Your audience of loyal subscribers is more valuable than ever in this rapidly changing digital landscape.

A direct integration means Flodesk users can say goodbye to uploading Grow subscribers manually and using Zapier as a temporary solution.

We all know designing aesthetic emails with Flodesk’s user-friendly interface is one of the top reasons publishers use the ESP, and there’s a new feature in town you should be excited about: the ability to add Email Connect links directly from Flodesk!

Through collaboration between Flodesk and Mediavine engineers on a Grow integration for Email Connect, you can seamlessly switch out your newsletter links for Email Connect Links within Flodesk. You no longer need to shuffle between programs or use the Links Toolkit to create Email Connect links. This makes it simpler to identify subscribers and maximize the value of your newsletter traffic while growing your subscriber list and achieving your business goals.

Now, when you utilize Grow’s Form Actions for features like Spotlight Subscribe and Print Pass to increase your subscriber list, your new subscribers are added directly to your established segments in your Flodesk account.

When you use Grow and Flodesk together, you’re not only building a list of subscribers but also identifying them, making them more valuable to advertisers and your business overall.

What Happens When I Connect My Flodesk Account? 

When you add your Flodesk account to Grow, you can segment any subscriber added from a Grow Subscribe form on your site. A direct integration allows you to enable Form Actions for various email-building Grow features, like Spotlight Subscribe forms, so you can easily customize which Flodesk segments you want a new subscriber to be added to automatically. This makes building your email list and sending targeted content to subscribers much easier!

Using Flodesk To Create Email Connect Links

Replacing your newsletter links with Email Connect links is an effective way to make your newsletter traffic more valuable to advertisers. While you can create Email Connect links via the Links Toolkit available in the Grow widget or the Grow Publisher Portal, adding these links directly within Flodesk makes the process seamless.

This is especially time-saving since we recommend adding Email Connect links for every newsletter you send.

Maximize Effectiveness of Grow Subscribe Forms And More

As you grow your subscriber list by incentivizing your readers with your most valuable content with Grow features like Print Pass, those new subscribers will be funneled where you want them in your Flodesk workflows. Plus, these subscriber-generating Grow features that feed into Flodesk help identify your subscribers, increasing the value of your subscriber traffic to advertisers. 

What Grow Features Can You Take Advantage of With This New Integration?

Print Pass

This subscriber-boosting feature prompts readers to sign up for your email list to print your recipe or how-to card. It’s a great way to convert engaged readers into subscribers. 

Grow Subscribe Forms

Grow forms like Spotlight Subscribe and Link Share effectively increase your subscriber list while collecting reader consent, helping you monetize your subscribers. These forms are optimized for conversion and are placed in the content where readers are most likely to subscribe.

Subscribe Action Pack

This simple but effective feature provides multiple opportunities for readers to subscribe after taking specific actions, like creating a Grow account or favoriting a post. 

Exclusive Content

If you have supplemental content that you can offer to readers, Exclusive Content is a great tool that encourages readers to log in or make a Grow account while subscribing to your newsletter. 

Any time you gain subscribers through these Grow features, they’ll be automatically added to segments you’ve set up within Flodesk. This frees up time and resources for you to focus on what’s important: your content. 

Ready To Get Started?

1. Connect your Flodesk account to Grow within the Grow Publisher Portal
2. Convert the links in your next newsletter into Grow Email Connect links from Flodesk

Don’t use Flodesk, ConvertKit, Mailchimp, or MailerLite? Submit your feedback for the next email service provider you want added to Grow.

The post Power Up Your Emails with Grow’s Flodesk Integration appeared first on Grow.

We’ve listened to your feedback, tested solutions and now here with an upgraded Subscribe center to make it easier than ever to help grow your subscribers and your audience of identified readers. Grab a pen and paper and take a seat while we break down the latest updates within your Grow Publisher Portal.

