Passport and Stamps

Goals

To trial a new affiliate marketing partner that would offer an alternative to working directly with the big Online Travel Agents (OTAs).

Results

An uplift in conversion rates from 0.6% to 6.7% - an increase of over 1,000% within the first eight months
An average monthly revenue increase of 25%
A proactive partner who’s committed to their success

The genesis of Passport and Stamps was formed in 2018, when Toti Maisto, an Italian expat journalist living in London, attended a conference and was inspired to pivot to a career in travel blogging. He shared this big dream with Alessia Vurchio (Ale), a London-based social media strategist, and together they started to write content for their travel blog and to build an online community.

For a time, both Toti and Ale kept their day jobs, but could see that slowly and surely, visitor numbers to their blog were increasing. At the start of 2019 they decided to take the leap and, as Toti says: “embrace the adventure”. The couple quit their jobs, went to Spain and became full-time travel bloggers. Since when they’ve never looked back.

The success of PassportandStamps.com helped support Toti and Ale to stay on the road full time since September 2022.

Their first project was a blog named ItalianTripAbroad.it that now focuses on Italian destinations as a guidebook for visitors to Italy. They subsequently developed a passion project called CuriousLittleTrips.com to champion slow, sustainable travel and authentic experiences, worldwide.

PassportandStamps.com was then launched in 2022. Conceived as a site that would genuinely reflect Toti and Ale’s first-hand travel experiences, the site’s authenticity has struck a chord with visitors. As a result, it’s become their largest income source. It also brings together everything they’ve learned from their previous blogging experiences.

The three sites, especially Passport and Stamps, make most of their money from a combination of advertising and affiliate marketing. The breakdown is broadly 50:50. To optimize advertising revenue, Toti and Ale have started using Mediavine, which brokers the placing of appropriate ads on appropriate sites. They also get some income from press trips and sponsorships, but the lion’s share of the rest of their income is from affiliate marketing.

From the beginning they’ve worked with Booking.com and over time a number of others in an effort to cover different countries, for instance when travelling in Vietnam and Laos they added Baolau. Toti and Ale also like to test out an affiliate as consumers before partnering with them. Others they’ve worked with, or trialed, include Get Your Guide, Viator, Klook, Hotels.com, Travel Payouts, Bookaway and Agoda.

Toti and Ale had a lot of affiliate balls in the air, so when they first heard about Stay22, they didn’t respond on the basis that their affiliate revenue was already fine. However, timing is everything.

An approach from Stay22 at a moment when they were having some big issues logging on to their OTA affiliate accounts proved fateful. Passport and Stamps was also finding it frustratingly impossible to connect with real people at the big OTAs.

By adopting Stay22’s Let Me Allez (LMA) solution, they would no longer have to deal with them directly. Instead, they’d be working with a dedicated Stay22 account manager. It was an offer too appealing to pass up.

What does Let Me Allez (LMA) do?
LMA is a simple copy and paste script that bloggers drop into their website header. This script converts every existing accommodation link into a Stay22 deeplink. Bloggers don’t need to update any links manually and LMA is completely free. As accommodation is booked via their site, Stay22 passes on a regular commission payment.
What’s more, the deeplinks LMA introduces are far more effective than the links many bloggers use themselves, which are often only to a homepage. Using a tool called Optimized Redirect, users can get a tailored result instead. This significantly improves their user experience and boosts their propensity to book, so increasing the blogger’s commission earnings. In practice, Optimized Redirect boosts revenue by an average of more than 10%.
What’s more, the deeplinks LMA introduces are far more effective than the links many bloggers use themselves, which are often only to a homepage. Using a tool called Optimized Redirect, users can get a tailored result instead. This significantly improves their user experience and boosts their propensity to book, so increasing the blogger’s commission earnings. In practice, Optimized Redirect boosts revenue by an average of more than 10%.

Toti and Ale could also see the value of Stay22’s Nova feature. This is a menu of linked booking options that prompts in front of readers so infrequently (roughly once every 40 visits) that it isn’t irritating for them.

That said, the options it provides are generated by a proprietary Stay22 algorithm that draws on the reader’s browsing history. Nova thereby makes a big impact because it puts options in front of readers that they like. This is another source of increased conversions.

Passport and Stamps decided to give Stay22 a threemonth trial. They started this journey in April 2023.

Before Passport and Stamps worked with Stay22, their conversion rate through OTAs was 0.60%. “After the switch to Stay22,” says Toti, “our conversion rate was 6.7%, which is a huge increase.”

