Blog homeUpTake have proposed the term “YATCS” - or Yet Another Travel Content Site * - which is a great description of what many destination content websites are turning into….. however a few little, and not so little, differentiators are beginning to emerge from these sites (thankfully).
This week we have had TravelMuse and their new trip building / sharing tool (which I do intend to review at some stage - it is reasonable - nothing fantastic - but it was only an hour old when I played with it….. my website looked pretty bad when it was 1 hour old!). I thought I would at least give them a few more days tweaking first!
However, and to me much more exciting, today I can share the news that WorldReviewer are shortly going to roll out a Pay Per Click (PPC) based distributed advertising system for tours. Think Google Adsense / Adwords but for travel products.
The reason I prefer this idea to a tool based approach is we are talking money. Real money changing hands. Real money based on something that advertisers (mainly tour operators) are willing to spend on. Personally I would rather start a toothbrush company and enter a highly competitive market that I know exists and where real money changes hands than start a business where you not only have to start your company but generate a new market sector. But that is why I am into travel reservation systems - which isn’t sexy at all. If I thought reservation systems were sexy I would write a blog about it… but no one would read it…. as nearly everyone agrees with me that reservation systems are not sexy. Glad we cleared that up - lets get back to WorldReviewer.
The preview
This is what the adverts look like when placed on a publishers site:
That is pretty straight forward and self explanatory really.
As you can see, these adverts are for tours in the region of Sydney. Not surprising when you find they are featured on a page listing information about the Tropfest festival which takes place in the area. [See page with WorldReviewer adverts integrated]. There is a second live BETA page (with trips to Turkey featured) but I have to say it does look a bit spammy (not WorldReviewer’s fault) - see the site
The detail
Right - now we have the gist of it….. and everyone is suitably impressed….. here are the cold hard facts.
Are publishers going to have some form of revenue share?
Yes. The advertisers are mainly paying CPC however day tours from Viator and Isango will be remunerated on a commission share basis.
Is it just restricted to tour products?
No - they may include hotel packages too.
Is it live yet?
No - it is in BETA preview. It will launch sometime this month. But, hey, contact WorldReviewer anyway as they want to hear from potential publishers and advertisers right now. Hugh Graham-Watson is the person to contact. (Note the released version may differ from the screen shot or the answers given today….. this is a preview remember)
Is it only in English language?
At the moment yes. German and Spanish languages identified as natural next languages.
What about the prices?
Prices are translated into USD for US IP addresses and EUR for non-UK, non-US traffic. Otherwise the sales prices are in GBP.
Can you sign up from anywhere in the world?
Although WorldReviewer are UK based they are keen for US and Australia based operators to sign up now as well (and I am sure other countries too…. don’t panic!). In particular they are looking for the countries mentioned as they have publishers ready to go. (The system needs a good balance of publishers and operators (outbound) for each region otherwise the system won’t have commercial stability)
Do you have to be bonded to advertise with WorldReviewer?
Yes and no. Basically it is a yes. Publishers can exclude non-bonded travel companies from their own feed. You do need a good track record and you will be vetted. In particular, if you are appearing on the main WorldReviewer site they will require you to be a member of a trade organisation.
How will WorldReviewer choose which tours to feature on any particular page?
Tailoring can be done by both WorldReviewer and the publisher. Here is the full answer I received from WorldReviewer
Currently auto and manual tailored by us, with some tailoring done by publisher. i.e. we tailor the tours by location (country, region, destination), category or categories (diving, beach, wine tour etc) - which are in turn ‘mapped’ onto a selection of trigger keywords (wine tour > vineyard, wine-tasting etc), and individual experiences. ie if a tour goes to macchu picchu, or the colosseum in rome, it is mapped to those experiences (which are reviewed on WR.)
Then our ’spider’ reads the content of the affiliate’s page and delivers the most relevant ads based on trigger words, which are given scores depending on how often they are mentioned, whether in metatags etc - locations, categories and experiences.
Currently fine tuning these algorithms.
Publishers can choose or exclude specific operators from a list, as well as tour ‘types’
(escorted, tailor-made, hotel packages, cruises, local tours, etc), as well as choose specific countries. For example a site all about Turkey will not want ads on greece appearing - which is a double safeguard in case the algorithm fails. They can also insert keywords into the javascript displayed on each page to give specified (by them) keywords more weight.They can decide the colour and shape of ad unit, and how many they want to display - or create multiple units, like google adsense.
