booking for ground and water transport services in Southeast Asia and Oceania	4–5.5%	30 days
HSE DRIVE	Airport and personal transfers on the French Riviera and Monaco	10%	90 days
Localrent.com	Works with local national car rental companies to provide top market products	7.5–12%	30 days
SuperTravel	Global travel deals platform using AI, available over SMS, Messenger, and WhatsApp	5%	7 days
Kiwi.com	Booking for flights, trains, and buses with virtual interlining	3%	30 days	App Attribution
WeGoTrip	Audio excursions and tours by professional guides and local experts	20–30%	30 days
Eatwith	Connects guests with hosts for unique dining experiences at home	6%	30 days
Rail Europe	Guides travelers through train travel in Europe with tools and inspiration	1.3–1.8%	30 days
Big Bus Tours	Offers open-top bus sightseeing tours, river cruises, and walking tours in 23 cities	9%	28 days
Vrbo	Marketplace for over 2 million vacation rental homes worldwide	1.80%	7 days
Cruise Critic	Leading authority and market leader for consumer cruise information	$0.18–0.45 CPC	7 days
Klook	World leading travel activities and services booking platform serving the FIT market	2–5%	30 days
HolidayTaxis	Airport transfers in over 21,000 resorts in cities throughout 150 countries with vehicles to suit every budget	10%	30 days
Ticketmaster	Official ticket marketplace for thousands of the world’s biggest events, performers, teams, and sports leagues	0–4.15%	Up to 30 days
Hilton Honors – Points.com	Customers can buy Honors points on Points.com for hotel bookings	2.50%	15 days
Priority Pass	Provides frequent travelers with independent airport lounge access worldwide	10%	30 days
AutoEurope (US,CA)	Comparing prices and booking cars from different service providers, such as Herz and Sixt	2.4–5.6%	7 days
i’way	Trusted and reliable global transfers service provider	7%	30 days
Getrentacar.com	Car-sharing marketplace allowing travelers to rent cars from a community of local car owners	10%	90 days
AutoEurope (EU,UK)	Comparing prices and booking cars from different service providers, such as Herz and Sixt in Europe and the UK	4.4–8%	30 days
loveholidays	Compiles 35,000 hotels with 99% of all flights to offer customers 500 billion possible holiday packages	4%	30 days
OYO	Second-largest chain of operated hotels, homes, managed living spaces, and workspaces	3–9%	30 days
SEARADAR	Service making the yacht-rental process easy, so everyone can experience the joy of sailing	5%	30 days
Radical Storage	Provides travelers with luggage storage solutions so they can enjoy their holidays to the fullest	8%	30 days
PaulCamper	Largest camper-sharing marketplace in Europe, listing over 10,000 camping vehicles	4–7% + €50–100	30 days	Fixed reward
TicketNetwork	Online exchange allowing sellers to list tickets to sports, theater, and concert events around the world	6–12.5%	45 days	App Attribution
Aviasales	Trusted service for buying flight tickets from reliable agencies at the lowest possible rates	1.1–1.3%	30 days	Exclusive
Hotellook	Platform for comparing hotel prices around the world (250,000 properties in 205 countries)	5–7%	30 days
intui.travel	Booking platform for transfers in 175 countries from the best local transport companies	6.50%	35 days
Compensair	Helps customers receive compensation for flight delays, cancellations, or denied boarding	€5–12 Fixed reward	30 days
Drimsim	Universal SIM card and app for travelers operational in 190 countries and allows for roaming-free travel	€8 Fixed reward	90 days
EKTA	New generation insurance company combining competitive prices with a high level of service	20%	30 days	App Attribution
Hopper	#1 most downloaded travel app in North America offering airlines, hotels, homes, and car rental providers across the globe	Up to 4%	30 days	Exclusive
Indrive – city to city	inDrive, an international ride-hailing service with more than 150 million downloads operating in 47 countries	$1.50 – $4.00 Fixed commission rate	365 days
Trainline	Helps customers travel to thousands of destinations across 45 countries by train and bus	1–27%	30 days

And then go sign up to Travelpayouts using this link.

Affiliate News Takeaways

GPT Store

This week, OpenAI’s GPT Store has been in the news a little.

First, The Information published this: OpenAI’s Chatbot App Store Is Off to a Slow Start.

Then TechCrunch published this: OpenAI’s Chatbot Store Is Filling Up With Spam.

Immediately, what I think we can take away from this is that the GPT Store could be a waste of your time. That is unless you think a deadly combination of low traffic and fierce competition can work in your favor.

But then I thought, “Hold on a minute. What if I read more than just the headlines?”

So I did.

That’s when I realized neither of these articles actually cited any data.

For starters, The Information’s report is based on little more than hearsay from “some developers who offer chatbots through [the GPT Store].” Which, for all we know, could mean nothing more than a bunch of butthurt devs who didn’t get the traffic they thought they deserved, even if there’s a bunch of others winning big.

