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Stay22 / Case Studies / Sundial

How Sundial Media Group Turned Stay22's Travel Data Into an Editorial Advantage

The Goal

Sundial’s readers had been clear about ad clutter, and the team wasn’t going to add travel revenue at the cost of the reading experience. They wanted to serve that intent without interrupting the reading experience.

Key Results

    Stay22 is now 2.43% of Sundial’s affiliate revenue
    Editorial planning across Refinery29 and Essence now uses Stay22 booking data to decide what to prioritize.

  • Company

    Sundial Media Group

  • Product used

    Nova

“We stopped choosing between the best story and the revenue. The Stay22 data tells us who the reader is at each publication, and that tells us what to publish next, which brings the next booking..”
Alexis Bennett Parker Director of Affiliate Partnerships & Commerce Strategy at Sundial Media Group

Executive Summary

Sundial Media Group added Stay22's Nova to capture the travel intent already sitting in its content. The booking data underneath revealed which titles and destinations were driving those bookings, and that data now decides what editors cover next. More relevant content brings more readers. More readers generate more bookings and more revenue. More bookings feeds the next editorial decision, and the loop starts again.

The Background

Sundial Media Group publishes Refinery29, Essence, and other titles. Readers who came for Sundial's culture and lifestyle content were also deciding where to go and where to stay, they just weren't being served offers at that moment.

Alexis Bennett Parker, Director of Affiliate Partnerships and Commerce Strategy, leads monetization across the titles, and she wanted to serve that intent without interrupting the reading experience or turning off regular readers.

The Challenge

Readers had been vocal about ad clutter, and Sundial would not add travel revenue at the expense of the reading experience. Any new revenue line had to earn its place without taking page real estate or adding a banner.

What the Stay22 Data Revealed

Sundial added Stay22's Nova. It captured the travel intent already in the content, without adding anything on the page.

Nova did more than generate revenue. It changed how Sundial publishes.

The data showed Alexis's team which titles and destinations were driving bookings. Refinery29 readers booked longer international trips. Essence readers booked shorter stays in the U.S. In April, horoscopes and Paris Metro pieces on Refinery29 lined up with Euro-summer bookings, while Essence Festival and wedding coverage sent readers to Atlanta and Dallas.

This changed what editors prioritized next. Better-matched stories pulled more readers, more readers booked more trips, and each booking told Sundial a little more about what to publish next. The insight and the revenue grew off each other.

Results

Sundial added a travel revenue line without adding a single ad banner. The reading experience stayed the same. And the same dashboard that reports the revenue now shapes what Sundial's titles cover next.

  • Stay22 revenue now accounts for 2.43% of Sundial's total affiliate revenue. 

  • Editorial planning across Refinery29 and Essence now uses Stay22 booking data to decide what to prioritize.

What's Next

The Stay22 data is part of how Sundial plans now, and Alexis expects to use it more. Her priority is the same one that brought Sundial to Stay22 in the first place: the reader's experience and trust, first, and the data now gives her a way to serve both while growing revenue.

 

 

“It was kind of a no‑brainer for us.”
Alexis Bennett Parker Director of Affiliate Partnerships & Commerce Strategy at Sundial Media Group

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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.