What is White Label?
White Label is a common model of cooperation among online and offline businesses for situations in which one company produces a product or provides a service and the second company sells this product or service under its own brand.
This concept also works in affiliate marketing for situations in which partners offer other company’s services and products under their own brand.
How White Label works in affiliate marketing
Let’s look at how white labeling works in affiliate marketing by exploring a real example.
The owner of tripsta.co.uk offers their audience a convenient service for finding the cheapest flight tickets. The website works on the technologies of Aviasales, but the audience does not know this and receives the high-quality service under the Tripsta brand. Let’s take a closer look at how this works in the tripsta.co.uk example.
The search form is located on the main page of the site:
In the search form, there is no mention of a partnership or any other connection with additional services. The Tripsta brand is running as an independent product. Clients use the service on the partner’s domain, in its design and under its brand.
At the same time, the search form keeps visitors on the site without redirecting them to the Aviasales site. The ticket search results page is located on the subdomain https://search.tripsta.co.uk/. Other affiliates may choose any other subdomain and may even use the main domain name.
The site visitor interacts only with the Tripsta interface, receiving all offers from this particular brand. Then, to buy a flight ticket, the visitor goes to the supplier’s website (a ticket agency or airline’s website). The workflow is the same as on the Aviasales official website, but the user is getting all the services they need under a different brand.
As a result, the partner does not lose a chance to get the returning customers. This is because all visitors return to the partner’s site, since they did not interact with the original service provider (in this example, Aviasales) and are satisfied with the partner website’s services.
Technicalities
White Label is set up by partners on their own. The tool cannot be fully used without a basic understanding of HTML and CSS; however, complex technical knowledge is not required. The partner just needs to figure out the basic settings for colors, styles, etc.
White Label solutions can be implemented in several ways:
- As in the case of Aviasales, the White Label works as an independent website. In this case, the partner has limited features to make some changes through the interface of the partner program, but cannot fully change the appearance. To run such a White Label website, partners need to attach a domain (or subdomain) to the partner program server by specifying a CNAME record. More details can be found in the Help Center.
- In addition to classic White Label solutions, there are also mobile solutions. For example, the Aviasales team created a “blank” iOS app and uploaded it to the Apple Store. The partner can set his/her brand and other parameters, which will be used for everyone who downloads the application using the affiliate link. Read more on how it works on this page.
- White Label can work as a widget, loading options on the partner’s page. In this case, the partners can place the WL tool on any page and get the search results in their own design. For example, such a White Label is available in the Kiwitaxi affiliate program:
As a rule, visiting a White Label website doesn’t set the cookie file to the main website of the advertisers (e.g. Aviasales or Kiwitaxi). Cookies are set when users go from the White Label website to a landing page, such as an agency or other website. In this case, as a rule, cookies are set for the same period as if a partner had driven traffic directly to the advertisers’ website. For example, if the cookie lifetime in your affiliate program is 30 days, then it is not relevant for the partner’s White Label website and the cookies are not set. The cookies are set only when the visitor drives traffic away from the White Label website.
White Label is a simple solution for partners who want to develop their own brand. However, the tool has a serious drawback, namely that partners cannot fully customize it. A number of settings (language, currency, etc.) are available, but partners cannot completely redesign the search page or change the text on buttons. For example, Aviasales White Label offers certain customization features:
An alternative solution for partners who want to develop their own brand and are not ready to work with the White Label tool is API. In this case, the partner receives data and can use that data to form a response for his/her audience in any convenient format.
The API is not an alternative to White Label, as it is a more complex and advanced solution that gives partners many more opportunities, but simultaneously requires more knowledge.
White Label features
Not all partners have strong brands that their audience trusts. Therefore, the model to work under a partners’ own brand does not work for everyone. This is especially true if the product or service is expensive, such as a package tour, where the purchase price can exceed $1,500. Customers are often willing to pay only on the websites of trusted international brands.
The experience of Aviasales demonstrates that White Label is an excellent tool that yields amazing results for travel brands. For example, right now, in the Google search results, the sites of partners working on the White Label solution have high positions, where Aviasales is not represented. As a result, this allows the company to reach a larger audience and sell more services.
If necessary, White Label may have restrictions or differences from your main website. For example, unlike your main website search results page, you may exclude some offers on White Label websites or make other changes.
It is not recommended for you to deliberately diminish the value of White Label pages for end users, since they are also your customers in the end, even if they are not using your brand directly. However, if it is necessary to restrict functionality due to external reasons, this is possible. For example, according to their model of cooperation with Booking.com, Hotellook does not display Booking.com offers on its partners’ White Label websites.
White Label is a great tool for partners who will offer your services under their own brand. With this tool, you can build long-term relationships with major partners and create a steady stream of orders.
