Our ‘Profile: A Day in the Life of’ feature takes a look at some of the global professionals working across performance marketing. It aims to shed light on the varying roles and companies across the flourishing industry. 

Name:

Michael Long 

Job title and company:

Senior Partner Marketing Manager at Hotels.com

In one sentence, how would you describe what the company does?

We sell accommodation at hotels, online.

What are the company’s unique selling points?

We have a generous loyalty programme called Welcome Rewards, whereby when you stay 10 nights with Hotels.com you get the eleventh one free. We also offer customers a best price guarantee and our mobile apps are market leading – all this alongside a choice of over 260,000 properties worldwide.

Within the last six months/year, what stands out as the company’s major milestones?

Many to choose from but highlights include reaching more than 25 million app downloads, welcoming more than 10 million members to our Welcome Rewards loyalty programme, gaining our 10 millionth hotel customer review and expanding our hotel offer over 260,000 worldwide

Duration in current role:

2.5 years

Where are you based?

London, England

Previous performance marketing-related Co’s you have worked at:

I have been within the Expedia Inc. group for 8.5 years so my experience has been mainly based across the Expedia and Hotels.com brands (as well as the affiliates). Prior to my Expedia days I worked at another online travel agent (Opodo) in its hotel supply team.

What are your main job responsibilities?

Managing the affiliate networks and key affiliate partner relationships we have. This involves setting a strategy for the year as to what we want to achieve from the affiliate channel and ensuring it aligns with the overall business goals. Of course I work very closely with our merchandising and supply teams to ensure we have the right deals and products to promote on our partner sites.

Take us through what you get up to on a typical working Monday:

First thing would be to check on the overall sales from the week before. Following that I would typically have catch up calls with the various account managers from our affiliate networks.

My role means that I look after the EMEA region so it’s important for me to talk with the team who are based in the market itself and regularly plan out our activity for the coming week (and rest of the quarter) to maximise our results.

Hotels.com has a strong presence throughout Europe so it is also important for me to ensure we promote the affiliate programme and brand by being present in the market place. Therefore on some Mondays I may travel to some of our markets like France, Sweden or Norway, to hold affiliate days whereby I will meet with many of our distribution partners. I thoroughly enjoy this part of my job and it allows us to really plan out some of the most successful activities.

A large piece of my role will also involve working with our supply and marketing teams. This means having catch ups to plan out what our merchandising calendar should look like and ensuring that we have the right deals in given destinations. Off the back of this I can then map out our planned exposure via our affiliates. So overall my day would consist of calls, meetings and planning! 

What top three websites can you be found browsing during your lunch hour?

BuzzFeed, Twitter and The Guardian.

What are your top three tips for someone looking to get their hands on a job like yours?

  • Be passionate about the brand you are representing
  • Understand the benefits of the affiliate channel and how it fits into the overall strategy of the brand and other distribution channels
  • Grab any opportunity you have to develop your account management skills

Career-wise, where do you see yourself in three years time?

Still working in the online travel world and preferably within the affiliate business. Expedia Inc. has many other brands alongside Hotels.com so it would be interesting to perhaps work on the affiliate programme for a brand like Hotwire. It’s a last minute opaque hotel booking site which would allow slightly different activity to that which we do with Hotels.com. As the mobile age further develops it will be interesting to see how the market for sites like Hotwire grow, making it a really interesting place to be. Plus it’s based in San Francisco which is always a nice place to visit!

Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?

I took part in a naked run around London Zoo last summer to raise money for Sumatran Tigers. The reason I ran naked…a group of tigers is called a streak. Every day is a school day eh?!

 

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