Affiliate Policy

Affiliate Policy

This blog is a FREE resource for travelers, & represents many hours of work.  Girl Who Travels the World is a true labor of passion, that combines two of my favorite things in the world: travel & writing.  When I started this blog, I had no idea that you could even make money from a blog!  Let alone, how to do that.  Since late 2016, when this blog was created, the learning curve has been steep: & I’ve slowly learned how to make money ~ often by adding affiliate links, which I’ll talk more about in this “Affiliate Policy.” 

My intention with affiliate links is to keep them entirely relevant to my topic: I link to hotels I’ve actually stayed in, & products I actually use.  Occasionally, I receive complimentary hotel stays in the course of my travels: if that’s the case, I state it right up front.  If I have any issue with or critique of the hotel, however: I always address it!  My primary commitment is to my reader, rather than to a hotel or corporation, & my opinions are 100% my own.  

Cozumel Guide, Affiliate Policy, Girl WHo Travels the World

Cozumel was one of the first places I wrote about, back when I had NO clue how to monetize a blog! Since then, I’ve learned that affiliate programs are one of the primary ways bloggers earn money. 

Many bloggers receive free product in exchange for blog posts and/or social media shares: this is something I’ve entirely stayed away from.  I simply don’t need more random “stuff” in my life!

Companies I Work With

In the name of full transparency, here’s a list of affiliate programs I currently work with: Amazon Affiliate Program (when you see books or goods on my site, these are most typically Amazon links), Discover Cars, Expedia, Google Ad Sense (these are more random, horizontal ads ~ & I’ve minimized them to make the reader experience as uncluttered as possible), Hotels.com, Hotels Combined, Monumetric, Stay22, & Travel Payouts.

**This Site is affiliated with Monumetric (dba for The Blogger Network, LLC) for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site, and Monumetric will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about Monumetric’s data usage, click here: Publisher Advertising Privacy.

Now, what do these links mean to you, as the reader? 

It simply means that if you click through the link & make a purchase, I earn a small commission, that costs you nothing extra.  And here’s the really interesting thing about affiliate marketing: let’s say you click through one of my Amazon links, but don’t end up buying the product I recommend; you buy something else instead.  I still earn a commission!  The same is true for hotels.  So let’s say I recommend you stay at the JW Marriott in Cusco, but you end up booking the Palacio del Inka instead.  No problem ~ you still entered the booking portal through my site, therefore, I still earn a commission.

Is every link on my site an affiliate link? 

Absolutely not.  Hundreds of links on my site link to businesses or organizations I trust, & that I believe offer value to my reader.  For instance, I wrote an article called, “Why Surf Camp is Perfect for Solo Travel,” & there are numerous links to Pura Vida Adventures in the article.  Pura Vida didn’t pay me to write the article (that would be called a “Sponsored Post”), & I make no money from links that refer to their site ~ it was simply an amazing experience I wanted to share. 

What Do Affiliate Links Look Like?

Affiliate links may be text links (like this one, to the JW Marriott), or they may look like the link below, which enables you to look for hotels via a search form: 

Expanded Privacy Policy

Monumetric Advertising Policy for Publishers and Readers

Monumetric LLC has a partnership agreement with this Site which you linked from for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site. This Advertising Privacy Policy explains how Monumetric uses your data and supersedes any other language on the Site (if any) with respect to the data privacy practices of Monumetric. Monumetric uses industry standard tools for the placement and serving of ads, including those provided by Google, Inc. and its affiliates. We publish interest-based advertisements on this Site; that is, ads that are tailored to reflect your interests. To help make the advertising on the Site you linked from more relevant to you, Monumetric, Google and our other Advertising Partners may track your behavior on this site from which you linked and on other websites across the Internet using cookies.

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.  Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

By using the site from which you linked, you consent to the use of such cookies and the sharing of data captured by such cookies with Monumetric, Google, and our site’s other third party partners. You can view, delete or add interest categories associated with your browser by visiting: https://adssettings.google.com. You can also opt out of the network cookie using those settings or using the Network Advertising Initiative’s multi-cookie opt-out mechanism at: http://optout.networkadvertising.org. However, these opt-out mechanisms themselves use cookies, and if you clear the cookies from your browser your opt-out will not be maintained.

This website uses cookies to:
1) Identify you as a returning user and to count your visits in traffic statistics analysis
2) Remember your custom display preferences (such as whether you prefer comments to display all-collapsed or not)
4) Provide other usability features, including tracking whether you’ve already given your consent to cookies
Enabling cookies is not strictly necessary for the website to work but it will provide you with a better browsing experience. The cookie-related information is not used to identify you personally and is not used for any purpose other than those described here.

There may also be other types of cookies created after you’ve visited this website. This site uses Google Analytics, a popular web analytics service that uses cookies to help to analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of other website, compiling reports on website activity, and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google undertakes not to associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.

Third Party Advertising

This site has third-party advertising companies serving ads to you when you visit. These companies may store information about your visits here and to other websites in order to provide you with relevant advertisements about goods and services. For example, if they know what ads you are shown while visiting this site, they can be careful not to show you the same ones repeatedly.

