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Case Study

How large-scale weather publisher Climate-Data.org boosted RPM by 40% with Stay22

Goals

  • Climate-Data.org sought to increase revenue without sacrificing user experience. The primary goal was to deliver a better monetization strategy than display ads, boost RPM by adopting affiliate solutions that integrate seamlessly, and support a global audience with varied booking behaviors.

Results

  • 40% Increase in Average RPM
  • Enhanced User Experience
  • Expanded Global Reach

40% INCREASE IN RPM

CLIMATE-DATA.ORG

  • Industry
    Weather data & content publishing
  • Traffic
    2 to 2.5 million unique visitors monthly during peak summer months
  • Languages
    16
  • Primary audiences
    United States, Europe (Germany, UK, France, Spain), Brazil, and India.

Climate-Data.org, a large-scale weather publisher, attracts a significant number of visitors, particularly during the summer months, with users coming from all over the world to access valuable climate information. A critical aspect of the site’s value proposition is its role in helping travelers plan trips by providing climate data that helps mitigate the risk of poor weather during vacations. The site appeals to affluent travelers who are planning high-value trips relatively far in advance.

Historically, Climate-Data.org’s revenue was driven by a combination of display advertising and content-related ads which generate revenue from clicks. However, the site faced challenges in scaling revenue while maintaining a quality user experience. The publisher's traffic was global, but its ability to monetize varied across regions, with markets like the US and Germany showing high RPMs (revenue per thousand impressions) compared to countries like India and Malaysia, where RPMs were much lower.

“I tested different things, including ad positions, and then realized, okay, if I reduce the number of ads, I get more revenue with Stay22 than with these ads.”

Alexander Merkel
Alexander Merkel
Climate-data.org

The Challenge

Climate-Data.org’s founder, Alexander Merkel, wanted to continue optimizing revenue, but not at the cost of the user experience. To strike a balance between how the website looked vs generating revenue, he explored affiliate marketing solutions that could boost RPM without disrupting UX and hurting SEO. He tried several of the well-known OTAs, but the results were disappointing. He still needed a solution that was both easy to implement and that would complement the site's content-related advertising model without overly complicating the technical setup or cannibalizing income.

Solution: Stay22’s Nova and Allez

In June 2024, Alexander decided to trial Stay22’s LMA solution, incorporating Nova, which automatically opens a tab with accommodation offers when a user shows travel intent but makes no purchase, and Allez, which offers customized deep links that can be embedded in images related to the destination, encouraging clicks.

The key drivers for this decision included:

  1. Ease of implementation: Stay22’s JavaScript-based solutions could be integrated in minutes, without the need for extensive development resources or adaptations.
  2. Alignment with existing monetization strategies: Google updates had reduced display ad revenue, and Stay22 offered a fresh revenue stream that meshed well with Climate-Data.org’s existing model.
  • What is Let Me Allez (LMA)? 
  • LMA is a free-to-use software that travel content publishers install on their website. It then automatically converts all the accommodation links in their site into Stay22 links. When accommodation is booked, Stay22 pays a commission to the site owner. 
  • What separates LMA from other affiliate providers is the AI technology in every link. Using machine learning, LMA will personalize your affiliate links to every single reader, automatically fix any broken links, and provide personalized accommodation options with the AI booking agent, Nova.
  • This AI technology has helped publishers double, triple, and even 7x their affiliate revenue

Long-term benefits and future plans

Stay22 has proven to be a valuable partner, helping ClimateData.org diversify its revenue streams, particularly in regions where display advertising underperforms, and providing income that’s less vulnerable to Google updates. Alexander also notes the ease of managing Stay22’s products, particularly Nova, which requires little-to-no ongoing administration. Meanwhile, Allez has required more experimentation, but also shown that destination images can further increase clicks and revenue.

Looking ahead, Alexander plans to expand Stay22’s presence across more regions, such as Malaysia and India, and explore how Allez can be further optimized in Asia, where traditional display advertising works less well.

With Stay22’s help, Climate-Data.org is building a more sustainable, high-revenue model that balances user experience with monetization.

“The implementation was so easy. It took me five minutes”.

alex merkel
Alexander Merkel
Climate-data.org

Looking back

By adopting Stay22’s Nova and Allez products, Climate-Data.org successfully increased its RPM, particularly in high-value markets like Norway and Germany, while improving user experience. In addition, the ease of implementation, coupled with the data that Stay22 makes available, allowed Alexander to locate the sweet spot between revenue, UX and SEO, to achieve a cleaner site alongside a more sustainable monetization strategy.

Climate-Data.org’s case demonstrates the potential for publishers to leverage Stay22’s solutions to optimize revenue and simultaneously enhance the overall user journey.

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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