How to install Travelpayouts Emerald

Emerald is an AI-powered tool that simplifies, accelerates, and streamlines the process of monetizing travel content.

Emerald analyzes your audience and content with its smart algorithms. It then automatically adds the best-fit affiliate tools where they are most likely to generate profit, making sure you never miss out on monetization opportunities. 

This guide will show you step-by-step how to install and configure Emerald on your website. If you want to find out more about Emerald and its capabilities, please check out this article.

Prerequisites for using Emerald

To install and start using Emerald:

  1. Create a Travelpayouts account and confirm your email.
    If you have not yet registered on Travelpayouts, please visit the registration page and complete all the necessary steps. For more detailed information, you can refer to the How to Join Travelpayouts article.
  2. Create a Project in your Travelpayouts account that will contain the URL of the website where you’re planning to use Emerald. For clear guidelines follow these instructions.
  3. Sign up for Beta by filling out this form. Please note that to join the Beta test, you should have:
    • Blog in the English Language
    • At Least 15,000 Monthly Active Users (MAU)
    • At Least 50 Pages per Blog
  1. After filling out the form your request will be reviewed by our team to make sure you meet the requirements. 

Once your application is reviewed you will receive an email from Travelpayouts confirming that you are now part of the Beta test. The Emerald tab will be unlocked in your Travelpayouts account and you can proceed to installation. 

How to install Emerald on the website

To install and start using Emerald, follow these steps:

1. Open the Emerald section in your Travelpayouts account.

2. Select the Project where you want to install Emerald from the list of Projects on the left If you don’t yet have a Project, you can follow these instructions in our Help Center to create one.
Note: Overall is a tab representing total Emerald performance results for all Projects.

3. If you are already using LinkSwitcher on the given Project, you can activate Emerald by simply turning the Switched off toggle ON. No need to complete any additional installations.

4. If you are not yet using LinkSwitcher on the given Project, you need to install the script on the website. You can find detailed instructions below or click the How to install? button.

5. There are 3 methods to install the script. 

Installing via WordPress

  1. Open your website’s WordPress admin dashboard.
  2. In the left pane, click Plugins, and then click Add New.
  1. Type "Head & Footer Code" in the search field.
  1. Find the right plugin (same as in the picture below) and click the Install Now button. This plugin will help you apply Emerald to every page of your blog.
  1. Once the installation is completed, click Activate.
  1. Next, click Plugins in the left pane and then click Installed Plugins.
  2. Find "Head & Footer Code" in the list and click Settings.
  1. Return to the Emerald page in your Travelpayouts account and click the Get script button.
  2. Note that the script is unique for each Project. If you are planning to use Emerald in multiple Projects, you need to copy scripts for each of them separately.
  3. Click Show script.
  4. Copy the script code
  5. Return to the Header and Footer Code Settings page and paste the Emerald code in the section called HEAD code:
  1. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save changes.
  2. Include Emerald's Terms of Use in your Privacy Policy by adding a link or describing the terms in your own words.
  3. Return to your Travelpayouts account and make sure to activate the Switched on toggle to complete the installation.

Note! 💡 At this point, Emerald will not start adding any affiliate tools to your website. Please continue following the instructions below.

Installing via Google Tag Manager

  1. Before you can proceed with the installation, ensure that you have a Google Tag Manager account and have created a Tag Manager container in it. Follow the instructions in the official Google documentation to set them up.
  2. Install a created container on the website where you're planning to use Emerald. Use the instructions described here.
  3. Open the created Tag Manager container and add a new tag. For more instructions, check Google documentation.
  4. Select Custom HTML as the tag type.
  5. Return to the Emerald page in your Travelpayouts account and click the Get script button.
  6. Note that the script is unique for each Project. If you are planning to use Emerald in multiple Projects, you need to copy scripts for each of them separately.
  7. Click Show script.
  8. Copy the script code.
  9. Paste the script code in the HTML field.
  1. Select All Pages in the triggers section:
  1. Save changes.
  2. Include Emerald's Terms of Use in your Privacy Policy by adding a link or describing the terms in your own words.
  3. Return to your Travelpayouts account and make sure to activate the Switched on toggle to complete the installation.

Note! 💡 At this point, Emerald will not start adding any affiliate tools to your website. Please continue following the instructions below.

Manual Code Setup

  1. Open the Emerald page in your Travelpayouts account and click the Get script button.
  2. Note that the script is unique for each Project. If you are planning to use Emerald in multiple Projects, you need to copy scripts for each of them separately.
  3. Click Show script.
  4. Copy the script code
  5. Add the code in the tag ‘<head>’ on all your pages. If you have a separate HTML file containing a head tag, just paste the code there.
  6. Include Emerald's Terms of Use in your Privacy Policy by adding a link or describing the terms in your own words.
  7. Return to your Travelpayouts account and make sure to activate the Switched on toggle to complete the installation.

