CARTRAWLER GOES OPEN SOURCE FOR iPHONE APP

I've blogged about CarTrawler before but as they're one of my most successful programs and they have some important news I though I'd share it with you.

CarTrawler, provider of next generation car rental distribution systems to the travel industry worldwide, has released the source code to their car rental app for the iPhone. Travel businesses will be able to customize the app and re-release it as their own product on the App Store.

The CarTrawler car rental app offers the user mobile access to the largest selection of car rental from over 550 leading and independent car rental suppliers in 175 countries, 30,000 city and airport locations and 30 languages, quoting in multiple currencies. Special features include GPS mapping and international call centre support. By releasing the app source code free of charge, partners can integrate a "ready to go" car rental facility from an industry leading supplier within their current consumer offering saving themselves the cost and time required to develop their own app.

"The ability of a business to meet consumer demand through multiple touch points can often be the difference between making and losing a sale. The release of our car rental app source code will enable companies to maximise ancillary revenues by meeting that demand with a fully integrated system from a trusted source. Our mobile platform connects you with the same technology that we supply to some of the biggest airlines, hotel groups and travel service providers in the world. Instead of investing time and money creating your own app, you can now take what we do best, enabling you to concentrate on what you do best."

The Best and the Worst things about Affiliate Marketing

The worst think I've found so far about affiliate marketing is that some merchants completely ignore the needs of the affiliates.

As I think I mentioned on a previous post I'm currently auditing Global Affiliate Programs by going through each page and clicking each link to each program making sure that they still work. I know the links worked when they were first added but now can be a different story.

The first thing you find is that some merchants re-organize their sites so that the page you were sending visitors to is no longer there. So the first thing visitors see is an error message which is far from professional. The worst thing they do is shut the site down altogether or in some cases throw up a hosting company page saying the domain is now for sale.

Would it really have been too much trouble for them to send a quick email to all affiliates letting them know?

My audit has just reached the "Entertainment" section but the worst offenders by far were in the the sale of ebooks. I had to delete almost a third of the listed programs because they were no longer live.

Anyway that's enough gripping from me. Only a small minority of merchants do the things above and when they do I drop them like hot bricks. Decent merchants let you know when they are changing affiliate network or taking it in-house, or stopping promotions or ending the program altogether.

On a much happier note I can say that the best thing about affiliate marketing is when something you thought would be a success starts paying off. As George Peppard use to say in The A Team "I love it when a plan comes together".

Back in June I was contacted by CarTrawler who wanted me to promote their program. The key thing here was that CarTrawler offer an interactve booking agent as their means of attracting business.

You can see it below (if IFrames work here) and you can see how it can be integrated into a page on you site at http://www.cartrawler.com.globalaffiliateprograms.co.uk/ .






I put that page together in late June and linked it up through the pages on my virtual shopfront at http://www.globalaffiliateprograms.co.uk/goshopping.shtml and waited. My first sale notification came in on 10 July. By the end July there had been another 3 and there have been 4 so far in August. I can almost hear you thinking "8 sales, that's not much George", but let's take a step back and think what CarTrawler do. They act as a search mechanism for people who want to hire a car while they are on holiday. The customers books the car whilst in the UK, picks it up at the airport they arrive at for their holiday and drops it back when they are flying home. So the price per sale is high AND SO IS THE COMMISSION !!!!!

CarTrawler work in Euros and the payment threshold is €200l whcih is a high threshold. Commission is shown as 'pending' until the car is picked up ans presumably the customer confirms payment. I will be due my first check at the end of August (7 sales) with one sale for September already in the bag because that is when the customer is picking up his car.

If you all rush to join CarTrawler - remember to mention me.