1. Multi View: Tailoring Forms to Perfection!

Introducing Multi View! How many subscribe forms are just right for each of your post’s page lengths? Multi View keeps the guessing at a minimum and helps provides you with a greater opportunity to capture your readers and grow your list. The number of subscribe forms that appear on your posts will automatically be tailored to suit the length of your content. Plus, we’ve fine-tuned it so your chosen spotlight form appears at the right moment in your posts, ensuring maximum impact without overwhelming your readers.

Regardless of your setup, Form Density and the default Spotlight Subscribe forms are flexible enough to work together seamlessly. Let’s say you want to have a Link Share form at the top of your post to really hook your audience, but still want subscribe forms throughout the rest of your post. No problem! Multi View tailors the number of forms on your post to suit your content.

2. Customization Made Easy: Take Control with Inview Effect Offset Fields!*

We’ve added a brand new toggle for Desktop/Mobile offset fields, giving you the power to adjust the vertical offset of your Spotlight Subscribe widget effortlessly. Customize the position of your widget for both desktop and mobile users, ensuring a seamless user experience across all devices. More information about Inview Effect, including a demo animation is now available in your Subscribe settings. *You should only adjust this setting if you encounter a header navigation conflict.  

3. Streamlined Navigation: Say Hello to Two Distinct Tabs

We’ve reimagined your Subscribe settings by dividing it into two distinct tabs: one for Forms and another for Global Settings. This new organization makes it a breeze to manage and customize your forms while easily tweaking essential global settings. No more hunting around for the right controls – everything you need is right at your fingertips, making your workflow smoother and more efficient.

We hope you’re just as excited as we are about the new and improved subscribe experience that’s designed to enhance your journey in identifying your readers, increase your subscriber growth and supercharge your monetization efforts! You’re not just a publisher; you’re a content creator, shaping the future of your business.

Ready to take on this challenge together? Log into the Grow Publisher Portal today and explore the new and improved Subscribe settings. 

We can’t wait to hear about the amazing results you achieve. No matter what the future holds with third-party cookies, we will continue to help you build your audience of identified readers, one feature at a time.

The post Grow’s All New Subscribe Experience appeared first on Grow.

Why Should I Run Grow

We’ve designed Grow + our ad management solutions to work together seamlessly. When your readers opt in to Grow, advertisers are able to identify them and pay you more to advertise on your site.

• When your readers create a Grow account they are able to:
• Gain and maintain access to the content they love whenever they want
• Bookmark their favorite posts
• Get more of your content delivered directly to their inbox

Getting Started:

Here are a few ways to get started directly from the Grow Publisher Portal:

Already have a subscriber list built? Great! Swap out your existing subscribe forms with Grow’s Subscribe forms below.

• Spotlight Subscribe
• Subscribe Manual Placement
• Click to Subscribe
• Subscribe Action Pack

For more information, visit: Subscribe Settings Overview

Connect Grow with your email platform – Grow integrates with many of your favorite newsletter tools: Mailchimp, MailerLite, Convert Kit and more.

• Full List of Grow Integrations

• Not sending emails? We’ve got an easy, FREE way to do so. If you are looking to start emailing your subscribers but don’t know where to start, enable Automailer. Automailer lets you:
  • Regularly communicate with your subscribers to keep them engaged and informed about your latest and most popular content.
  • Send curated content to your subscribers.
• For more information, visit: What is Automailer?

Set up a Co-Branded Experience – Grow allows you to co-brand the sign-up form. Using the familiar branding of your site allows you to maintain your brand voice and keep your audience engaged.

For more information, visit: Co-Branded Sign Up

Appearance Settings – You can adjust Grow’s appearance settings with colors to fit your site’s aesthetic.

For more information, visit: Appearance Settings

𝗕𝗼𝗻𝘂𝘀 𝗧𝗶𝗽: If you’re writing about any of the niche-specific categories below, check out our best practices:

• Education
• Family & Parenting
• Food & Drink
• Hobbies & Interests
• Home & Garden
• Travel

Ready to identify your audience and keep your readers engaged? Visit grow.me/publishers for more information.

The post Grow: Quick Start Guide appeared first on Grow.

At Mediavine, we’re passionate about supporting publishers at every stage of their journey and being completely transparent along the way. We love letting you know what is coming, and it makes us happy to see you excited for all the awesome features on the way.

