Please let me introduce you to the Subscribe Action Pack, a new way for you to collect subscribers using Grow.

The Subscribe Action Pack is a collection of calls to action that prompt a user to subscribe to your newsletter list. These prompts display when a reader on your site performs a specific action that creates a natural opportunity to invite them to subscribe.

Each action has slightly different messaging, depending on the reader’s activity, with a suggestion that the reader subscribe to get new content sent straight to their inbox.

Whether you’re new to Grow or one of our regulars, Subscribe Action Pack is enabled by default once you enable Spotlight Subscribe on your site. If you do not enable Spotlight Subscribe, the feature is automatically disabled.

How’s that for an easy button!

Here are the various Subscribe calls-to-action that readers will see as they interact with Grow on your site:

Favoriting a Post

When a logged-in reader clicks the heart button on the main Grow widget, they will be prompted to subscribe to that site’s newsletter.

There are three ways to generate this Subscribe call to action (CTA) to display while a reader is logged into Grow.

• The heart button on the main Grow Widget.
• The Save button in your Recipe Card (we support Create, WPRM, and Tasty).
• The Save button in Grow Social (available in all Social Share Toolkits).

Logging Into Grow

A reader will see a subscribe CTA after a reader logs into Grow from your site.

Signing Up For Grow

This CTA displays when a logged-out reader or new user signs up for Grow on your site via the Grow widget.

Does it work with Zapier or Direct ESP Integrations?

Of course, it does! You’re able to connect the Subscribe Action Pack by source and select your application of choice to be the action. Check out this help article for all the how-to goodness.

Once we launch our first direct integration — spoiler alert: if you haven’t heard already, ConvertKit is coming and will be our first ESP integration! — you’ll also be able to add a subscriber directly into your tags, forms, and sequences.

Turn it on today!

If you’ve been using Grow for a while and you want to get more subscribers, head to your Grow Publisher Portal to turn Subscribe Action Pack on and continue to build your email list!

The post Subscribe Action Pack for Grow appeared first on Grow.

I’m your host, Product Manager Sam Seeley, here with some awesome news.

Today we’re launching our Exclusive Content feature for Grow!

Exclusive Content is an exciting addition because we’re paving the way for the latest internet experience, one that we’re already seeing quite a bit of in online publications.

How Does Exclusive Content Work?

As a creator, you want your most valuable content to work for you!

With Exclusive Content, you can set a section of your post’s content — e.g., a Gutenberg block, a Create card or specific paragraphs of text — as “locked” behind a call-to-action that prompts a reader to sign up for a free Grow account, along with their permission to add them to your email subscriber list.

How Should I Use Exclusive Content?

I personally have used it to lock a full resource library on my site. Once a reader signs up and consents to being added to my email list, they get access to a handful of PDFs that I’ve created for members.

During testing, we’ve seen creators use Exclusive Content to lock full recipes, printables, digital downloads and how-to instructions! Anything that is your “Most Valuable Content” can be locked to encourage users to sign into Grow.

What About Email Subscribers?

Not only does Exclusive Content encourage your readers to sign up for a Grow account, but it also obtains permission to add them to your subscriber list.

Our beta testers have seen impressive subscriber growth after implementing it on their sites.

After setting up Exclusive Content, our own internal sites began seeing over half of their subscribers come from Exclusive Content CTA’s!

What About SEO?

We’re Mediavine so you know that we make sure that all of our features follow best practices.

While building out this feature, we utilized Google’s approved schema. You can sleep soundly while locking content, knowing it can still be discovered by search engines.

Does Exclusive Content Work With Zapier?

Exclusive Content does indeed work with Zapier! Your subscribers will zap straight to the ESP of your choice.

There is tiny bit of set up but once you have that all done, you’re good to go!

To learn more about how to set up Exclusive Content with Zapier, visit our help center!

Pair It With the Co-Branded Sign-Up Page

We recently launched the Co-Branded Sign-Up feature, and during our initial tests we noticed a lift in sign-up success when our testers paired their co-branded logo on the sign-up page with marking pieces of their content as exclusive.