These companies may employ cookies and other identifiers to gather information which measures advertising effectiveness. The information is generally not personally identifiable unless, for example, you provide personally identifiable information to them through an ad or an email message.
They do not associate your interaction with unaffiliated sites with your identity in providing you with interest-based ads.

This site does not provide any personal information to advertisers or to third party sites. Advertisers and other third parties (including the ad networks, ad-serving companies, and other service providers they may use) may assume that users who interact with or click on a personalized ad or content are part of the group that the ad or content is directed towards (for example, readers in the Pacific Northwest who read certain types of articles). Also, some third-party cookies may provide them with information about you (such as the sites where you have been shown ads or demographic information) from offline and online sources that they may use to provide you more relevant and useful advertising.

To learn more about what options you have about limiting the gathering of information by third-party ad networks, you can consult the website of the Network Advertising Initiative.

You can opt out of participating in interest-based advertising networks but opting out does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the companies from which you opted out will no longer customize ads based on your interests and web usage patterns using cookie-based technology.

Sharing Information

This site does not sell, rent, or disclose to outside parties the information collected here, except as follows:

(a) Affiliated Service Providers: This site has agreements with various affiliated service providers to facilitate the functioning of the site. For example, the site may share your credit card information with the credit card service provider to process your purchase. All administrative service providers that this site uses are required to have the same level of privacy protection as this site does, and therefore your information will be handled with the same level of care. Additionally, for example, this site may use analytic or marketing services such as Google Analytics or Google Ad Manager or other Advertising Companies to which collection you hereby unconditionally consent.
(b) Where required by law: This site may share the collected information where required by law, specifically in response to a demand from government authorities where such demand meets the legal requirements.
(c) Statistical Analysis: This site may share Non-Personal Information and aggregated information with third parties, including but not limited to for advertising or marketing purposes. No Personal Information will be shared in this manner.
(d) Transactions: In connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition, or in any other situation where Personal Information may be disclosed or transferred as a business asset.

How To Opt Out Of Interest-Based Advertising

 This website is a member of the Network Advertising Initiative(NAI) and adheres to the NAI Codes of Conduct as described on the NAI website. This website also adheres to the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) Self-Regulatory Principles. For a description of the DAA Program, please visit the DAA website.

Opting Out of Interest-Based Advertising by Third Parties
To find out more about interest-based advertising on the internet and how to opt out of information collection for this purpose by companies that participate in the Network Advertising Initiative or the Digital Advertising Alliance, visit NAI’s opt-out page or DAA’s Consumer Choice Page.

For European Economic Area Residents
If you reside in a country in the European Economic Area (EEA), then under the GDPR and applicable data protection laws you have the rights, among other things, to access your personal data, have us erase it, and/or restrict its further processing.  If you wish to access or delete your personal data (if any) maintained by Monumetric related to advertising on the Site, you can contact us at support@monumetric.com. If you wish to see a list of the advertising partners we work with or change which of those partners track your behavior using cookies, click the ad preferences link at the bottom of the site. (Available in the EU.)

For California Residents
California law gives residents the right to opt out of the “sale” of their personal information to third parties, including for advertising purposes. Under California law, the sharing of your information with a service provider for advertising purposes could be considered a “sale.” To opt out of the sharing of your information for advertising information, click the opt out link provided in the footer of the site from which you linked. If the site from you linked does not have a footer, you can find the opt out link provided on the privacy policy page from which you linked. You also have the right to request from us the categories of personal information that we have shared and the categories of third parties to whom the information was provided. To make such a request, please contact us at support@monumetric.com. To be clear we do not share your name, contact information, or any other sensitive information with third parties, and the categories of third parties that we share information with for advertising purposes are supply side platforms, programmatic advertising exchanges, and demand side platforms.

Partnerships
The site from which you linked partners with technology services through its relationship with Monumetric. Below you can read detailed information about the privacy policies of these technology companies, and choose to 

LiveRamp: When you use the Site, we share information that we may collect from you, such as your email (in hashed form), IP address or information about your browser or operating system, with our partner/service provider, LiveRamp Inc and its group companies (‘LiveRamp’). LiveRamp may use our first party cookie on your browser to match your shared information to their marketing databases in order to provide back a pseudonymous privacy-centric identifier for our use in real time bidding in digital advertising. We may also share hashed and de-identified email addresses, IP addresses, and advertising identifiers with LiveRamp, which uses that information to create a link between your device and its databases. This link may be shared by our partners globally for the purpose of enabling interest-based content or advertising throughout your online experience (e.g. cross device, web, email and in app etc.) by third parties unaffiliated with our website. These third parties may in turn link further demographic or interest-based information to your browser. To opt out of this use, please head here: https://liveramp.com/opt_out/

ID5: We may choose to share information with our partner ID5 for the purposes of ad targeting. You may learn more about how ID5 operates and choose to opt-out of ID5 data collection here: https://id5.io/platform-privacy-policy/

Pubmatic: We may choose to share information with our partner Pubmatic for the purposes of ad targeting.

SOVRN: We share hashed emails with our partner SOVRN for the purposes of targeted advertising. You may opt-out of SOVRN hashed email targeting here:

The Trade Desk: We may choose to share your information with our partner The Trade Desk for the purposes of ad targeting. You may learn more about how The Trade Desk Operates and choose to opt out of The Trade Desk data collection here: https://adsrvr.org/