That all seems pretty brilliant to me. Adventure / activity tour operators have needed something like this for a while.
Is this likely to spawn a whole new target for SEM?
Yep….. just watch as all the search engine marketing companies start selling services to manage your WorldReviewer advertising. What will the accronym be?
Any other exciting announcements planned?
Yes there are. But WorldReviewer weren’t telling me! They will come when the system launches fully….
Information helpfully provided by James Dunford Wood, WorldReviewer CEO, when I interviewed him earlier today. Thanks James! (The only direct quote is the section about product selection…. if there are other errors or misunderstandings - they are mine)
* I will write a blog post next week with all recent submissions for new industry terms included. If you have any, send them my way. So far I will remind everyone of ”zero percenters”, “slappers” and “YATCS”.
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A smart move, indeed.
Not sure if it’s particularly groundbreaking as Worldreviewer is just becoming a virtual affiliate network?
Talk to Affiliate Future and they will tell you about how thousands of operator products are distributed through their network on publisher sites.
In fact, they also spun it the other way round, by then throwing those deals into Henoo.com, a metasearch engine. They have also already put a searchable display ad (meta-style) on other publisher sites.
All good news though. And this latest project by Worldreviewer jsut goes to show we were justified in giving the company Newcome of the Year at the Travolution Awards 2008.
Hi Kevin
Ah - yes - Affiliate Future…..
Thing is - my interest is (currently) in itinerary based trips & tours (which are what WorldReviewer have) rather than packages leaving from a selected airport (as itinerary based trips is what my customer base sell mainly)
Its the whole “head” vs “tail” discussion again……. as you know, my interest is in smaller tour operators - and they don’t tend to sell from an airport…. indeed many sell to local customers - or incoming as a pseudo-ground handler.
Yeah - not ground breaking - but it is showing an interesting maturity in the YATCS that they are moving into infrastucture plays rather than end points. I always thought that would happen as the only two static end points are Google and the reservation systems….. hence controlling as much of the spaghetti in the middle is better than just being a point in the middle.
So, let me make sure I understand.
This is a PPC ads where tour operators can advertise on Worldreviewer?
It looks good on the screenshot, but I wonder how many users will block the ads out of their sight like most people do with Google Adsense. Being positive, at least these ads will be targeted unlike Adsense which is incredibly poor at delivering ads based on content.
Hi Darren
Yeah - it is for advertising on their main site - as well as on selected partner sites. The link to Iwanttogohere.com is the best example.
I think if you are looking for a holiday to Sydney - and you have a list of potential Australian tours on the page - you may click through. I guess WorldReviewer will select partner sites that have a profile of users who are in the “research” phase of their travel…. (as that is what I would do).
I would really try to exclude sites that had post booking, pre travel kind of research……. (such as packing list sites, sites with micro-level transport (for example local transport system information)). These will be difficult calls for WR - and if they get the ratio of “pre-booking research” sites with “post booking / pre-travel research sites” wrong then operators may end up with lots of clicks with few bookings to show for it….
This business isn’t as simple as slapping a few advert boxes on a few partner sites and doing arbitrage on the differrence you are paying publishers and charging operators…..
Any word on the revenue share? If the advertisers are paying 50p per click, then a split similar to Adsense could make for a reasonably attractive product.
Stuart,
I think you will have to contact them to find out…… your CPC rate is probably in the right kind of area though.
Thanks Alex for your enthusiasm for this product. Nothing particularly ground breaking about it, as Kevin remarked - but I suppose what we want to achieve is a closed and complementary network of online travel publishers linked to a closed and complementary network of travel suppliers, with flexibility of choice at both ends. It’s also tailored precisely to travel, with hand matching of product to keywords - and this, plus the display with images and prices - should help boost the relevance and CTR. However, it’s that relevancy that we still have some testing to do with - which is the point of getting some tester affiliates on board, to gauge how it works for them.
In response to Stuart - the PPC paid by suppliers will be, at least initially, somewhat less that the 50p he mentions - for the very reason that we have to assess the quality of the traffic coming from those affiliates. But our aim is to deliver to affiliates a better rate per click than they get from existing channels (which we can easily sit alongside) and with improved relevancy and so CTR.
“Although WorldReviewer are UK based they are keen for US and Australia based operators to sign up now”
Australian based operators and partner web sites will need to see an A$ pricing option, currently only in USD, UKP and Euro as I understand it.
John
Yes no problem about displaying prices in A$in fact we can display in any currency