For more details on how to set up the Co-Branded Sign-Up feature, navigate to our help center!

What’s Next for Exclusive Content?

This launch opens the door for other really amazing Grow features to come, such as setting an entire category as Exclusive Content and adding article limits that you see on popular sites.

These article limits tease that the reader is only able to view one more article on that specific site. The calls-to-action encourage a reader to sign in for the best experience possible while browsing the site.

We’re excited to release this new feature to help you leverage your excellent content into more Grow members and email subscribers. Learn more about Exclusive Content in our help center.

The post Introducing Exclusive Content with Grow 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.

We’re here to announce another awesome Grow feature that we’re excited about — our integration with Zapier.

Our Grow and Zapier integration gives users the ability to populate new subscribers (from Spotlight Subscribe) into their email service provider automatically. No more adding them manually.

This is a totally optional integration but one that we believe provides a lot of potential value for both publishers and readers. (Automatic, lightning-fast delivery of your opt-in goodies and welcome email sequences? Yes, please!)

Let’s break it down below.

What is Zapier?

For those unfamiliar, Zapier is often described as a translator between web APIs, helping end-users automate the web applications they use.

With this integration, you’ll be able to populate your email service provider (ESP) with any new leads (subscribers) generated from Grow’s Spotlight Subscribe feature.

This allows users to connect their Zapier accounts to the Mediavine Dashboard in order to select Grow as a lead provider, set up a “New Lead” as a trigger event and select their ESP of choice.

Just choose them as the “Action” that you want to take after you gain a new subscriber.

Once you’re connected through Zapier and a new lead is captured, the email address will be sent to the ESP and you’ll be on your way to automating this process.

How Does Grow and Zapier Work? It’s a Zap!

Fittingly, for a company called Zapier and a product that automates what could be a labor intensive process, this integration is powered by the creation of Zaps.

In this context, a “Zap” is a task that’s part of a larger workflow that becomes automated.

Basically, Zaps are the connections between two applications. The Zap itself allows publishers to set up particular tasks.

Think of it this way: When a specific action happens in this application, I want this other application to take this particular action.

The first part is typically called the “trigger,” and this is the event that begins the Zap.

The next step sets what action the Zap will take once it begins. Each action equals one task; you can have multiple actions in one Zap.

Pre-made Zaps

As of 7/7/21, many of our pre-made Zaps are pending validation. We will update this post as soon as they’re good to go. In the meantime, you can set up a Zap manually.

If you’re wondering how to get started, look no further! We created a few pre-made Zaps to get your automation started with the most popular ESPs.

With our pre-made Zaps, you can add new subscribers from Grow to Mailchimp, Convertkit, Flodesk, Mad Mimi or MailerLite. We created pre-made Zaps for other ESPs as well so you’ll want to take a look at the Grow Integration Page for more details.

Once you’re there, scroll down to where it says “Connect Grow.me to 5,000+ Apps” and click “Try It” next to the Zap you’d like to try.

If you don’t see your email provider listed here as a pre-made Zap, but they have a Zapier connection, you can absolutely set up your own Zap!

Why Did We Prioritize Zapier?

Because Zapier has access to so many email service providers, it was the quickest way to get the most users up and running.

If you’re using Convertkit, Mailchimp, Flodesk, Mad Mimi, MailerLite or one of the many other email service providers that Zapier integrates with, you’re in luck!

What if I Don’t Have a Zapier Account?

No worries. It’s free to create one!

There are different tiers that you might be interested in upgrading to, depending on how many new leads you generate per month.

What if I Don’t Want a Zapier Account?

Also no worries. This is a totally optional integration.

If you’re happy manually uploading your CSV to your email service provider, you can continue to do so without making any adjustments to your workflow. Hooray!

Why Automation Rocks

As readers of internet content, we’re all looking for instant gratification.

If I sign up to receive an opt-in of some kind (an e-cookbook filled with deliciousness or perhaps a helpful printable about what to pack for my Disney vacation) and it doesn’t show up until a few days later, that’s just not going to cut it.

Your readers could forget or no longer be interested by then. Speed matters.

