By admin | Published:
April 29, 2009
Uptake is one of my favorite types of websites, a data aggregator (a site that compiles information from multiple sources into one place). If you take a look at their Hawaii activities section, for instance, you’ll see data pulled from Travelocity, Yahoo!, Trip Advisor, Yelp, Epinions and CitySearch as well as other information directly from Hawaii based websites such as HonoluluZoo.org. It’s pretty easy to see how a website like this can be useful, but how do they make money? A representative from Uptake told me that they worked on a CPC model. But if you look closely at their Hawaii romantic hotels or Hawaii family hotels sections, you’ll see a yellow button that says “Check Rates”. Clicking this button allows you search for hotel prices on TripAdvisor, Priceline and Expedia. So it appears that they are also working an affiliate angle.
- Cost Per Click (CPC) - They use Google Adsense for their contextual advertising. It also looks like they have some internal CPC going when they link out to other websites.
- Affiliate Model - They use multiple affiliate programs for at least hotels.
Uptakes use of information from multiple sources makes it a winner in my book. You can also see that with a lot of traffic, their CPC and Affiliate models could be very lucrative. After surpassing 1 million monthly visitors in less then a year after their launch in May 2008, they’re well on their way to becoming a profitable company. Read More »
Also posted in Affiliate Model |
By admin | Published:
April 15, 2009
I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Ted at Hawaii Destinations - a Hawaii travel and tourism site which is a guide for independent travelers visiting the islands. The goal of this website, as stated on their about page, is, “to become a respected destination and vacation guide, providing a quality and quantity of information without peer amongst independent websites”. Hawaii Destinations has made a good start with a respectable amount of information on Hawaii travel insurance as well as a nice selection of Hawaii accommodations. The site uses 2 monetization models:
- Cost Per Click (CPC) - They use Google Adsense for their contextual advertising.
- Affiliate Model - They use multiple affiliate programs to provide accommodations, car rentals, travel insurance, vacation packages, cruises and activities.
Overall, the site has a nice theme and is easy to navigate. I appreciate the simple straight forward navigation and everything is just one click away. The buttons to “book” and “learn more” are also easy to see which leads to high conversion ratios. Read More »
Also posted in Affiliate Model |
By admin | Published:
April 4, 2009
Summit Pacific Inc. appears to have its roots in the Kauai vacation rentals market. They seem to be expanding into other islands, but their main play in on Kauai with such resorts as Puu Poa, Hanalei Bay Resort and Waipouli Beach Resort. This is an interesting Hawaii travel site to study because the company employs all 4 of our monetization models:
- Cost Per Click (CPC) - They use Google Adsense for their contextual advertising.
- Affiliate Advertising - They have affiliate agreements with several rental car agencies.
- Selling Services - The owner actually books his own rentals on this site, so they offer a vacation rental agency service.
- Direct Ad Sales - They also post advertisement to owner direct vacation properties.
Summit Pacific has done a great job developing useful content around a Kauai vacation theme. They have info for their guest including activities, golf and even real estate for visitors interested in buying a vacation home of their own. At this point, much of this content is monetized using CPC. What really impresses me, though, is how they’ve been able to take their Hawaii car rentals section beyond CPC into an affiliate program. Read More »
By admin | Published:
March 31, 2009
Hawaii.com is an advertising based Hawaii travel site owned by the Gannett Company whose flagship publication is USA Today. They use 2 Internet business models:
- Affiliate program - Hawaii.com receives a percentage of the sale whenever they send a user to another website and that user buys something.
- Cost Per Click (CPC) - advertising where vendors pay every time a user clicks on their ad (a.k.a. pay-per-click).
For their affiliate program, Hawaii.com co-brands with Expedia.com and also uses Pleasant Holidays. This is pretty straight forward on the website. You can search for vacation packages, airfare, hotels and rentals right from the home page or choose package deals from internal island pages.
The CPC’s are setup as ads around content and whenever a client clicks on one of these ads, Hawaii.com receives a agreed upon payment. Read More »
Also posted in Affiliate Model |