Partner/Affiliate Best Practices
Last updated: October 12, 2023
This help page outlines the ideal type of Partner/Affiliate leads with examples from Close. The goal is to shed more light on what is a good fit lead for the Strategic Partnerships Team versus not. The following information is to be used as guidelines for the Lead Generation Team when completing lead scrape/ research.
For more context, the Strategic Partnerships Team works with distribution partners through the FareHarbor API or the FareHarbor Distribution Network (online affiliate program). Distribution partners are companies that sell other companies’ tours, activities, and experiences online (e.g. OTAs, destination-specific sites, travel guides, blogs, hotels, concierge). In Close, all partner leads are tagged with “Lead Status” custom field “Partner/ Affiliate”.
Ideal FHDN Leads
Ideal partner leads for the FareHarbor Distribution Network (FHDN) are:
- Traffic – High organic search (more > 10,000) + paid traffic
- The partner is in a high density of FareHarbor clients in their area and some of these clients are on the FHDN
- Partner is already reselling tours and activities on their website or they have an established affiliate program (do they have links to other affiliate websites or tour operators)
- Would you book on this website if you were looking for experiences? Look at the website and “be the booker” – is there a possibility that you as a traveler would book an activity on this website?
- Partners have social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube) and are posting quite often or are using social media to resell tours and activities, or drive traffic to their website.
- If the partner has already a FareHarbor Dashboard, look whether they are generating good amount of bookings
Basic Information
Enter all of the following information in the partner/affiliate lead:
- Status
- Select “Partner/Affiliate”
- Basic information & custom fields
- Company name
- Company website URL
- Company address: at least the city and country; include the 2 or 3 letter codes for state abbreviations for the USA, Canada, Mexico and Australia
- Description: if the website is not live (“Website not live”), important information, multiple locations, etc.
- Social URL – Facebook
- Social URL – Facebook Likes
- Social URL – Instagram
- Social URL – Instagram Followers
- Social URL – LinkedIn
- Current Reservation Software
- Search – Organic Search – SEMrush
- SP – Company Type. View all the options and explanation here
- Contact information
- Name
- Title
- Phone numbers
- Email addresses
Help the Strategic Partnerships team by finding a decision maker’s name whenever possible. Use LinkedIn, Facebook or their website to find names of Owners/Partnerships/Marketing/Lead Generation/Sales/Editor managers. Use an email-finding Chrome extension, such as Hunter or Email Hunter, on the company’s website.
Leads Examples
All of the examples in the table below are taken from Close and most of them are live on the FHDN or API.
Good Fit Leads
| Option Name | Lead Examples |
|---|---|
| Accommodation – with Activities (FHDN) | Lands-end-resort | Hilton Pensacola Beach |
| Accommodation – without Activities (FHDN) | Hampton Pensacola Beach |
| Association/Alliance (FHDN) | ETOA (European Tour Operators Association) |
| Channel Manager (API) | LIVN |
| Digital Marketing Agency/Online Travel Magazine (FHDN) | Walking on Media |
| DMO/CVB/Visitor Center (FHDN) | amsterdam&partners |
| Influencer/Travel blog (FHDN) | La Jolla Mom | The Hawaii Vacation Guide | Tripsavvy |
| FareHarbor Activity Sites (FAS) (formerly Micro OTAs) (internal FH-owned OTA websites through the FHDN) | "custom.sp - company type" in ("FareHarbor Activity Site") |
| News/City Guide (FHDN) | Nowplayingnashville.com |
| OTA (both API & FHDN) | Puertricodaytrips.com | Civitatis | Klook | Hawaiiantours.com |
| Other | Eventseeker.com |
| Transportation Company (FHDN) | Hawaiianairlines.com |
| Travel Agency (not a good fit for API or FHDN) | Phyllis’s Travel | Happiest Vacations |
| Mobile App | Hawaiihappyhours.com |
Bad Fit
Traditional Travel Agencies – Phyllis’s Travel – Request a quote
- Travelers cannot complete an online booking on the travel/ tour agency website and they will have to request a quote, or submit an inquiry, or call them, or visit their physical office.
- Travel agencies work with tour bundles, or multi-day excursion packages.
- Travel agencies don’t offer real time availability
Conclusion: The majority of the Travel Agencies in Close are requested by FH clients. If a traditional travel agency reaches out, they should be instructed to have the client they work with email Channel Support to set them up as an affiliate. The Channel Specialists are responsible for setting up the affiliate (travel agency) up with a FH Affiliate Dashboard.