Intended Audience: Trip Organizers who want to expand their marketing reach by inviting influencers to promote trips.
Article Summary: Learn how to use Affiliate Program to sell more trips by inviting influencers to promote your trip and save time tracking the conversions and commissions with SquadTrip's built in tracking solution.
Table of Contents:
What is the trip Affiliate Program?
SquadTrip Affiliate Program is a powerful tool for Trip Organizers to partner and incentivize influencers to promote your trip to their unique audience. With SquadTrip, you can invite as many influencers as you'd like to any published trip. Each affiliate will receive unique links and SquadTrip tracks new bookings and payout amounts for your affiliates.
Is this different from Refer & Receive?
Yes! Refer & Receive is a dedicated referral program for your guests that have booked a trip with you. Affiliates - while they could be traveling with you - are professional promoters and influencers. They might not be planning to travel with the group, but are still promoting and earning.
How can I launch an Affiliate Program for my trip?
👉 Prerequisite: In order to invite an affiliate and launch an Affiliate Program, you'll need to have at least one published trip in your organization.
Click Marketing in your navigation menu.
Click +Add New Affiliate
Fill out the form with the following required details
First Name: First name of your affiliate
Last Name: Last name of your affiliate
Email: Email that will be associated with the affiliate
Assign Affiliate to your trip: List of your published trips that an affiliate can promote. If you don't see any trips listed, check and confirm that you have a published trip.
How would you like to pay your affiliate?: Select what commission or fee structure you're offering your affiliate. This will impact how the commissions are calculated.
Pay out schedule terms: Indicate when you plan to pay your affiliate. SquadTrip does not pay the affiliate, but this will be communicated with your affiliate in their future dashboard.
Click Add new affiliate
When the affiliate is added, a new row will appear with their stats.
Copy the shareable referral links under the Action column and send them to directly to your affiliate.
How does my affiliate get their shareable link for my trip(s)?
Each published trip has a unique link. When you click the copy shareable link icon, then all links for the trips the affiliate can promote will be copied.
Paste the copied links into the communication platform of your choice and send it directly to your affiliate. This gives you complete control over when you want to share the links and the additional terms and conditions when you share the links.
How do I exclude add-ons or payment plan fees from commission calculations?
Some Organizers only pay a percentage commission on the base package. This means if a traveler purchases add-ons or books using a payment plan, the organizer doesn't want to pay commission on those added charges.
By selecting "Excluded purchases and fees", you can do this!
Add a new affiliate or edit an existing one
Click "Percentage of sale"
Exclude purchases and fees will appear
Select the options you want to exclude
Click save
☝️ Note: These calculations only apply to new bookings. Any bookings made before excluding add-ons or payment plan fees will still include those in the calculations.
How do I pay my affiliates?
Payment to affiliates who've successfully made referrals occurs at your convenience, outside of SquadTrip, giving you full control over the process. You get to choose when you'll pay your travelers and what method.
ℹ️ We recommend paying affiliates after the trip is completed via PayPal, Venmo, or bank transfer. This ensures you're only paying for referrals that went on the trip and paid in full.
Can my affiliate see their performance?
At this time, affiliates won't have access to see their performance. You can share your affiliates performance with them directly through your preferred communication channels.
Our team is actively working on building a portal for affiliates and are excited to launch this feature soon! If you have specific feature requests, submit them to our public feature request board!
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the terms and conditions of the affiliate program?
You are in full control of the terms and conditions. At this time, SquadTrip just tracks the earnings of the affiliates so you don't have to manage multiple spreadsheets. We typically encourage organizers to set clear terms based on:
Fee structure (fixed fee or percentage of sales)
When payouts will occur (ideally after the trip is over)
What happens when there's a cancellation (we recommend a reduction in earnings)
ℹ️ We recommend sending clear communications to your affiliates about any changes to incentive programs. SquadTrip does not send any emails about the program terms and conditions.
Can an affiliate promote multiple trips?
Yes! When you add an affiliate, you have the option to add them to any of your published trips.
How do I know if travelers are booking using the affiliate links?
When a traveler books through an affiliate's link, the affiliates name will be listed under "affiliates" in the trip attendee list. Total conversions for the affiliate are tracked in the marketing tab for a quick view of the affiliates performance.
What happens when a traveller requests a refund or cancellation?
Since payment occurs outside of the platform, you have full control over how and when you'll pay your affiliate. SquadTrip will track all of the bookings from the affiliates unique link so if there's a refund, the platform will reduce the affiliate's stats and commissions calculation.
Have questions? We have answers! 😊
Email us at help@squadtrip.com or send us a message via chat.
Have a feature request would make your life easier? Share it with us on our public feature request board.