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Case Study

How Stay22 is underpinning the profitability and success of PracticalWanderlust.com

Goals

  • An easy and reliable tool to help increase affiliate link income.

Results

  • An affiliate partner that is engaged, reliable and pretty chilled.
  • A brilliant and simple piece of code that has doubled conversion rates and brought a significant uplift in revenue.

DOUBLE CONVERSION RATES FROM DAY 1

www.practicalwanderlust.com

The Beginning

Practical Wanderlust is among the world’s most successful travel blogs, with a post-pandemic total reach of around 2 million per month. It’s run by Kentucky-based Lia Garcia and her husband, Jeremy, who, with help from contributors, create detailed and fun guides and other content (itineraries, packing lists etc.) designed to help readers plan amazing trips.

The blog has a global audience, though the typical reader is a millennial woman, traveling with a partner, and living in the US.

Travel blogging is a crowded corner of the web. Practical Wanderlust differentiates itself by focusing on personal experiences and letting the personality and humor of the bloggers shine through. It doesn’t just offer information but create the guides that Lia and Jeremy wish they’d had before traveling. They cover global destinations with a bias towards the Americas.

The blog makes money by including affiliate linked recommendations. If readers subsequently make a purchase/booking, Practical Wanderlust gets a small commission. The site also makes money through display ads and sponsorships.

  • About Lia and Jeremy

  • Founders, PracticalWanderlust.com

    We believe that travel is a tool for connection, growth, and positive social impact. We love off-beat travel and discovering what makes a place unique (and a little weird). Our goal is to make you laugh & learn, and to show that travel doesn't always have to be perfect!

Sharing an Uber

Practical Wanderlust works with up to 50 affiliate partners, and there are several ways to do that. Lia could deal directly with the big online travel agents (OTAs) – or link to them via one of the big affiliate platforms, like CJ.com. Because things change constantly, she continually evaluates what works best.

When Stay22 approached Lia after she gave a presentation about affiliate marketing at TBEX Lafayette in 2022, she was open to hearing their pitch. There’s appeal for her in being able to communicate with people directly. 

“In the end, Stay22 was able to drive more revenue than other affiliate networks” says Lia. “Combined with the personal touch, that was why we chose the move to Stay22’s product, Let Me Allez (LMA).”

“We’re very small potatoes to major OTAs” she notes, “so their customer service is minimal. With Stay22 I met them in person, we had lunch, we shared an Uber ride.”

Practical Wanderlust Case Study Stay22
Lia Garcia
PracticalWanderlustscom

NOT INVASIVE AND ANNOYING

Lia also opted to trial the Nova AI functionality. This uses machine learning to populate an intelligent “pop-behind” box of suggestions to readers as they browse the site.

But full disclosure: Lia was not enthusiastic about this at first. “It sounded really invasive and annoying,” she says. However, Stay22 showed her a demo of how it worked and explained that it’s created to be as minimally intrusive as possible.

Each user only sees the box once every 40 days. Lia agreed to test it out because others in the travel-blogger-sphere had said it definitely drove conversion rates. She was quickly convinced. 

“Within three days of it going live I was really blown away. It’s a huge conversion increase,“ she says. “It really works.”

Practical Wanderlust Case Study Stay22
Lia Garcia
PracticalWanderlust.com
  • Let Me Allez (LMA) explained

  • Let Me Allez (LMA) is Stay22’s solution for travel bloggers and content publishers – helping them save time and increase revenue. It’s a super simple copy and paste script that bloggers can drop into their website header. It then instantly converts every existing accommodation link into a Stay22 deeplink.

  • Thereafter, Stay22 passes on a regular commission payment for the accommodation that’s booked; fixes 404’s automatically by redirecting the link; and provides access to a partner hub where you can see how your links are performing. And, of course, LMA is entirely FREE. Stay22 only earns money when its partner sites do.

Another bonus is that a couple of months after switchover, Lia’s account manager made a point of reaching out to her with some “fantastic reports”. “They gave me insights into my readers that I didn’t have before. I found out they preferred sites that were on the pop-behind, so I realized I should be linking to these sites more often.”

 

"I’m seeing about twice the conversion rate in comparison with what I was seeing before, which makes a huge difference."

Practical Wanderlust Case Study Stay22
Lia Garcia
PracticalWanderlust.com

NOT SCREAMING INTO THE VOID

Now that the system is in place, Lia appreciates the customer service she gets from Stay22. She knows who to email and gets a “pretty quick” response. “Stay22 values travel bloggers like me as a partner. It makes me enjoy working with them” she says. She also feels she’s talking to regular humans, not corporate mouthpieces. “It’s like a whole down to earth vibe and they’re all very nice.”

Better yet, from day one, Lia has seen conversion rates double—meaning much more revenue. “It’s all well and good to enjoy working with people,” laughs Lia, “but ultimately, we make a lot more money with Stay22 than with other partners!

“Yes, there are other factors in play – like the end of Covid – but I’m definitely happy. I’m just making a lot more money with them. I’m seeing about twice the conversion rate in comparison with what I was seeing before, which makes a huge difference. It allows me to do what I want to do and continue doing it, reaching more people, and helping them have amazing trips.”

 

“Stay22 values travel bloggers like me as a partner. It makes me enjoy working with them”, she says, "and ultimately, we make a lot more money with Stay22 than with other partners

Practical Wanderlust Case Study Stay22
Lia Garcia
PracticalWanderlust.com

Consistency is key

Lia can also relax a bit more when working with Stay22. With bigger affiliate partners, getting their attention can feel like “screaming into the void” she says. “You get an email saying: ‘Our bad, but your links haven’t been working for the last three months. Oops!’

“I’m a small company, with people depending on me. I don’t want to take on the risk of not getting paid. Stay22 is taking on that risk and paying me, so that’s definitely peace of mind and it means I can make decisions and plan for the future knowing the income I’ll receive.”

In conclusion, Lia would happily recommend Stay22 to other travel bloggers, and indeed already has. “I think LMA is easy to use. It’s a simple switch. It’s easy to test and if you don’t like it, it’s easy to switch back. But ultimately, it has just made me more money and raised my conversion rate. Plus, I’ve found them to be better and more enjoyable to work with than a lot of the other affiliate partners.” Go Stay22!

"LMA is a simple switch, easy to test and if you don't like it – easy to switch back."

Practical Wanderlust Case Study Stay22
Lia Garcia
PracticalWanderlust.com

About Stay22

Stay22.com is a Canadian travel tech company that offers affiliate revenue generation opportunities for events, ticketing, and travel media publications to monetize the travel intent of their audience. Stay22 works with over 3,000 global partners; and has generated over $500M in GMV in 2024.

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