Guest Blog: How Stay22 Boosted My Blog Revenue By 300%

Guest Blog by Megan Indoe of BoboandChichi.com 

We've been blogging for over a decade, and in that time, we’ve learned countless valuable lessons, tools, and strategies that have transformed our blog into a successful business.

Blogging successfully isn’t something I learned in school; sure, I took a course here and there early on, which always gave a few great takeaways. But it's through trial and error, frustrating moments, and constant algorithm and technical updates that you have to weather and adapt as you go. There are a lot of moving parts, maintenance, and upkeep—including affiliates.

Affiliate Marketing: A Source of Frustration

Let’s just say I have trust issues with affiliate programs. This is something I shared with Stay22 when I was initially approached before deciding to onboard www.boboandchichi.com. Managing affiliates is like herding multiple colonies of stray cats at once.

I can’t tell you how many times we implemented affiliate links into our site, only for the program to be discontinued without any notification. The affiliate partner switched platforms, changed their link structure, or made other changes that made small, independent publishers like us scramble to correct or change things with little consideration from these affiliate partners.

A Tedious and Manual Process

It’s hard doing everything on your own. Some bloggers hire affiliate managers, and for some time I was on the fence about hiring one. Then Stay22 came along, and I want to share why this was a game-changer for our website and my workflow.

The best part? Our affiliate revenue increased by 300% when I used Stay22, comparing 2022 to 2023.

My Affiliate Marketing Workflow Before Stay22

As someone without a team of people helping me maintain our websites, here’s what my affiliate workflow looked like when writing and publishing individual blog posts:

1. Identify where potential affiliates could be implemented while updating or producing new content.
2. Find individual hotels that I would personally recommend.
3. Go to each affiliate program and manually create the deep link. This process often involved multiple steps—sometimes even requiring a few minutes to find a single link.
4. Insert each text link throughout the post.
5. Manually change the coding of each link to “nofollow.”

Now repeat these steps for each affiliate link you’re implementing. Individually, this can take a minute or two, but it quickly becomes cumbersome and time-consuming. This is why I only implemented hotel and tour affiliate links with occasional related products.

Ongoing Maintenance and Unforeseen Challenges

Even after all this effort, the work wasn’t over. Anytime an affiliate partner changed their link structure, I had tons of broken links that needed fixing. This is a nightmare for SEO and requires immediate attention—without a team, the workload becomes overwhelming.

For instance, a popular vacation rental company once discontinued its affiliate program, leaving me with hundreds of broken links to fix. This kind of event still stings.

I Almost Hired an Affiliate Manager—Then Came Stay22

I was seriously considering hiring an affiliate manager until Stay22 offered a service that sounded almost too good to be true.

The Let Me Allez (LMA) script was a game-changer. When I realized I didn’t need to change anything on my site except insert a piece of code that would override all my existing affiliate links, I was intrigued. I could also remove the code at any time, and my original links would remain unaffected.

LMA also let me earn commissions on hotels that I hadn’t even featured on my site before, increasing my earnings immediately.

Affiliate Marketing After Stay22

Stay22’s script truly felt like a dream solution. And unlike most things that sound too good to be true, it worked.

Reduced Maintenance and Increased Earnings

Since implementing Stay22, the maintenance of my affiliate links has drastically decreased. I have far fewer broken links than I did before.

I still create individual affiliate links for hotel properties, but Stay22’s script automatically overrides them, making my workflow seamless. With Stay22’s new Spark feature, I’m even considering changing how I currently manage affiliate links.

Consolidated Reporting and Earnings

I no longer need to log into multiple affiliate platforms to check reports and earnings—it’s all in one dashboard. Additionally, I’m earning commissions on products I never previously featured, such as rental cars and flights, which has brought in consistent daily bookings.

Geo-Targeted Booking Suggestions

One feature I love about Stay22 is its AI-powered ability to direct readers to booking pages tailored to their region. I primarily cater to a US-based audience, but now readers from other regions are presented with appropriate options, increasing the likelihood of bookings.

Why Stay22 Was a Game-Changer for Me

Stay22 has transformed how I manage my affiliate marketing. Here’s what I love the most about it:

• The LMA script overrides existing affiliate links, meaning I don’t have to change thousands of links manually.
• It fixes 404 error pages and broken links, improving my site’s SEO.
• The hands-free integration has made managing affiliate marketing easier than ever.
• All affiliate data and payments are consolidated in one place, reducing admin work.
• My bookings and revenue increased immediately after implementing Stay22.
• I can exclude certain affiliate programs I don’t want Stay22 to override.
• There are no risks—if I decide I don’t like it, I can remove the script anytime, and everything goes back to how it was.
• The support team is incredibly responsive; any time I had a question, I received an answer within hours.

Final Thoughts

Stay22 has been a true game-changer for bloggers like me. Affiliates were always a pain point, but now it's easier than ever to earn commissions from content while managing the business with peace of mind.

I can now focus my energy elsewhere, knowing that I don’t have to worry about broken links or choosing the "right" affiliates. Stay22’s technology handles it all, while allowing me to earn more from all the content I work so hard to produce.