Priceline's private label unit Priceline Partner Network (PPN) has linked up with the Reader's Digest Association and will help it launch a travel channel on two of its premium sites.
The deal covers www.rd.com and www.tasteofhome.com. The sites attract 4.3 million and 17.2 million monthly unique visitors respectively.
They are branded as "Travel Centers" with a different call to action visible on the home pages at the time of writing. The www.rd.com travel center is accessed by clicking on the "Book a trip and save" tagline while the www.tasteofhome one is reached via "Save up to 25% on hotels."
An RDA spokesperson said that it was adding travel centers to the sites after it "learned through audience surveys that this was a product our readers would respond to and trusted Reader’s Digest to deliver it."
Priceline was chosen, it added, because of its "breadth of offerings, our audience’s familiarity with Priceline.com, the ease of integrating with our current site to provide a smooth customer experience, and our ability to promote their regular discounts and Express Deals."
Reader's Digest also has an international unit which runs magazines and websites in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. "The current deal [with PPN] only applies to Reader’s Digest North America, but we are exploring implementing elsewhere," it said.
Priceline's Partner Network appears to be less important to its parent company than Expedia's Affiliate Network is to its owner. Comparing both businesses' investor relations (IR) pages, PPN is not listed as one of Priceline's brand, while EAN sits proudly alongside Expedia Inc's consumer facing properties.
And while the Expedia Inc's IR page tells us that EAN "works with over 7,500 partners in 33 countries" there are no comparables easily available for PPN.
UPDATE:
A spokesperson for Priceline.com has explained: "The Priceline Partner Network (PPN) is part of the priceline.com. Priceline.com is a brand within the Priceline Group. That is why you will not find PPN on the Priceline Group IR site. priceline.com does not share the number of PPN partners but this is is not a reflection of its importance within priceline.com."