Most affiliate sites are designed to get users to discover the site, find what they are looking for and then click through onto the target merchant site to complete a purchase. Some sites take this a step further and try to close the loop. I was trying to book a flight on Kayak and clicked through on a JetBlue flight link. I then ended up not completing my transaction and clicked the back button. Kayak presented me with this screen:

Kayak Closing the Loop

My original search was in the background underneath this dialog box. I think this is fantastic. I didn’t complete my transaction - it’s a great opportunity for them to attempt to salvage me as a customer. The options to check for my flight or to be alerted for other flights going to NYC (my destination) make a ton of sense. By doing the extra work to personalize my options, they make me far more likely to engage with one of these secondary calls-to-action.

This is something we don’t do at Judy’s Book today but we are working on adding. Ultimately, our goal is to help the user succeed in what they were trying to do. If they don’t succeed with their initial path, trying to find out why and presenting an alternate path is a far better thing to do than to just say “oh well.”