And of course, we enjoy throwing some surprises in there too! Before I share an exciting sneak peek of what we’ve been up to on the Grow team, I want to introduce myself!

Hi! I’m Amethyst Duke, Product Marketing Manager for Grow, lover of all things Marvel (sorry DC fans).

For the next few minutes, I’ll discuss what Grow truly means for the publisher community and how our full service engagement suite is making unique strides in the content creation industry.

I hope you’re sitting because … it’s about to be, legend — wait for it — dary! LEGENDARY.

What is Grow and who is it for?

Grow is Mediavine’s full service engagement suite designed to streamline the process for publishers to connect with their target audiences.

With ever-changing consumer behavior, it is even more imperative that publishers build relationships with their audience and stay connected to their ideal readers today.

Grow allows publishers to understand their audience, create content they crave and form deeper connections with their readers.

Grow is not just perfect for publishers but for their readers as well. Once your readers create a Grow account, they can unlock exclusive content, share and bookmark their favorite posts and — my absolute favorite — subscribe to a publisher’s email newsletter.

There are so many action packed features to discover once you join the Grow community — it’s everything your business needs to do MORE of what you love.

But let me not get too ahead of myself. Let’s stay in the now!

What are the current Grow features?

Our FREE plan is perfect for Mediavine publishers, first-time publishers and anyone who has never used an engagement suite before. We know getting started with a new system can be overwhelming, and Grow has tons of features that make life easier for our publishers and readers — isn’t that the goal after all?

Below are a list of features (in no particular order) that are currently live in the market and ready for use as soon as you enable Grow in your Publisher Portal.

• Spotlight Subscribe – lets you build your mailing list while encouraging readers to sign up for Grow and consent to personalized ads. Our latest integration with ConvertKit gives you the option to connect to your ESP so that new subscribers go directly to your email list. Since Spotlight rolled out, we’ve had 3.2M new newsletter signups across the board for those using the feature.
• Exclusive Content – use this feature to lock full recipes, printables, digital downloads and more. Once the content is locked, a call-to-action will prompt a reader to sign up for a free Grow account, along with requesting their permission to add them to your email subscriber list and serve them personalized ads. After setting up Exclusive Content, our own internal sites began seeing over half of their subscribers come from Exclusive Content CTA’s! One of our employees here at Mediavine enabled this feature and experienced a 500% increase in subscribers. Amazing!
• Search – The new Search user interface gives your readers access to a homepage that breaks out your posts into most popular, latest, and recommended as well as highlights their bookmarks and recently viewed pages. And the best part? Publishers can also have a featured category pinned on their homepage!
• Recommended Content – displayed to the reader based specifically on their browsing activity and is intended to match their interests to encourage further exploration on the site rather than just show more content on the same subject.
• Recipe Card Integration – a prominently placed button in the recipe card will help encourage readers to save a recipe or how-to in their bookmarks list, which will also encourage them to sign up, authenticate and consent to personalized advertisements.
• Co-Branded Sign Up – allows you to upload your site’s logo so that it appears on the sign-up page a visitor sees when they create a Grow account through your site. This will signal to your readers that you are a part of the Grow community and can access their favorite articles and recipes with their personal Grow account.

What features are coming soon?

We are always listening to your feedback and are so appreciative of you taking the time to share it with us via in-person chats or email.

Every bit of feedback is reviewed by our product team and is used to help us plan improvements and updates for the future. Truly.

We love letting you know what is coming, and it makes us happy to see you excited for all the awesome features on the way.

We have tons of new features headed your way before the end of the year. Are you up for a sneak peek?

Quick tip … the more details you can provide on how a certain feature will help you in your business, the better our product team can use that feedback when planning future updates!