With a Zap — the automation we’re talking about — this won’t be an issue as readers will start receiving your welcome sequences right away.

An automation like this also puts you in a great position to maximize the impact of any lead magnets, trip wires or other subscription enticements you have set up. And if you don’t have any of those yet? This is the perfect time to get started!

Your audience won’t miss a beat (or message) from you. Score!

(If you’d like to learn more about growing your email list, give a listen to the Growing a Newsletter List That Loves You episode of our Mediavine On Air podcast with the wonderful Regina Anaejionu.)

What’s Next For Spotlight Subscribe and the Zapier Integration?

No one likes spoilers when watching the hottest new show, but with Grow, we’re always excited to tease what we have coming down the pipeline.

Some upcoming features we’re working on will tie in nicely to your newfound Zaps!

We’ll be implementing a First Name field and the ability to support multiple widgets.

Currently, the Zapier integration won’t support the collection of a name field or the ability to choose which widget triggers the email provider action.

Once we implement those features, we’ll add them to our Zapier integration so you can collect a reader’s name and have more than one widget running on your site.

Super exciting, right?

Not Running Grow?

What are you waiting for? You’re missing out!

Not only do you get access to the Spotlight Subscribe feature and this new Zapier integration, but you’ll also be years ahead of the game with the collection of first-party data.

By improving your audience’s experience and authenticating as many users as you can, you’ll be in terrific shape when Google phases out cookies for good in 2024.

Enable Grow and Spotlight Subscribe in your Mediavine Dashboard today!

The post Grow and Zapier Integration: Add Newsletter Subscribers to ESPs Automatically appeared first on Grow.

Offering readers links to additional content they’ll love is a great way to keep them on our websites (being served ads and making us money), but how do we determine what to show them? Are we just offering posts that are similar to the one they’re currently reading or can we dig deeper with machine learning and really serve them recommendations that entice them to stick around?

That’s the difference between Recommended Content and Related Content, in a nutshell, and today we’re here to discuss this in more detail.

Recommended Content is vastly superior in terms of performance. Let’s break down why.

What is Recommended Content?

Grow uses machine learning to populate its Recommended Content widgets with items the user is most likely to click on based on the page they’re browsing.

If a user is logged in, Recommended Content encourages readers to view personalized recommendations; the intelligence powering those recommendations is based on what they have interacted with before (items they’ve favorited, shared and clicked on) from the recommendation widgets.

If a user isn’t logged in (and most won’t be), the Recommended Content widgets will show content that users will most likely want to see based on the behavior of other users who read the same article.

Basically, the Recommended Content engine has to “test” different content to see what users are most likely to click on. Over time and the recommendations will get better and better as it learns what your users prefer and how to optimize for better click-through rates (CTRs).

How is That Different Than Related Content?

Related content, by contrast, is content related to the post that the reader is currently viewing.

It’s not content recommended for that user.

This may sound like a minor difference, but it’s quite significant.

Sometimes, posts that show up in the Recommended Content widgets can be of a “related” nature to tags or categories but more often than not, it is much smarter.

Due to the nature of machine learning, the Grow Recommended Content widgets will ultimately generate many more clicks based on logged in users’ preferences or general audience behavior.

Even if the recommendations may feel less relevant to the posts you’re seeing them on at first glance, that doesn’t mean it won’t be much more effective.

Recommended Content is Better Than Related Content

I said what I said, and I’m sticking to it.

Again, Recommended Content relies on information about what your users have consumed in order to carefully recommend articles that the reader might be inclined to click on.

Related content, which is found on most blogs, does not.

With Related Content, you’re simply seeing material related to what’s on that page. (If you’re perusing a cake recipe, it will show other cake recipes, and that’s pretty much it.)

Put another way, Recommended Content goes beyond the scope of any one page; the widgets’ suggestions are solely based on what readers have interacted with in the past.

It’s a broader, smarter and more effective approach.

How We’ve Improved Recommended Content

Among our recent improvements to Recommended Content is removing the caching of recommendations. This vastly improved the click-through rate on inline content recommendations.

