I'm working for iDrive4x4 and we are setting up our affiliate program.
💭 Our dream: Big and small travel bloggers from Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Oman and Georgia promote travel by 4x4 with rooftent, sending their readers to idrive4x4.com and earning commission once they book.
I'm being overwhelmed by the amount of Affiliate Marketing Software Platforms that present themselves online. Some are really expensive, others more affordable.
We need to choose one, but we are not ready to invest 1000s of euros into this. I think there is maximum of 100 euros a month and 500 euros for installation. Which affordable platform can we use that travel bloggers are also comfortable with?
Examples of platforms I found are:
AffiliateWP: affiliatewp.com/
FirstPromoter: firstpromoter.com/
Tradedoubler: grow.tradedoubler.com/
Leaddyno: www.leaddyno.com/pricing
Awin: www.awin.com/
And many many more...
👉 Would love to hear from travel bloggers what they recom...
+ 362 others joined this month
Comments
Des here - team builder at Walk4Africa (W4A).
Our collective vision is to grow Africa's share of the outdoor (adventure) tourism market in support of the #AfricaAgenda2063 goals.
I am developing an outdoor event marketplace to boost sustainable tourism in Africa.
👉 You're invited to join the team as a co-founder in your (African) country.
We have co-founders in Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia. Algeria, Libya, and Mauritania are pending confirmation. Co-founders for the remaining 46 African states are actively being sought.
To help you decide (respond to this post), here's a brief Q&A:
Why is W4A re-launching as a marketplace?
Let's look at some stats (from futuremarketinsights.com):
🌍 The global outdoor (adventure) tourism market earned $282 billion in 2021.
🐘 Market statistics for the Africa continent as a whole is estimated at $112.2 million
😱 For Africa, this figure represent a market share of under 0.04%!
Why is Africa performing poorly?
There are several reasons for Africa's dismal performance in this lucrative market. Here are a few (please comment if you disagree or think of others to add):
• A Pan-African database of outdoor sport and adventure activities does not exist.
• There are not as many outdoor recreation events in Africa compared to other continents (we don't know that for sure seeing as a central database doesn't exist but the revenue stats tell the story).
• Event organisers market in isolation (fear of competition?).
• Global event marketplaces have few Africa-based events listed and the few that are listed get lost in the clutter (Eventbrite is a prime example).
• Inbound tourists are concerned about safety & security in many African countries (outdoor events have high safety & security measures in place, so that's a reputation problem that W4A aims to correct).
• Lack of experienced outdoor event organisers (& training/certification providers?).
• Mass-participation outdoor events require high pre-launch funding (W4A has a way to solve that).
• Event logistics can be complicated (ditto, software is being developed to simplify the process).
What about market demand? Is it sustainable?
According to the aforementioned stats cited, the global outdoor (adventure) tourism market has a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% and is expected to grow to over $1T by 2030. For Africa, the CAGR is estimated at 8.3% from 2022 to 2032. The cited source states; "The current trend of adventurous travellers visiting uncharted territories coupled to a rise in disposable incomes, and affordable travel packages, are anticipated to support market expansion".
So, besides the Pan-African marketplace app, what is W4A actually going to do?
A bespoke outdoor event planning software programme is being developed to tie-in with the marketplace app. This software will be exclusively used by W4A country subsidiaries to plan, fund, launch, manage, and analyse their own events simply, effectively, and profitably.
What is expected of W4A country co-founders?
At this early (start-up) stage, co-founders are providing local outdoor event market research (by providing answers to questions posed by the dev team via the WhatsApp group chat forum).They're also providing input on the shared business plan strategy. They are certainly not making any financial commitment.
OK, so how do I get involved?
Simply pop an email to info@walk4africa.org with W4A-TravelMassive and your Country in the subject field, along with your contact details in the email body.
Hey Des, that sure is an interesting statistic about the outdoor event market in Africa. Perhaps it's also under-counted, as $112M sounds very low? e.g. $2M per African country!
What are some examples of outdoor events? Are you talking about things like music festivals, outdoor cinemas, surfing competitions, etc?
Sound like an exciting space to innovate in, good luck!
