Expedia Affiliate Marketing Case Study
Expedia | Affiliate Marketing
THE BACKGROUND
Expedia’s travel-related content and technology are valuable competitive assets that Expedia decided to
leverage through an online affinity marketing program. This new channel focused on acquiring new customers
and driving innovation through the development of travel-related sites that offer relevant content according to
geography, lifestyle and interests.
THE SOLUTION
Saltmine accepted Expedia’s challenge and provided the technical expertise that integrated its underlying e-
business technology into three newly designed sites with their own distinctive branding and user experience.
100OrlandoSpots.com—Saltmine created a microsite that focused on all the things to do and see in Orlando,
Florida, the second-largest destination market for Expedia.com. The site offers a list of 100 popular Orlando
locations organized by category with brief descriptions. There is also a “Top 10 Spots” lists for specific
categories that offer a finer level of detail as well as stand-alone hot spot detail pages for featured spots.
Vacations.net—Saltmine built a new website with new content that focused on all-inclusive vacations. The site
offers various categories of packages under heading like Destinations, Vacation Sites and Resort Groups.
These headings leverage Expedia’s existing relationships with branded resorts and destinations. Saltmine’s
tagline for the site, “Leave Your Wallet Behind”, helped convince visitors that the all-inclusive model was a
great way to book a vacation experience.
BigWorldTrips.com—Saltmine developed a site dedicated to low-stress, high-excitement travel packages to
exotic destinations around the globe. Saltmine’s content strategy featured inspirational and informational
copy and visuals. Visitors to the site can literally “spin the globe” to make a choice of travel destinations.
THE RESULTS
Saltmine created user-focused community sites with compelling design and an unsurpassed user experience.
Saltmine also integrated the new sites into Expedia’s booking technology and tailored it to work with off-the-
shelf web tracking packages so that traffic and transactions generated can be attributed accordingly. The
affiliate marketing program developed by Saltmine acquired new customers and drove incremental
transactions for Expedia.
EXPEDIA—AFFILIATE MARKETING