• New integrations to allow publishers to automatically add users to ESPs without the need for downloading and uploading a list or using an intermediary service such as Zapier.
• The ability to set specific subscribe forms to appear on certain pages and categories to better integrate with your email automations.
• Potentially expanding Subscribe to publishers without existing newsletters.
• Continuing to add integrations into our other products, such as Create.
• Entirely new products and experiences inside Grow that will further encourage subscriptions.
• Learn more about the growth of your audience and more with Grow Publisher Portal Analytics.
• And even more that we probably don’t know yet! As always, we build things based on your feedback, so tell us what you want by emailing grow.me@mediavine.com!

Is it really free to join the Grow community?

Yep! Grow is 100% FREE. No hidden costs, subscriptions or charges. Grow is marked to lessen the everyday hassle of being an independent publisher so that you can save time, stand out and provide top notch content to your readers.

Can Grow improve my Mediavine income?

YES! A hundred times, YES! Grow removes the guesswork, maximizing ad spend on your blog so you can spend more time engaging with your audience and building on your strategy. As soon as Grow is enabled, you should start earning more revenue immediately.

With every user that signs in to your website and gives you consent to serve personalized ads, you’ll automatically make more money with Grow.

What are the differences between Grow and Slickstream:

I know, I know — there are other platforms out in the market that provide a variety of features, but you’re probably wondering how they compare to Grow. If you’re more of a visual person, we’ve put together an easy-to-read table that breaks out the many reasons why Grow is the perfect solution for your publisher and readers’ needs. Let’s take a look.

We’re continuing to reimagine Grow with the goal of making it more powerful and easier to use for our publishers and their readers!

Getting Started with Grow

Now that I’ve laid all my cards on the table, what are you waiting for?! If you’ve read through the list of Grow features and thought “I need that!” then Grow has your name written all over it!

To get started, there are two different paths to enabling Grow as a publisher.

#1 Mediavine Publishers: Head to your Dashboard and enable Grow with one toggle. Go to Grow from the main navigation, Enable Grow at the top of the page and then click the Save settings button.

After you enable the setting, Grow is automatically loaded through the Script Wrapper and all configuration can be done directly in the Mediavine Dashboard. There’s nothing to install and you’re ready to get started discovering the latest features immediately!

#2: Non-Mediavine Publishers: We’re expanding Grow in more ways than one! Think BIGGER AND BETTER. If you’ve launched or are even thinking about launching a new site, Grow is your solution! Don’t wait to build traffic or spend countless hours researching how to engage with your audience. Use Grow as your engagement solution to capture your readers with exclusive content and provide personalized ads. We’re always excited when new users join our Grow community — sign up here

Once you’ve enabled Grow in your account, have some fun — customize your branding, collect subscribers, build exclusive content for your readers and add in a few of your favorite integrations (e.g. ConvertKit).

Found a favorite feature? Well we’re dying to hear about it! Tell us how important that feature is to you, and add some additional context by emailing us at grow.me@mediavine.com! The more we know about how you want to use a feature and what’s important to you, the better we can make it!

If you’re still not ready to take the leap just yet, that’s okay! Head to the Related Posts section below to discover more details on Grow on how our innovative platform is changing lives within the Publisher community.

Thanks for stopping by! Until next time — your friendly neighborhood Product Marketing Manager

The post Getting Started with Grow: A Resource Guide appeared first on Grow.

We’re here to announce another Grow enhancement that can bring you just that: our Co-Branded Sign-Up feature! We hope (after reading this post) that you’re just as excited as we are and you go straight to your Grow settings to enable it right now! (Hint: It’s under your Grow Settings > General in your Grow Publisher Portal.)

The Co-Branded Sign-Up setting allows you to upload a logo that will appear on the sign-up page that a visitor sees when they sign up for a Grow account through your site.

When they click the sign-in button on the widget, they’ll see the co-branded page.

Why are we so excited about this new feature? It allows you to signal to your readers that you are part of the Grow community, and that it is directly connected to your site. It lets them know that with a Grow account, they get access to features they’ll love including search and recommended content, plus the ability to save their favorite articles and recipes.

The co-branding available in this feature will make the connection between Grow and your site that much stronger.

Plus, across all publishers who are beta testing the Co-Branded Sign-up, we saw an increase in Grow signups overall.

