I wonder what peoples thoughts are as comments are closed?

Seems a bit of a strange thing to me.

Paid for product placement is how I see it.

What’s the issue?

Seems a good idea to me. As it happens, I was thinking of suggesting something similar to a (web) client of mine.

I’ll be interested to know more about it

Rachel

I’d expect they’re doing it more for STW the company than for us…. it of money coming in to keep things going..

It’s harmless, we only need to click on it if we want to 😀

That’s honestly what it is.
For us it’s a new revenue stream to replace the decline in display advertising revenues. As such the story is categorised as ‘Sponsored’ – hence the green colour of the story on the front page. Comments default to off on sponsored stories. I can turn them on if you like or we can talk about it here. There’s no conspiracy 🙂

Totally thought this was related to the dreaded “friend zone”

Good way to expand the scope of the Singletrack business. It’s the sort of place I might look to get a pre-filtered list of good quality kit if I was looking to purchase. Hopefully it won’t be restricted to the eyewateringly expensive end of the market like much, (not all) of the stuff reviewed in the mag and FGF.

Might make the defence of unbiased product testing a little more difficult to defend, but on balance I reckon a good thing.

I think my girlfriend may have put me in the partner zone

Does Singletrack get any cash is I buy something through these links?

What I imagined the Partner Zone to be like….

We don’t get commission on anything you buy in there. The vetted brands are paying a ‘rent’ to be there. Editorial remains, as it always has, completely removed from any advertising influence. There’s no greater risk of influence here than with any other form of advertising that we sell.

C’mon all, there’s an open goal here:

No Planet X in the partner zone? 🙂

So, Partners With Benefits ?

It’s got a different scrollbar though.

We don’t get commission on anything you buy in there. The vetted brands are paying a ‘rent’ to be there. Editorial remains, as it always has, completely removed from any advertising influence. There’s no greater risk of influence here than with any other form of advertising that we sell.

Thanks for the clarification.

Just to be clear, I wouldn’t mind if you did get a commission. In fact I’d be more likely to purchase something through those pages if you did. But I can see that the rent model makes more sense. It means you can’t really be accused of puffing up a product to increase sales and therefore commission. It also means that I can browse things on there and still buy from some other site without feeling guilty. So we all win 🙂

Anyone else find it difficult to actually get to the buy part?

You click on a brand and their page has loads of links to the products or product groups, all of which take you away from STW. To actually find the product you have to click the tiny link on the bottom of the may links on the left menu bar.

How much discount can i expect from singletrack partners as a recurring subscriber? i.e. where’s the incentive for us to buy via the links?*

*especially as a discount might just tip me over the edge on something I’m thinking of purchasing atm

I’t far more relevant than Bently or Tudor watches – neither of which I would buy/can afford/desire. Alpkit/Pivot/USE etc yes I would, in fact I’m off there right now.

Hope it works out!

But I can see that the rent model makes more sense. It means you can’t really be accused of puffing up a product to increase sales and therefore commission.

of course they can, ‘rent’ is the same as ‘advertising’. Glowing reviews = more likely to get rent in the ‘premier zone’.

Editorial remains, as it always has, completely removed from any advertising influence.

We’ll just have to trust on that one, as any non-independent income has the potential to cause influence.

premier zone

Could you have chosen a more naff name if you’d tried??!

Anyone else find it difficult to actually get to the buy part?

I got lost half way through what was trying to be described. Seemed complicated. New log-ons etc…???

any non-independent income has the potential to cause influence

This is true of any magazine that accepts advertising isn;t it?

Can’t see that publishing adverts on a web site is any different?

This is true of any magazine that accepts advertising isn;t it?

yeah of course, hence the trust comment.

Be interesting to see how it pans out. Advertising seems (to me) short term one-off commitment. What is being touted here seems more of a long-term commitment/partnership. Bit harder to see independence there, but we’ll see.

Advertising seems (to me) short term one-off commitment.

If you look at who advertises in stw it’s the same companies month in month out, I’m sure they make a long term commitment to get certain places (back cover etc) in the mag.

Surely a lot of advertising needs to be a long term relationship to ensure regular revenue, otherwise you’d burn through opportunities pretty quick?

Surely a lot of advertising needs to be a long term relationship to

some, to an extent yes…. Though consider two words:-

Advertiser

Partner

Which one gives more impression of ‘commitment’ and ‘relationship’?

I’m not knocking the concept btw, I appreciate the mag/website has to generate income for existence (hence the P for many years!). Just questioning the independence of this.

Be interesting to see how it pans out. Advertising seems (to me) short term one-off commitment. What is being touted here seems more of a long-term commitment/partnership. Bit harder to see independence there, but we’ll see.

Everything we do in terms of getting advertisers to support us is aimed at the long term. The bike industry is far too small for transitory advertising deals.

We’ve stayed away from commission deals with this new area specifically as it removes the potential for perceived bias. By having ‘partners’ who pay for a microsite within our site in the partner zone it means that it works in exactly the same way as any commercial advertising deal for traditional display or print advertising. The dangers of perceived bias are no more or less. So if you trusted us before this then I don;t see how this new partner zone should lead you to trust us any less.

Plus, by developing new ‘native’ revenue streams like this we can move towards our goal of reducing the instances of display ads around the page that can be rather annoying. We’ve already taken the opportunity to lose one of the ad positions that sits at the bottom of this page.

Subject to sustainable revenues coming from this new project I’ll be earmarking more existing display ad positions for the chop.

Oh and Rocketdog, there’s a subscriber exclusive deal coming tomorrow from Tile. We have a big box of them here in the office we will be giving away.

There’s more special deals being lined up from the other partners too.

The only way it all works is if there’s value in for you the potential customer.

if you trusted us before this then I don’t see how this new partner zone should lead you to trust us any less.

It’s a matter of perception I think. By having those embedded micro sites and using the term partner, it feels like you’re endorsing the products, and new users to the site that have not seen your open and honest explanations here would probably have a higher perception of that.