And as for TechCrunch, its report seems its report is more concerned with pointing out the usual AI “issues” cropping up in GPTs. You know the ones… academic dishonesty, impersonation, moderation, copyright… you get the point.

Now, maybe I’m wrong here, but usually, when I hear the word spam, the first image I get isn’t “content with which the author of an article has moral issues.”

Sure, we can construe it to mean that. After all, spam did build its initial reputation on certain forms of content…

But, regardless of that, I think when most of us around these parts hear the word spam, we tend to think in terms of “scale” more than “morals”.

So maybe the GPT Store isn’t actually a low-traffic, overly competitive environment after all. But to answer that, we’re gonna need some data.

Lucky for us, one commenter on the TechCrunch article dropped a link to this. That’s a GitHub repository where the dev seems to have made a habit of scraping every last scrap of data from the GPT Store. There’s also this for those who just want it in a more user-friendly format.

Which fortunately seems to line up with the live data on the GPT Store.

Curiously enough, this data more or less confirms what we said last month (see our Discover Cars AffiliateProgram Review edition). That is, the top GPTs are more or less dominated by image/text generators and academic “assistants”.

What’s different about this data however is that it gives us a massive upgrade in certainty. Here we have data on every GPT published to date. Last month, all we had were some suspicions based on what we could see on the “trending” page.

Anyway, that digression was just a cheap justification to drop you a link to a previous edition (which, by the way, you should read if you care about the future of search/SEO… here’s the link again).

So let’s get back to figuring out if the GPT Store is worth your time.

To answer that, we’re probably going to need some aggregate data. And here, our little treasure trove of data has just what we’re looking for: total conversations, and total GPTs.

• Total number of GPTs: 334,348
• Total Conversations since launch: 43,644,948

At first glance, this doesn’t look great. Here we are just 10 weeks after launch, and there are already 334k GPTs. And they’re all competing for something in the low-tens-of-millions of conversations/month, which I guess is the closest metric we have to “hits” on a website.

As for what this translates into in terms of actual users, that I don’t have any data for.

What I do have data for is OpenAI’s revenue (about $2bn ARR), and the cost of a ChatGPT plus subscription ($20/month… or $240/year), which you need to access GPTs.

So, doing the math on that, we arrive at a maximum possible user base of 8.3 million users. But the actual number is likely much lower than this.

As for how much lower, that I don’t know. OpenAI throws its Plus subscription revenue into the same basket as its revenue from its API platform. So for the sake of taking something away from this, let’s just pretend it’s a 50/50 split.

That would give us a user base of 4.2 million users.

Now, if the GPT Store was a social network where users scrolled though multiple posts each minute, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. You at least have a chance of being discovered.

However, the GPT Store is a low-engagement environment insofar as volume is concerned — 43.7 million conversations since launch isn’t much. Based on our crude estimate of Plus subscribers, that gives us an average of 10 conversations per user since launch.

There’s Still Hope

With about 10 weeks under its belt since launch, the GPT Store isn’t looking like half the opportunity that it did at first. At least, no from a high level.

With that said, it’s not a lost cause either.

For starters, spinning up a GPT is a relatively simple affair. And when I say simple, I mean really simple.

If you’ve never done it, go check out our InboxAlly Affiliate Program review edition — there we spun up a custom GPT that drops affiliate links and detailed the whole process. (By the way, that edition also includes a link to a bunch of high-value email lists you can grab for free, so check it out even if you’ve already made a GPT.)

So if you look at it like that, there’s not much harm in trying. After all, if you can manage to get just 1k conversations per month, that’s pretty reasonable for something you spent 5 minutes creating and $0 maintaining.

But now the question is, what to create?

Well, personally, I like the lifestyle category. When filtering the data for that, we arrive at a total of about 2M conversations with about 20k GPTs.

Now, admittedly, that’s worse than the aggregate figures we looked at before. At least, it is when we look at it from a GPTs/conversations view. That works out to 1 GPT for every 97 conversations. For comparison the GPT Store as a whole has 1 GPT for every 130 conversations.

However, here’s the case I will make — lifestyle is a hell of a lot easier to monetize than academic “assistants”/image generators/etc. I mean, take this week’s affiliate program of the week, for example — Travelpayouts.

And now guess what types of GPTs feature prominently in the top 10 of the lifestyle category?

That’s right, travel apps.

The first is Kayak, which has about 100k conversations since its launch. But we’ll ignore that one, because it’s branded, and you probably don’t have as strong of a brand.

That brings us to the second most popular travel app — “Travel Guide”.

It’s got 50k conversations since launch.

Now, that’s not massive.

But it’s not nothing either. Especially if you can spin up your GPT fast.