Once you enable this setting and upload your logo, it will appear on the signup and login pages that your readers see when they create a Grow account on your site.

The Co-Branded Sign-Up page is a great way to use Grow to continue building your community and enhancing your relationship with your readers. WIth the new signup page, your readers will see that Grow is part of your site and not some random third-party tool they don’t understand.

Coming Soon

This feature is extra exciting because it paves the way for another upcoming Grow feature that we’ve been beta testing behind the scenes: Exclusive Content! With Exclusive Content, you’ll select a portion of your blog post that is “exclusive” and requires a Grow account or a subscription (if they’re already logged into Grow) to view. This feature is going to be a huge lift for your subscriber lists!

This Co-Branded Sign-Up page will be incredibly helpful to tie Grow to your site, specifically for Exclusive Content. We saw an increase of sign ups on sites that were beta testing both features.

Grow will work seamlessly with your site to build your authenticated traffic and excite readers to continue the sign-up process via this Co-Branded Sign Up experience.

How Do I Start?

It’s really easy to get started with this new feature. Grab your logo file and head over to your Grow Publisher Portal. For more specifics, check out our handy-dandy Co-Branded Sign-Up help doc.

So what are you waiting for? Go forth, add your logo and increase your sign-ups!

The post Co-Branded Sign-Up For Grow appeared first on Grow.

To hold up the publishers’ end of that value exchange and convince readers to authenticate, Grow already offers some awesome tools, features and settings, with many more in the pipeline.

Today, we’re excited to announce our latest setting: Always On.

Always On Refers to a New Header Carousel Setting

The name of this setting also describes it accurately!

If enabled, “Always On” will display the Recommended Content Header Carousel on your site whenever the user scrolls past a certain point.

The idea behind displaying the carousel once the reader scrolls past the header is — you guessed it — to increase views and clicks on the Carousel.

Based on A/B testing we’ve conducted so far, it definitely works!

Compared to the legacy, or default behavior, sample traffic tested with the Carousel “Always On” showed a significant increase in views and an even more impressive increase in clicks.

How big an increase are we talking about, and how specifically does this new Grow setting work?

Always On vs. Default Behavior

When it first launched, the Grow Header Carousel appeared upon “scroll up” — a tell-tale sign that a user is about to leave your site.

The idea behind launching the Header Carousel was to grab a users’ attention before they split and direct them to other pages on your site.

After launch, we ran an A/B test where we tweaked the behavior slightly in order to see if it would improve performance.

It turns out that a little change went a long way.

The Header Carousel’s test behavior is now the default behavior. It now appears on scroll up but also if a reader idles on page for five seconds. This only happens twice per visit on your site.

Altogether, this functionality adjustment — displaying the carousel during “idle” behavior in addition to when readers scroll up — resulted in a 40% increase in carousel clicks!

Once we saw these results with the functionality, we ran another test, sampling traffic with the Carousel “Always On” overall.

So far, that test has shown a 20% increase in views and an even more impressive 30% increase in clicks!

Wow, Sam, How Do I Enable This?

Glad you asked!

If you’re already running Grow and want to try this new setting out, just navigate to your Mediavine Dashboard, visit the Grow settings page and look for the “Always On” setting under Recommended Content.

For new users of Grow, this will be a default functionality, so no action is required to have your Header Carousel display always on.

New to Grow?

If you’re new to Grow, well, you may be wondering what any of this means or simply what is Grow for that matter.

The shortest answer is that Grow is Mediavine’s end-to-end audience engagement solution, loaded with dynamic features designed to streamline the process of connecting, engaging and nurturing your audience relationships in one place.

But, as we touched on above, there’s a lot more that goes into that.

From a user standpoint, Grow is a user engagement suite that makes websites so superior you’ll actually want to make an account to enjoy improved experiences — personalized ads and all.

Reaching its potential requires your feedback, both as beta testers and publishing community members, now and down the line.

Grow Needs Your Feedback

Just like Mediavine’s ad tech, our Grow product team is continuously testing and tweaking its features for optimal performance.

We need your help to ensure we’re building the right features that work the right way and to get readers to log in and authenticate ASAP.