Note! 💡 At this point, Emerald will not start adding any affiliate tools to your website. Please continue following the instructions below.

WP Rocket plugin: How to add Emerald to all JS optimizations

If you are using the WP Rocket plugin, you need to add Emerald to the list of exceptions. We have added detailed instructions below. If you are using any other plugins that cache js-scripts, please contact our support team.

  1. Open the WP Rocket plugin settings.
  2. Navigate to the File Optimization tab.
  3. If in the Javascript Files section, you don’t have any checkboxes active,  you don’t need to do anything, continue to the Next steps after the installation part.
    If you have active checkboxes, please continue with the next point number 4.
  4. Copy the Emerald code from your Travelpayouts account again.
  5. You only need to take the Emerald domain from the code. You can find it here:
  6. Insert the Emerald domain from the code to all Excluded JavaScript Files fields in the Javascript Files section of the WP Rocket plugin:
  7. Click Save changes at the bottom of the page.

Next steps after installation on the website

1. Once you have inserted the code on your website using one of the options above, you need to wait for Emerald to analyze and gather all your blog's data. At this stage, Emerald won't be launched on your website yet.

Note! The process usually takes up to three business days.

2. Once the installation is complete, you will receive an email with the confirmation.

3. The Emerald Performance tab will appear in your Travelpayouts account containing information about the current status of monetization, including websites, and statistics. Statistics will be updated as soon as the affiliate tools placed by Emerald start receiving views, impressions, clicks, and more.

How to check if the Emerald is installed correctly?

You can check whether Emerald is installed and working properly on the given page. To do this:

1. Launch the developer console in your browser. For example, in Google Chrome you should open the Chrome Menu in the upper-right-hand corner of the browser window and select More Tools -> Developer Tools

2. If the script is successfully installed on the page, you will see the following logs in the console:

where:

  • [tp] entrypoint init means that the script was inserted into the page and started executing.

  • [tp] emerald init means that the script executes and collects analytics and inserts links to the partner's page if page monetization is enabled.

  • [tp] emerald monetization enabled means that the page monetization is enabled and Emerald should insert tools.

How to manage Emerald Projects and connections to programs

After installation is complete you will see that the Project containing the website where you have installed Emerald is marked with a special tooltip in the Projects list of your Profile.

You can edit everything in the Project except the website URL.

To check which programs are connected to the Emerald Project, go to Programs -> Connected and select the name of the Emerald Project in the filters section at the top of the page.

If you click on the Manage connections button on the program’s page, you will see the Run by Emerald tip next to all Projects that have been automatically connected by Emerald. You won’t be able to disconnect such Projects from this screen. To disconnect Project you need to switch off Emerald.

FAQ about Installation

Can I exclude specific articles and pages from Emerald?

Yes, you can create a blacklist of pages you want to monetize.

To exclude articles:

  1. Go to the Emerald section in your Travelpayouts account.
  2. Open the tab with a Project where you need to exclude pages.
  3. In the Exclude specific articles from Emerald enter one by one the URLs of pages that you want to exclude and click the + button to add them to the list.
  4. Once all the pages are added, click the Apply button.

If Emerald has already placed any tools on the excluded pages, they will be removed.

Can I check what was added to the page by Emerald?

Yes! To check what tools and where Emerald has added you should:

  1. Install and launch Emerald
  2. Open the article that you want to check in the browser
  3. Add /?emerald-preview=true at the end of the URL

As a result, you will see the article where the tools placed by Emerald will be highlighted in yellow.

If you don’t see any highlighted tools, that means that on this particular page, Emerald didn’t place any tools.

Can I choose what tools Emerald will add to the page?

No, you can’t. Emerald selects best-fit tools automatically.

I have an affiliate disclaimer on my site, will Emerald add links above it?

No, it will not.

Why do I need to add Emerald to the exceptions in WP Rocket or other plugins that cache js-scripts

If you have a WP Rocket plugin or any other js-scripts cache plugins, they block Emerald from applying new settings and we are not able to make or update the config to monetize the pages on your website. Please follow the steps described in the installation guide for the WP Rocket plugin or contact our support team if you are using any other similar plugin.

How do I check if I installed Emerald correctly?

To check whether or not Emerald works, you can contact our support team.

Can I place the same installation code on several websites?

Yes, that's exactly what you need to do. The Emerald code that you copy from your Travelpayouts account is the same for all websites and projects you have.

To add another website to Emerald, launch the Performance tab of Emerald in your Travelpayouts account, click the Add more button, and simply follow the same installation steps as you did for the first website.

How can I switch off Emerald?

You can disable Emerald in your Travelpayouts account.

  1. Go to the Emerald section and open the Project that you want to switch off.
  2. To turn Emerald off, click on the switcher.
  3. The Apply button will become active, click it to save changes.
    Emerald will be switched off on all your websites and all previously placed tools will be instantly removed.

You can turn Emerald back on at any time, just go to Emerald — Settings and activate the switcher.