Orbitz Commission Schedule

[jk3210]

From Orbitz:

"Thank you for your patience these past few months - the Orbitz Affiliate program is near launch and I am excited to share with you the details of the program, as I know this is the subject of most questions.

The commission structure is based on the following:

$2.50 per Airline Ticket
$1.00 per Hotel Booking
$1.00 per Car Rental Booking

So for example, when one of your customers comes to Orbitz and purchases 3 airline tickets and reserves a hotel room, your commission would be (3x$2.50) + $1.00 = $8.50."

Leaving profit aside for a moment, I'm trying to figure out if this commission schedule would even cover the cost of the electricity required to run my home computer.

Any thoughts?

[Michael Weir]

The question is, would it cover the cost of the marketing involved to drive customers to your site?

[rcjordan]

>would it cover the cost of the marketing involved to drive customers to your site?

Unless the site has a natural tie-in to travel and significant traffic, I'd have to say that the answer is "No." Making it in the affiliate travel booking market is tough. What most people do not realize is that you are usually competing on the destination name. For US travel, you don't even get the state or state code on about half of your referrals, it's just "Cleveland" or if it's a well-known region, "Blue Ridge Mountains" -that's it. So the SERP is cluttered with everything from the town's Chamber of Commerce to the local tire store.

However, if this could be seen as a service or added content for your site, add it.

(edited by: rcjordan at 11:01 pm (utc) on Mar. 20, 2002)

[Michael Weir]

That's true. But what if you are specifically marketing phrases like "cleveland travel" or "clevland hotels"?

[rcjordan]

>Cleveland travel

You can market them, but it's been my experience that the percentage of searches for the more targeted phrases like "Cleveland hotels" falls drastically. And, checking Overture, they're likely to be bid up as well. Not much profit left.

[Michael Weir]

That makes since - the broader the search term, the more results will pull up. But I would think a would-be vacationer, who is at least half way web savvy, would search for "_______ travel". I do understand your points though. And yes, the PPC price can be potentially expensive. In this case, however, a bid for $.13 per click will get you #1 on overture, whereas "Las Vegas travel" requires $1.14 per click for the #1 spot.

Anyways, is cleveland all that popular of a vacation spot? ;) (No offense cleveland natives and residents)

[rcjordan]

(I should add that I don't know jack about airline ticket sales, my comments reference room bookings.)

I'm pretty sure that by the time they add "hotels" or "cottages" or "B&B" to narrow their search they've already made a pass at the town name by itself. So anyone ranking there is feeding first.

>for $.13 per click

And that's per click. So you'd need to convert, what, better than 1 in 8 to make a penny or two on a room.

(edited by: rcjordan at 11:44 pm (utc) on Mar. 20, 2002)

[Michael Weir]

Hmm...good point.

[Brett_Tabke]

>$8.50

Yow. I make that much off of some $50 software/services - let alone hundreds of dollars in travel bookings.

[rcjordan]

>make that much of some $50 software/services

Yep. That's why you don't see many independent affiliates gearing up to make a run on the travel industry. It started out on the web working with the 10% travel agent commission, so there wasn't much spread there to begin with. Then, like the banner ad networks, it's was overwhelmed by available inventory.

[Lisa_Lia]

This Orbitz program is junk! Those commissions suck plain and simple. Just look around and you can find better commissions everywhere! I think they low balled the commission structure because they knew idiots would sign up for it. Orbitz has always been about eliminating the middleman. That is why they formed a company in the first place. I would say far away from them.