If you’re already a user, you rock. Please feel free to send us an email with your thoughts at Grow.me@mediavine.com anytime.

If you’re on the fence, what are you waiting for?

It’s free for Mediavine publishers, and you can help us shape the future of a more sustainable and open web, right here and now.

The post Always On: Increase Clicks & Views With Grow appeared first on Grow.

What we don’t talk about enough — and publishers may not even realize — is that in addition to building up your first-party data, Grow can help you increase your earnings today.

We know this because we’ve seen it on Mediavine’s owned and operated site, The Hollywood Gossip, where Grow is driving more traffic and making THG more revenue right here in the third-party cookie era.

Below, we’ll tell you how we did it and how you can do it, too.

What is Grow?

Grow is Mediavine’s end-to-end audience engagement solution, loaded with dynamic features designed to streamline the process of connecting, engaging and nurturing your audience relationships in one place.

Mediavine sees the collection of first-party data — and the ability to serve personalized ads in a cookie-less world — as the path forward for our industry which is why we created Grow.

Here’s the thing though: The same features which provide a superior experience and encourage audiences to log in also drive traffic and revenue. Today, tomorrow, next month and next year.

We’ve seen it happen with The Hollywood Gossip, thanks to an aspect of Grow that might seem familiar to internet — and Netflix — users.

Recommended Content

One of the coolest features of Grow is its content recommendation feature, powered by artificial intelligence algorithms.

On a basic level, it’s not unlike the algorithms all your beloved streaming apps use when curating “Recommended For Eric” content.

If a user logs in, they’ll receive personal recommendations based on things they’ve read, shared and favorited on your website.

Meanwhile, logged-out users will receive recommendations based on what other users have clicked on and the content they’re browsing.

Again, think Netflix.

As a celebrity gossip site in an era where there are more actors, singers and reality stars than an individual reader could possibly know, manual content recommendation just doesn’t work.

Machine learning, however, is working freakishly well.

Whether you’re reading about Tom Hanks, Kim Kardashian or a Z-list celebrity in air quotes, Grow instantly finds and recommends related content on THG that other users are clicking on.

We’re seeing a 2-4% CTR (click-through rate) whenever an inline content recommendation is shown. What’s more impressive is The Hollywood Gossip uses infinite scroll and auto-loads the next post, which means (currently) only the first page gets content recommendations.

These numbers are only going to improve as we continue to roll out new features for Grow. Even with those limitations, what does a 2-4% CTR actually mean for a publisher’s traffic?

The Hollywood Gossip Results

Combined with carousel and sidebar recommendations, social, search and bookmarks, Grow has already provided an additional 5.1% pageviews to The Hollywood Gossip since enabling Grow.

Although that is a lot of pageviews at THG’s size — and a big improvement over other recommended content options — the most amazing part of Grow’s impact is the value of those views.

The increase in time on site, or session duration from Grow traffic, is how we’re defining value in this case.

The average user on The Hollywood Gossip spends 1:45 on site, according to Google Analytics. Not bad, but users who interacted with any Grow widgets spend an average of 4:38!

That’s an astonishing 164.25% more time on site! Either 90 Day Fiance is really that compelling or machine learning knows what it’s doing.

But seriously, folks: Whatever your content is about, longer sessions from readers browsing that content means — you guessed it — more ads viewed and increased RPM per session as a result.

When you’re talking about a site earning millions per year in THG’s case, that means hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra views.

But no matter the size of your audience, such robust increases in session duration and CTR can make a material difference immediately.

Get Started With Grow!

We’re not going to beg or guilt you but seriously — just do it okay? Please? You’re all out of excuses NOT to grow your site with Grow.

Did we mention Grow is free for Mediavine publishers, including the content recommendation feature we just described in all its glory?

Not only will you get a head start in collecting first-party data, which will be incredibly important in the coming year(s), but it can also lead to more pageviews, user engagement and revenue immediately.

It will be worth your while now and down the road.

As always, please reach out to us anytime with questions or if you need assistance.

