Localrent.com (formerly Myrentacar.com) allows travelers to rent a car Montenegro, Bulgaria, Turkey, and other countries. Localrent.com has been growing their partner program since 2015, which now accounts for 50% of the company’s sales. Sergey Fisenko, Head of Affiliates at Localrent.com, shared the company’s experience of growing the affiliate channel.
Further, you’ll find Sergey’s interview in the first person.
Localrent.com direct partner program
We launched our direct partner program in 2014-2015 when Kirill Antoshin, the company founder, realized that affiliate marketing could drive traffic cheaply and efficiently. Partner programs perfectly boost SEO. We’re growing traffic, brand recognition, and our backlink profile, while paying only for completed bookings. In addition, webmasters can earn a decent remuneration ($16-19 USD, on average).
We started our partner program from scratch and developed the software ourselves. It took six to twelve months, but we have continue to improve it even now. You can’t simply create a program and forget about it. A strong program needs constant development, especially on the technical side.
It’s important for a brand to stand out from their competitors at the moment they launch their program. Our product is different from others on the market, as Localrent.com works with local car rentals and features cars that other brands do not. We also provide lower pricing and excellent service.
Partner program terms
We took our competitors into account when developing the terms of our partner program. We analyzed key players in the market who are already running their programs and created our program with similar terms.
What really distinguishes us from the competition is that, from the very beginning, we accrue the commission to the partner based on the full rental cost, including insurance and additional services, which makes a significant difference in terms of earnings.
Partner tools
At first, our partner tools included only links and we had semiautomatic sales tracking. Later, we made the process fully automatic.
The next partner tool that we created was White Label, which many projects used at the time. We only added widgets in 2019.
How much does it cost to launch a direct partner program
Developing a direct partner program now requires a lot of time, effort, and investment.
Let’s calculate. You’ll need a team with a minimum of four people: two developers, a project manager, and a designer. Each of them should earn about $5,000-$9,000 per month in the United States ($3,000 – $5,600 in Europe), and with taxes, that amount increases even more. As a result, you’ll spend $20,000-$36,000 per month in the US ($12,000-$22,400 in Europe), and that’s not counting taxes.
The development process will take from six to twelve months. So, it will cost you from $240,000 for one year of development in the US (from $144,000 in Europe).
Naturally, there are out-of-the-box solutions (prepackaged software) for launching a partner program. It makes more sense to use these, especially at the very beginning. If your channel grows, you can start thinking about creating a direct partner program.
Connecting Localrent.com to Travelpayouts
We joined Travelpayouts in 2017, almost as soon as it became possible. At that time, our brand was ten times smaller than it is now. The integration process took a little time, but we spent more hours working out legal matters, such as the agreement and so on.
What we like at Travelpayouts in contrast to many other partner platforms is the community. There are chats and groups for both brands and partners, and the platform regularly organizes prize drawings, meetups, and other activities.
The fact that Travelpayouts invests money and attention into the travel market is a major benefit for travel brands. Today, Travelpayouts generates 4-5% of all its sales on the affiliate channel through Travelpayouts.
Direct partner program vs Travelpayouts
| Direct partner program | Travelpayouts | |
| Advantages | If you promote your own program, you’ll focus entirely on your product. It’s easy to connect big partners and you can offer them special terms. | No investments. You can join for free and only pay for each sale. The platform can help you create partner tools for your program.It’s convenient to connect small projects, such as info websites, social media groups, and Telegram channels. For a partner program to pay out commissions, you only need one transaction from the partner platform account. |
| Disadvantages | The direct program launch requires more time, effort, and investment. The commission is paid directly to each partner, so the brand has to make separate transactions, close documents, and so on. | There are many brands, so marketing is diffused. There is also potential competition among brands in the network. |
Tips for brands that want to launch a partner program
- My main advice is to create a partner program in any form. Doing so will boost your SEO, brand recognition, and mentions. In this channel, brands pay only for sales, which is very profitable.
- Make a list of all your competitors and analyze them. Create a strategy. Flight tickets are sold differently than cars and cars are sold differently than tours.
- Understand how you can compete with other brands within your vertical.
- Share large commissions at the beginning to attract partners. New brands that are unknown to the public can offer 90% revenue share to acquire their first partners and links.
- Be patient. Growing an affiliate channel requires consistent work over a long period of time.
