This post is brought to you by SafetyWing.
Making money is the best. (Traveling is also great.)
If you manage to knock both out of those in one stone, then we say you have made it in life. Here are some options for starting an affiliate line of business - especially if traveling is a passion.
In our experience, building money through affiliate income-taking a commission out of every purchase made through a link-takes time and does require an audience. It is a smart strategy to employ among other revenue streams; others do so well through affiliate that it can be their only source of revenue.
(In our opinion, being smart in business means diversifying, diversifying and diversifying! Plus, there are a lot of posts on our site that aren't simply about making money… though it is great if they do!)
If you're willing to start out small, and devote a little time, effort and most of all, patience, it will eventually and perhaps even literally pay off.
P.S. Some brands work with multiple affiliate platforms. Make sure to compare commission rates across the networks to get the biggest bang for your buck.
SafetyWing
This boutique travel insurance company, like most programs, offers a affiliate program for those working in the travel space. (They are also a past client of ours, and we continue to work with them on an ongoing basis, including on this post!)
For what it is worth, the company does work with partners on an individual basis, like they do with us, depending on audience reach and size.
In our experience, the Safetywing Ambassador program is pretty reliable in their payments and commissions and is definitely worth keeping on the list.
Travelpayouts
Based out of Europe, Travelpayouts seems to have cornered the market when it comes to working with a travel brand.
Make money from Egypt. (Mr Seb / Flickr)
The network works with include Rentalcars.com, Booking.com, GetYourGuide, Kiwi, Agoda, BlaBlaCar, and Hostelworld to name a few companies.
Getting up can be a little bit more cumbersome, and joining the Travelpayouts network doesn't necessarily meaning gaining access to all of these programs. Each application has to be individually approved, and each application is not automatically populated so it is a bit more of a hassle. Then, each link then has to be *individually* generated.
Like travel, though? The company claims to have paid out over $28 million over the last ten years and works with 90 over different travel brands.
Skimlinks
Set it and forget it, that's the best.
The best part about Skimlinks is that it is completely passive, mostly because it only requires installing a technical code that will go back and find every monetizable link for most content creators. Most affiliate programs require proactive linking, meaning it requires someone to login to the platform, generate the link and insert it into the post manually.
In many cases, we found. Skimlinks also had better rates than if we had negotiated the affiliate relationship ourselves.
Most of all, it's just really nice to not think about it.
Amazon
The tried and the true.
For those looking to get their start, Amazon has a wide selection of travel products that earn affiliate commission. In order for purchases to qualify, they must be encoded through an Amazon link generator, though there is a bookmarklet that can create affiliate links on demand.
Though affiliate income through Amazon does seem to be shrinking across the board-and Amazon always seems to be changing their transmission structure!-there is still a lot of untapped potential within the Amazon marketplace.
