Building affiliate products for scale

From high-cost high-labor affiliate products, to self-serve and standardised

From high-cost high-labor affiliate products, to self-serve and standardised

TLDR

Booking's affiliate program empowers over 30,000 strategic partners to earn commission by promoting our products. While our suite of traffic-generating tools is valuable, many remain inaccessible to lower-tier partners due to manual creation and resource constraints.

TEAM

Solo designer with a product manager and 3 software developers

ROLE

Led the design and research phase, helped with the product restructure, contributed to the product roadmap, delivered in scope and prepared handoff

TIMELINE

1 year

APPROACH

Define

Scope definition

Defining goals

Identifying needed methods

Assess

Feature parity audit

Stakeholder identification

Touchpoint mapping

Design

Explorations

Cross-functional alignment

Prototyping

Delivery

Evaluate

User testing

Experimentation

Analysis and insight extraction

Next step definition

CONTEXT

Understanding the basics

Understanding the basics

Let's map out the structure of the affiliate products today and how they're understood.

There are two types of affiliate products and tools:

Let's map out the structure of the affiliate products today and how they're understood.

There are two types of affiliate products and tools:

Pre-landing products

Embedded search box widgets, map widgets, banners, etc are the touchpoint that bring the users to the Booking site and environment. Some of them are interactive and can be customized, while others remain static.

Landing products

Co-brands, hybrids, etc are Booking landing pages attached to the partner's ID to help them track their commission and affiliate bookings.

CHALLENGE

CHALLENGE

Standardizing years of resourceful customisations

Standardizing years of resourceful customisations

My scope for this project was the restructure of landing products. That being said, I first had to standardise years of individual partner customisations and products.

My scope for this project was the restructure of landing products. That being said, I first had to standardise years of individual partner customisations and products.

Outcome

A new self-serve experience

strengthens partner relationships by giving them greater control and visibility within the Booking affiliate program

Empower partners to manage their products

A new self-serve experience

strengthens partner relationships by giving them greater control and visibility within the Booking affiliate program

Empower partners to manage their products

Overall higher ROI

Considerable decrease in time to launch and in costs -knowing that today, account managers and web designers manually build each customized Booking page.

OBSTACLE

To most partners in lower tiers and no account managers, many of these products are unheard of and may seem complex to introduce.

RESEARCH

RESEARCH

Choosing the right research approach

Choosing the right research approach

I led many sessions with different account managers and web designers to understand how these products are built today from partner requests to launch.

I led many sessions with different account managers and web designers to understand how these products are built today from partner requests to launch.

RESEARCH

RESEARCH

The research effect

The research effect

I accessed the tools they use and played around to understand the level of complexity that comes with the creation of these landing products.

I accessed the tools they use and played around to understand the level of complexity that comes with the creation of these landing products.

1

One of the outcomes

We realized partners view and understand these landing products differently than we do, starting with taxonomy

2

Action taken

This discovery had me push back the timeline and roadmap of the project, as I felt the need to dig more and better listen to our partners in order to bridge the gap between their knowledge and expectations and our internal product structure.​

3

Understanding the industry standard

I also thoroughly reviewed competitors and identified patterns across their affiliate platforms that helped me realize Booking's misalignment with industry standards, immediately making it harder for partners to understand and integrate our products should they stay as is.

RESTRUCTURE

RESTRUCTURE

From two products to one

From two products to one

The outcome of the research directed us towards combining two products into one. For a long time, we have treated these different landing products as separate entities, while they serve the same purpose, and have the same definition. 

The outcome of the research directed us towards combining two products into one. For a long time, we have treated these different landing products as separate entities, while they serve the same purpose, and have the same definition. 

DISCOVERY

They just offer different levels of configuration. Understanding that minor difference helped me make the simplification and standardization process tremendously easier. I only had to explain one new product to the user for example, reducing that cognitive overload risk.

Defining a strategy and vision

Defining a strategy and vision

With a new structure in place and after collaborating with the impacted product stakeholders, I was able to define the ideal long term experience. However, this experience was very far from today's reality and technical capabilities and implementations. It did help us put together an iteration by iteration plan that will ultimately help us achieve this vision.

With a new structure in place and after collaborating with the impacted product stakeholders, I was able to define the ideal long term experience. However, this experience was very far from today's reality and technical capabilities and implementations. It did help us put together an iteration by iteration plan that will ultimately help us achieve this vision.

DESIGN BASICS

DESIGN BASICS

Mapping and unifying

Mapping and unifying

Though we decided to start with the simplest customisation forms for the MVP, I worked closely with our great team of web designers who are responsible for implementing partners' requests for years. 

Though we decided to start with the simplest customisation forms for the MVP, I worked closely with our great team of web designers who are responsible for implementing partners' requests for years. 

With a biweekly call in place and having agreed on working ways, they owned the mapping aspect and shared with us any outcome they had during that catch-up.

This organised collaboration and divided ownership streamlined the results we expected. It was now easier than ever to visualise and identify patterns and configuration points to be used in the self-serve flow later on.

DESIGNS

DESIGNS

Designing an initial version

Designing an initial version

Now that we had our priorities straight, I could finally get to designing the first version. It would include minimal amount of customization and easily introduce the concept of custom affiliate sites to our partners

Now that we had our priorities straight, I could finally get to designing the first version. It would include minimal amount of customization and easily introduce the concept of custom affiliate sites to our partners

A design system at my disposal

I would also use and re-use, at maximal capacity, existing library components. That not only ensure consistency in design language across all Booking products, but it also helps development and makes the production process a lot faster.

TECHNICAL OBSTACLES

TECHNICAL OBSTACLES

Trade offs and UX patterns

Trade offs and UX patterns

After delivering the first batch of design proposals, visuals helped evolve technical investigations. As mentioned before, it's a brand new product and so many technical issues were discovered.

After delivering the first batch of design proposals, visuals helped evolve technical investigations. As mentioned before, it's a brand new product and so many technical issues were discovered.

TECH SAID NO

One of those big issues was discovering the inability to in fact display a live preview while configuring. That meant the UX had to be adapted, lots of white space would be created, and most importantly: the partner will have no idea what the product they're configuring is or looks like, especially knowing it's a brand new tool.

PATTERN CREATION

In many instances, UX had to be adapted. These adaptations turned into product patterns that could be re-used by other designers in the future when facing similar technical restrictions. 

TODAY

TODAY

Here we are

Here we are

Impact

While it took us a year to reach the final vision and first iteration, we were able to build a simple and relevant user experience that is scalable and saves the business both resources and time. 

 

We greatly improved our main partner equity metric by giving them access to new products that will help them generate better commission revenue. By giving them that access, we also gained their loyalty by giving them better control and visibility over the products they showcase to their user base.

Next steps

I had to handover this year worth of work to my teammate as I started supporting a different product teams. It was a successful challenge to onboard her and bring her up-to-date on this complex project that still has a long way to go. 

 

Today, she is working on the next iteration and we catch up weekly to discuss the latest updates and check up with me on the paths the project is taking. 

In retrospective

This project taught me the tough behind the scenes of technically complex products. And finding the right balance between pushing back for the sake of good UX and adapting to technical restrictions is essential.

Have a product voice, not just UX

I was initially asked to just make the product self-serve as is. Its restructure was the fruit of the research I had led, and which pushed me to fight the roadmap and the product as a whole.

Introducing complex ideas to the users

With high collaboration with our UX writer, we deep dove into making sure the partner building their co-branded landing page understands the purpose and the ho-to.