We saw a 47-75% (!) increase in CTRs after making this change. Of course, this is only good news for you if you are running the inline content widget.

Are You Running Inline Content Recommendations Yet?

If the answer is no, next question:

Did you see those numbers above?

The inline content widget for Recommendations is by far the most well-optimized placement of the three options (in the sidebar, or the header carousel). With results like a 47-75% increase, we’re here to urge you to give the inline content widget a try if you haven’t already.

The best way to make sure you’re recommending the right things to the right readers is to give the Recommended Content engine more time to get to know your site.

A reader looking for a specific post for gluten-free brownies might be interested in gluten-free baking tips, but they might also be interested in a completely unrelated recipe.

Machine learning will figure this out, but it can take awhile to fire on all cylinders. Over time, the recommendations will be better and better as it learns your audience!

Enable and Optimize Grow’s Recommended Content Abilities Today

At the risk of repeating ourselves, what are you waiting for? Please consider enabling the inline content widget.

While we’re really excited about the inline content widget, don’t forget that the header carousel — with the Always On feature that increases clicks by 30% — is available in your Dashboard now!

The post Recommended Content is Not Related Content. It’s Vastly Better. 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.

The results for this feature are so great, we couldn’t wait until Q1 to launch it: How does 3x the favorites sound?

What Is Create’s Recipe Card Save Button?

The Create save button is an additional way to favorite a page using Grow. The button will appear next to the print button within the Create recipe and how-to cards. (Right now, it doesn’t work within Lists.)

Once a reader uses this button they will find the post in their bookmarks section when they’re logged into Grow.

This save button has the most interaction we’ve seen so far with Grow bookmarks.

How Can I Customize It?

Currently, there are save button options for all five of Create’s card styles:

• Simple Square or Dark Simple Square
• Classy Circle or Dark Classy Circle
• Hero Image

If you’re already running Create and using one of our standard card styles, all you need to do is toggle the setting on in your Mediavine Dashboard!

What Happens When a Reader Clicks?

If the user is not logged in — and it’s their first anonymous bookmark for the site — when “save” is clicked, a tooltip will appear to encourage users to log in.

This tooltip appears above or below the save button depending on their scroll position, or it will appear attached to the widget on mobile.

Create Card Save Button by the Numbers

Are you ready for some math? You know that we couldn’t post a blog post about the new Grow save button within Create cards without telling you the results.

ICYMI: Mediavine publishers who have enabled Grow are already authenticating users and building the first-party data that will be oh-so-important when the third-party cookie crumbles in late 2021.

But how does this Create/Grow crossover save button help?

The favorites feature is currently the main way to encourage readers to sign up for Grow, so boosting your favorites is incredibly important in generating first-party data.

The good news? With this feature, the save recipe button does exactly this!

On our small sample size, we saw the save button increase favorites by 200%. Yes, two hundred percent. As in you will have THREE times the amount of favorites after enabling this.

Other Recipe Cards

The save button for Grow is currently only available for Create cards. We are preparing developer documentation for other recipe card plugins to integrate with the save button.

If you’re interested please let those developers know! We’d love to see the save recipe function for Grow in all recipe cards.

Enable Today

Alright, you’ve convinced me. How do I enable the save button in my Create card?

We’re so glad you asked! If you’re already running Grow and Create, you can enable it today in your Mediavine Dashboard.

Go ahead and log in, navigate to Settings > Grow (Beta) and scroll down to the bottom. Here you’ll see a toggle to enable the button.

Grow has recently added some other exciting features, most notably the new customization settings (found in your Dashboard!) and recommended content widgets.

The addition of the save button within the recipe card will increase authentications and continue to encourage users to sign up (so they can benefit from saving recipes into their bookmarks list) while also considering privacy and allowing users to consent to receive personalized advertisements.

We’re excited for this new save button and hope you’ll consider enabling it in your Dashboard today!

The more publishers who enable, the more feedback we can gather so that we can continue to build Grow together!

Please send your questions and feedback to grow.me@mediavine.com.

The post Introducing the Recipe Card Save Button: A Grow & Create Crossover appeared first on Grow.