Takeaway

Clearly, there are much hotter opportunities around the interwebs than the GPT Store. For the most part, it seems to have had a pretty low uptake. And making matters worse, it’s overrun by hundreds of thousands of other people’s GPTs.

However, there are a few small opportunities there. And, for the cost of a few minutes of your life, it might be worth trying to grab them.

Just make sure you monetize. Travelpayouts is excellent if you go with the travel guide idea.

Social Media Quick Takes

Parler Is Back

In case you missed the rumors about Parler coming back, turns out they’re true. Parler returned to the app store this week.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Parler (@parler_media)

Now, is this worth something getting excited about?

My take is a definite no.

For starters, I suspect its new owners don’t quite have the “vibe” of the internet quite right — everything reads like a corporate press release. I mean, take this from it’s landing page:

“Parler 3.0 is revolutionizing social media, breaking free from the constraints of conventional platforms. We’re not just another app – we’re leading a movement towards a new era of global connection. With a focus on values and cutting-edge technology, we’re reshaping social landscapes and prioritizing user security and control. Brace yourself for a groundbreaking experience. Parler is paving the way to the future.”

Now, sure. Maybe Biden voters over the age of 50 might go for something like that. But I don’t think Parler’s core audience — shitposters who got sick of/exiled from Twitter — are going to find that spiel terribly seductive.

But what makes it even worse is the whole thing that drove Parler’s growth in the first place — Twitter’s heavy-handed left-leaning moderation — is a thing of the past now Musk is in control.

And even if Twitter hadn’t changed, there’s also Trump’s Truth Social to contend with.

Finally, there’s one more speedbump on the road to Parler making a comeback — it has previously been banned from both Google’s and Apple’s app stores. The only way it got back in was to promise to moderate content.

Takeaway

Now, I could be wrong. But I think social media is in a very different place today. At least, it is if we look at ‘growth factors’ and competition for Parler.

Now combine that with the corporate-speaking, moderation-heavy new image, and Parler seems like a lost cause.

But I could be wrong.

And if I am wrong, then you’d better make sure you’re monetizing your Parler account. If you’re looking where to get started, I hear Travelpayouts is good.

Here’s What’s Going Viral On Facebook

If you’re wondering what all those people using image-generating AIs are using them for, then here’s one answer.

And here’s how it works.

If the image doesn’t give it away, here’s the step-by-step.

• Create an uncanny AI image that will grab eyeballs. It seems everything from subtle “uncanny valley” celebrity images (that Simon Cowel image feels off, no?) to surreal “shrimp Jesuses” works (see below for shrimp Jesus). As long as it catches eyeballs enough to get people to stop scrolling (thus pleasing Facebook’s algorithm), you’re already off to a good start.
• Second, find a way to convince users there’s more to see, and mention they should see your first comment.
• Third, drop a link in the first comment linking out to a page you’re monetizing.

And that’s about it.

Oh, and here’s Shrimp Jesus.

WHAT IS HAPPENING ON FACEBOOK pic.twitter.com/6XzTV5eBd3

— Jorge Murillo 💙 (@TheHornetsFury) March 13, 2024

Takeaway

Now, I have no idea how much competition there is around this right now. But, with an infinite tap of content just a few prompts away, there’s only one good reason not to at least experiment with this a little.

That reason is if you don’t already have at least one money page.

If this is you, then I suggest you go sign up with Travelpayouts, spin up a quick website, and then start spamming Facebook today.

Closing Thought

If there’s one thing I love more than stealing stuff from other people, it’s stealing stuff from other people who stole it first.

Like this third-hand quote, which comes to you via the James Clear newsletter.

“The quality of any creative endeavor tends to approach the level of taste of whoever is in charge.” — John Gruber (​The Auteur Theory of Design)

Now, I suspect this quote has some elitist overtones to it. Given it touches on “taste” and comes from a book/article (I didn’t bother looking it up) with the word “auteur” in it, I suspect it’s basically trying to say “put someone with good taste in charge”.

But here’s why I like stealing stuff that’s already been stolen — I don’t have to care about context. So here’s how I interpret it instead.

“The form of any work tends to follow the unique skillset of whoever is in charge.”

So, what do I mean by this?

Well, whenever you set out to do something, it’s always going to have a little “you” in it. And if this is an inevitability, then we might as well embrace it.

After all, it could be that little bit of “you” that makes your GPT stand out on the GPT Store. Or it could be the little bit of “you” that creates some breakthrough content on Facebook.

And if that little bit of “you” doesn’t work in your favor, there’s at least one thing I know for sure — if you reject the “you” and just try and copy everyone else, you’ll be forever doomed to competing from the back foot.

So embrace the “you” in everything you do, starting with whatever you cook up for your first Travelpayouts campaign.

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(Featured image by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS via Pexels)

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