Guest post by Ioana Moga, travel blogger at The Solo Travel in Style blog
I started using Stay22 in May 2024. At the time my blog had only about 5K sessions per month. Little did I know, my bookings will start pouring and affiliate revenue will become a great source of passive income for my travel blog.
Before Stay22, I was using affiliate links for hotels through different platforms. Even though my blog didn’t have that much traffic, I was expecting to see at least a few hotel bookings as proof of concept. But this was not the case.
There were people who clicked on my accommodation links but unfortunately there were no conversions.
I made $0 in hotel affiliate revenue before switching to Stay22.
This is when I started to search for alternatives. I found Stay22 through a Google search about affiliate platforms for travel bloggers.
I read the reviews I found on the first page of Google and I couldn’t believe the success stories they were reporting. They were talking about and showing proof of how their hotel affiliate income grew exponentially after switching to Stay22.
This sounded incredible. So I submitted my Stay22 application online. I had to test this platform to see if it works for me too.
Affiliate revenue progress after installing Stay22
The installation of the Stay22 script on my blog was super easy. I got it done in under 5 minutes and the Stay22 team confirmed that everything was working properly.
Then I was eagerly waiting to see when I would get my first affiliate booking. I thought it would take a few weeks to see a booking, but it was way faster.
I made my first affiliate booking the day after I installed the script! It was only $1.97, but I was so excited about it. After not seeing any hotel income until then, I had my first booking the day after I switched to Stay22.
This is how my affiliate income through Stay22 has progressed since then:
- June 2024: $191
- December 2024: >$500
- March 2025: >$1,630
If you compare the June 2024 revenue with the March 2025 revenue that’s about a 850% increase in only 9 months.
My blog definitely feels like a real business at the moment, and I couldn’t have done it without using Stay22. Switching to Stay22 was truly a game changer for me.
April 2025 looks like it might be my highest month yet. I’m so excited to see the numbers one year from today!
Here are some other pieces of data to give you a sense of how Stay22 works for me:
- Clicks to bookings rate: 7.2%
- Average bookings per day: ~6
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Average commission per booking: ~$10
Out of all the features that Stay22 offers for bloggers I mostly use the Let Me Allez script and it has been working very well, as you can see from my results.
Tips for increasing affiliate revenue
Now that I have shown you my results with Stay22 I also want to share some helpful tips on how to increase affiliate revenue for your blog. Here are my top 3 tips:
1. Write more posts for people who are ready to book
As a travel blogger you could write about literally anything related to travel. But not every topic will convert well when it comes to hotel affiliate marketing.
Let’s look at an example. If you write an article on “Top 5 summer destinations in Asia”, the people reading this blog post are not yet ready to book a hotel since they don’t even know what their destination is. They are just looking for information about where to go for their next vacation.
Now if you write an article about “The best Bali hotels with views of the ocean” people reading this blog post are ready to book. Since they are looking for a particular type of hotel in a particular destination it usually means that they want to book that hotel.
So these types of articles are better for increasing your affiliate earnings. My top converting article falls into this category too.
Do you have to write only these types of articles to be successful at affiliate marketing? Absolutely not. I definitely don’t. To be fair, your blog would probably be pretty boring if all your articles were about hotels.
But make sure to also include these types of “affiliate posts” when you plan your blog’s content strategy.
2. Do keyword research so you actually rank for these types of posts mentioned in #1
Writing these posts for people who are ready to book is great. But they actually have to be shown to people, which usually means that you need to rank on Google’s first page (if you use Pinterest or other type of traffic this also applies).
Because if nobody reads your affiliate articles, you won’t get bookings.
So the most important thing here is to become an expert at keyword research and pick some hotel related keywords that your blog has the chance to rank for.
This means that if you have a newer blog that doesn’t have that much traffic yet it’s highly unlikely that you’ll rank for very competitive keywords. These highly competitive keywords usually tend to be broad, such as “Bali hotels” or “Where to stay in Bali”.
So niche down. Find some keywords with less competition. Maybe “Bali hotels with free wifi” or “Bali hotels for long-term stays”. I’m totally making up these examples, but hopefully they help you see what I mean.
3. Place your affiliate links strategically in your blog posts
Where you place your affiliate links also matters. People have a very short attention span these days, so you have to make it clear to them that you have a link in your blog post.
You can test different placements and see what works best for your audience. Maybe they like seeing a link box at the beginning of an article.
Maybe it’s worth having another one midway through after you convinced them that you know what you’re talking about.
If you include an affiliate link in a paragraph, make sure that visually it’s easy to tell that’s an affiliate link.
Maybe use a CTA at the end of the paragraph to determine the readers to book.
I don’t think there is a perfect strategy here, but it’s a variable you can play with to see what works best.
And don’t forget to track the data! Data is your best friend when doubling down on an affiliate marketing strategy.
Key takeaways after using Stay22 for almost a year
My main takeaway is that Stay22 works incredibly well – you can read my full review on my blog. So if you’re not using it for your blog, you’re missing out on affiliate income.
They have a great customer support team. Real humans that help you with everything you need.
Incentives are aligned. Which means that they only make money when we make money as bloggers. So it’s in their interest to see us succeed.
Data is tracked in real time. I love that I can check my data whenever I want. I don’t have to wait 24 hours or more to see the numbers.
Payments are prompt. I never had any issues or delays with it.
Stay22 is truly a great partner. Make sure you join them if you’re not already.