The post How Grow Helped The Hollywood Gossip Make $100,000. Already. appeared first on Grow.

Using artificial intelligence, the Grow platform now has the ability to recommend personalized content to logged-in users.

For anonymous (non-logged-in) users, Grow will recommend the content most likely to be consumed based on context.

Recommended Content and the Value Exchange

As an audience engagement framework, the ultimate goal of Grow is to provide a personalized browsing experience to your readers.

A better browsing experience is the linchpin of what we call the value exchange — what we believe will encourage users to authenticate and consent to personalized content and advertisements.

As such, Mediavine developed a personalized content recommendation engine that elevates the browsing experience for Grow users.

What is Recommended Content?

As opposed to related content, which is content that’s similar to the current post’s topic (and is a common feature on many sites, often shown at the end of an article), recommended content is displayed to the reader based specifically on their browsing activity and is intended to match their interests to encourage further exploration on the site, rather than just show more content on the same subject.

Without a recommendation engine, we couldn’t deliver this personalized content and improved browsing experience that users expect before logging in and ultimately providing first-party data.

I could spend the next 30 minutes geeking out over machine learning and how our recommendation engine works, but I’ll stick to the first feature powered by this technology: Recommended Content.

Introducing the Grow Recommended Content Widgets

The initial way we’re deploying the power of this personalized content recommendation engine is via a series of three widgets that will provide recommended content to readers.

If a user is logged in, the widgets will display content from your site that a user is most likely to read based on what they’ve favorited, shared and clicked on from other recommendation widgets.

If a user is browsing anonymously, or is logged out, we’ll use an engine similar to how Netflix recommends content — showing them content that they’ll most likely want to see based on the behavior of other users who read the same article.

Where will these widgets appear? That’s up to you, via the Grow settings in your Mediavine Dashboard.

Customize Grow Settings in the Grow Publisher Portal

The Grow Publisher Portal gives you a lot of control over the Grow experience on your site. You can easily change your brand colors, adjust social networks, set minimum display counts, elect to use Grow in your native search and more.

Even more exciting? This now enables Mediavine to launch bigger features like these Recommended Content Widgets, which allow you to choose one of our three introductory placements:

1. Header Carousel

You’ve likely seen similar units, but we’re launching a Header Carousel that will allow users to flick through their recommended content anytime they scroll up on your website.

As a user scrolls back up to look for something new, the Header Carousel will slide down, revealing new content for readers to consume.

2. Inline Content

It’s no secret that one of the most engaging spots on your site is within the content itself, and so it should be no surprise that this is also the location for our best-performing content recommendation widget.

You can now opt-in to enable the Inline Widget, which automatically places itself in a desirable location within your content.

It will appear low enough within the content to make sure users have already consumed the bulk of the content — but hopefully before they leave.

We’re already seeing great conversions with this placement and strongly recommend switching it on.

3. Sidebar Widget

We definitely recommend you keep a short sidebar to ensure that your sticky sidebar ad unit sees optimal performance.

We also generally recommend running things like About Us, Search and Recommended/Top Content widgets in that space.

As of right now, Grow can help you power the latter by offering a Recommended/Top Content solution right in your sidebar.

While desktop traffic is generally a smaller percentage of your overall traffic, it’s the most valuable, and we see the sidebar widget as a good addition to the Header and Inline Content Recommendation Widgets.

More Coming Soon

It’s important to note that the Recommended Content feature is new, and like so much of Grow, relies on your feedback and testing to improve.

It will also take some time for the Recommended Content engine to learn your site, so don’t judge the initial recommendations too harshly.

While we’re seeing great initial results from these three layout options, this is mostly about implementing the framework for the Recommendation Engine powering these widgets.

With your help and based on your ongoing experiences with them, the actual widgets and placements will evolve over time.

Please consider enabling them today. The more publishers who do, the more feedback we can gather and more testing we can run.

Give Recommended Content a shot and help us learn what will help encourage your users to consume more of your content. Please send your questions and feedback to grow.me@mediavine.com.

The post Grow Recommended Content appeared first on Grow.