He accepts that bookings are seasonal to some extent, and that there are other variables, like changes to content, and Google updates. Nevertheless, as soon as LMA was installed, the numbers “rose quite steeply” and continued to rise.

Moreover, the steep uplift in conversions translates into a 20-30% increase in Passport and Stamps’ monthly income. Plus, it’s the epitome of passive income.

What is Nova?
Nova is a feature of LMA that opens a list of accommodation options for users who, by their behavior, have demonstrated an intention to travel to a particular location, but who haven’t booked anything yet. The options are generated with machine learning recommendation algorithms, personalized to every reader, with likely favorites at the top. Nova isn’t intrusive – it only appears for 8% of users and for any given user will only appear once every 40 days. And it’s really effective: Stay22’s data shows that it increases bookings by up to 50%.

Passport and Stamps has also noticed that they’re getting bookings from OTAs that have never been affiliate partners.

When LMA’s Optimized Redirect draws on the user’s browsing history, if the algorithm believes it will help, the user will be redirected to a site they like and trust, where they’re given more options and will be more likely to book.

Toti says that when he began to see this behavior in his data, it also inspired him to create some sub-projects within PassportandStamps.com to cater for different demographics and enrich the overall user experience.

He adds that initially he wasn’t keen that Stay22 was introducing links to new sites. However, he now concedes that it works well.

Toti and Ale also find Stay22’s customer service level to be exceptional. They describe their account manager, (Margot) as “over the top”.

“I’m crazy about trialing stuff,” notes Toti, “and she’s crazy too, making videos for me to explain stuff.”

After three months, Passport and Stamps were also sent a statement of their bookings, where they came from, the top performing, the most commission: it detailed everything.

“We partner with many others,” says Ale,“but Stay 22 is the only company that has done that for us without us asking.”

Passport and Stamps also values how Stay22 owns and resolves any issues very readily. Says Ale: “They know our project and how we work. This makes everyone's job easy, even somebody who didn’t know anything about blogging. It’s brilliant.”

Toti concludes: “We saw results from day one, so have been recommending Stay22 to other travel bloggers since this journey began.”

“We are very analytical people. We want to understand what’s working, what didn’t work, what we can improve for the following month. Now I don’t need to source data from everywhere and open 10,000 tabs on the laptop to see where the data is. That Stay22 provides collated data saves me a lot of time and makes it easier for me to implement new strategies and create something new.”

Toti Maisto

PassportAndStamps.com

1. You must love writing: You have to love the actual bit of it that is kind of like work… We created three projects because we love writing. We left everything in Italy and started from scratch in London to learn how to be better writers in English.

2. Have patience: If you love what you do and you’re passionate about it, give it time. Don’t do it because it’s trendy to be a travel blogger. And don’t be naïve about how much work is involved. It’s not just about publishing a blog post or posting a picture on social media. It doesn’t happen overnight.

3. Network: You need to build a community and learn from other people. You need to learn about SEO, social media, blogging. We found an amazing community that were always ready to share.

4. Mistakes are the greatest teacher: Be resilient and learn from your failures. We know what we’re doing now and what is really successful. But that comes from five years of making mistakes!

5. Keep striding forward: There’s no room for complacency. Success comes from continually innovating and trying new things.

6. Keep it real: Keep writing, recording, journaling, and making videos that are authentic. Capture your experiences and emotions. Maybe AI can replicate some things, but it can’t replace the emotions and excitement you feel.

Case Study

How Stay22 helped boost the success of PassportAndStamps.com

Goals

Results

25% INCREASE OF MONTHLY REVENUE

www.passportandstamps.com

The Beginning

About Toti and Ale

FULL-TIME GIG

“We want to cover as much ground as possible,” says Ale. “We started with one year of travel, and then we didn’t stop.”

ENTER STAY22

Toti and Ale had a lot of affiliate balls in the air, so when they first heard about Stay22, they didn’t respond on the basis that their affiliate revenue was already fine. However, timing is everything.

“Within just a few months, Stay22 was already paying our bills. This has never happened for any other project that we or our friends have experienced."

A 25% INCREASE in MONTHLY INCOME

“We aren’t even a website that focuses on accommodation, we just suggest the accommodation we used on our itinerary."

Optimized Redirect

“Stay22 has proved that they are a very good company at finding the right solution. I trust them blindfolded on this one."

Customer Success

Toti and Ale's Top Tips for Becoming a Successful Travel Blogger

About Stay22

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