I am from Kenya, Please tell me more, a founder of kaaribu.com, Karibu means welcome in Kiswahili. We are curating local experiences that are usually not in mainstream travel marketplaces
Hey, Ian. Yeah, stats are low but they're likely pegged against 4 or 5 countries rather than all 54. Initially we're launching with walkathons, marathons, cyclothons, and bi/tri-athlons. Other hard/soft adventure/sport activities will be added later along with festivals etc.
Hi Peter. Please pop me an email or WhatsApp.
Hi Peter. Please let me have your email so I can send details. Or pop one to me (see end of my post).
Sounds Interesting. I am founder of Dodogrouptz.com based in Tanzania East Africa MBA holder kindly email me info@dodogrouptz.com WhatsApp +255754537513
Hi Collins. I've sent an email. Look forward to receiving your reply.
Hi Des.
I havent received yet. can you re-send to info@dodogrouptz.com
Sent on 06 April at 10:50pm. Have you checked your junk folder?
Hey Des, Been a while. Happy to discuss supporting you in East Africa. I am now based in Kenya and have already send you a mail with contacts.
Thanks, Barry. Received your email and replied.
So chuffed to be part of the super responsive #TravelMassive community! Just 7 days after publishing this post we now have co-founders in these 14 countries:
Algeria - pending
Botswana
Cameroon
Cote d'Ivoire
Ethiopia - pending
Kenya
Libya - pending
Mauritania - pending
Morocco - pending
Nigeria
Senegal - pending
South Africa
Tanzania
Tunisia.
Just 40 to go!
Hello I am Hannah Bamwerinde from Uganda founder Adventures With Locals I am interested in this I have sent an email my WhatsApp number is 256778659147
Just created an easy to read Pitch Deck for W4A co-founder recruitment. Respond via the email at the end of this post to receive the link.
Great idea Des.
How long until you get an MVP operating you think?
I'd love to see if we can promote them to our digital nomad members.
Having a backpacked the length of Africa I know the local events can simply stunning. Some of my pictures feature in the Curé Salleé festival tours for instance on tinarawene.com
I can connect you with a partner in Niger too.
Hi Mark
The MVP will be launched in June. Intro in Niger would be great, thanks.
Ask him/her to pop me an email - details at the end of my post.
Stunning photography on that website!
Update on this post: As of September 20, 2013 we have African country co-founders in these 15 countries:
Algeria - pending
Botswana - 3
Cameroon - 1
Cote D'Ivoire - 1
Ethiopia - 1
Kenya - 1
Libya - pending
Mauritania - pending
Morocco - pending
Nigeria - 2
Senegal - pending
South Africa - 6
Tanzania - 1
Tunisia - 1
Uganda - 1
Zimbabwe - 1
Hi Des, how did you get on with this project and call-out? And updates or news to share on this project?
Hi Ian. Thanks for the reminder. I managed to recruit country co-founders for W4A but none have technical expertise to help develop the E4A (Events In Africa market place), which is an essential component of W4A's relaunch plan. I registered the eventsin.africa domain about a year ago, started building the WordPress website, created and populated content for 54 African country pages, and then got stuck. I've no idea how to develop a relational database (for outdoor activity organisers to list, and for users to find listings, on the front end). I tried posting the job requirement on Freelancer.com and received 200+ responses from coding developers with prices ranging from $1,5k to $3k plus. Sadly, I've had place this project on hold until I can raise funds. I'll get this project launched eventually as I still believe that it's viable and will make a positive impact on adventure tourism stats into Africa.
Hi Desmond, there's quite a few WordPress plugins for listing/managing events, did you try going down that path?
Hi Ian. Yes, I tried several including "Pro" versions like "Events Calendar Bundle" plugin, which comes with Calendar Pro, Tickets Plus, Promoter, Filter Bar, Aggregator, Virtual Events, Eventbrite Tickets, and Automator. It has no listing/database feature and at $699/year is rather expensive. I then tried Formidable Forms Pro, which is supposed to enable Relational Database creation but found it way too complicated to use. Also checked out Caspio and WP Data Tables - same complicated issues. Guess I'm too old to bother wading through reams of tutorials. Ideally, I'd like to find a co-founder with SQL skills to handle the database side, but that's been an impossible task despite spending months on YC.
Any other suggestions?