Travel affiliate marketing strategy: insights from a pure player media

Interview of Sylvain Morel, COO of Exod

Sylvain Morel is the COO of Exod, published by Génération Voyages. As a media outlet specializing in tourism and travel, Exod currently generates nearly 90% of its revenue from affiliate marketing. He shares his vision of the sector, the use of ai, and performance challenges for partner brands.

What role does Ai play in your content and monetisation strategy?

Ai has become a central lever in our organization. We use it to identify high-value content opportunities by cross-referencing tourism data, seasonality, local events, and travel intent. It also accelerates data collection and enrichment, with an seo impact that goes far beyond classic technical optimizations.

Nos experts touristiques restent au cœur du dispositif : ils affinent, valident et arbitrent chaque contenu publié, en se plaçant systématiquement du point de vue de l’utilisateur qui organise son séjour. Le gain de productivité est réel, il nous permet de consacrer plus de temps à l’analyse et aux décisions qui impactent directement la performance.

Have you adapted your strategy to conversational search engines (llms, sge, Perplexity…)?

Not specifically at this stage. Our conviction is simple: by continuing to focus on delivering genuine value to users, we remain high-performing in seo, cited by media outlets and blogs, and therefore naturally visible across conversational engines. We prefer a sustainable strategy based on quality over tactical adaptation to every new channel.

Which levers or best practices seem most effective today to maximize campaign performance?

The first lever is partner selection. Every player performs well on certain verticals, but not on all of them. Our travel expertise allows us to identify the exact best partner based on the type of offer, down to the entry ticket level for a specific monument when a partner has negotiated an exclusive deal with the site manager.

Smart positioning of the affiliate offer is also decisive, both within our editorial content and inside our activity search engine results. Finally, nothing works without rigorous tracking, continuous observation, and a/b testing to optimize cpms and conversion rates.

How do you balance transparency and performance?

We work with partners who offer broad inventories, from which we select what is objectively most relevant to the user. When we observe high adoption toward an offer that is not yet a partner, we seek to structure a partnership. Performance comes naturally when the recommendation is sincere and well-contextualized.

What mistakes do you still observe from brands?

Thinking that affiliate marketing boils down to “dropping a link.” Without a deep understanding of travelers’ habits and expectations, performance remains limited. Our advice to brands: think about user experience before thinking about acquisition mechanics. Affiliate marketing works when it integrates naturally into a useful customer journey.

What trends do you observe for 2026?

The adoption of conversational agents for trip planning is accelerating. Travelers are placing growing trust in ai for travel recommendations. This is a underlying trend, and we intend to leverage it to deliver increasingly personalized experiences.

What share does affiliate marketing represent in your revenue, and how do you envision diversification?

We are a pure player affiliate media outlet: approximately 90% of our turnover relies on this model. We have initiated strong diversification; historically focused on accommodation, we then expanded into tourist activities, flights, and sports events. Soon, we will expand into ground transportation, live shows, and dining. The potential remains massive, and the goal is clear: avoid relying on a single channel or a single market. This is essential for a resilient travel affiliate marketing strategy.

What are the benefits of collaborating with a platform like Affilae?

We work with several affiliate platforms and directly with certain partners. Affilae has a clear advantage: you are French, like us. Concretely speaking, several of our key partners run their affiliate programs exclusively on your platform, making collaboration essential.

What are your major projects for the next 12 months?

Our top priority is the launch of the Exod mobile app: a personalized recommendation tool designed to reduce mental load for travelers. The application relies on over ten years of travel expertise, millions of activities and points of interest, and thousands of local sources analyzed continuously. Every recommendation is contextualized—season, atmosphere, availability, preferences—to serve the right content at the right time.