Recently, Brave New Traveler has received criticism for choosing to publish sponsored posts in our regular content. For those of you new to the site, or unsure what a “sponsored” post means, here’s a quick definition:
A sponsored post is an article that has been written expressly because a company has paid for content.
In most cases on Brave New Traveler, our sponsored posts have been written by myself or co-editor Tim Patterson, and have offered an objective eye on the service/product. At no time were we “easy” on them because they paid for the post – we tried to offer a look at the service/product, and leave the reader to decide if they wanted to check out the companies’ website.
But some readers weren’t happy. They believed the posts were deceptive because they look like regular content, and were written in our signature tone and style.
A Change Of Tone
And so, after some discussion, Tim, Laura (our advertising manager) and myself decided we would continue to publish sponsored posts, but that we would no longer write them in our own style/tone. After all, if the posts are essentially advertisements, why not make it obvious? The first sponsored post in this format was 5 Reasons To Stay In A Timeshare, published last Sunday.
Again, we received criticism from other readers because they felt the posts were still deceptive. Even though every single post has been identified right at the beginning with the line “Please note: this is a sponsored post” some readers still view it as schilling for a company.
In an effort to remain fully transparent, I would like to argue our case for choosing to publish sponsored posts.
The Reality Of The Web
Anyone who has ever tried to make money online, quickly realizes it doesn’t come easy.
The truth is, I created BNT to provide a forum for excellent online travel content, and offer it for free.
However, that doesn’t mean I think our writers should work for free. From the very beginning, my goal was to earn enough money through various forms of advertising to pay for our content, and in July of this year, I achieved that goal.
Anyone who has ever tried to make money online, quickly realizes it doesn’t come easy. Unless you cram your layout with flashing banners, google adstrips, contextual text links, and affiliate referrals, it’s pretty difficult to earn more than a few bucks a month.
Currently, while small in number and frequency, sponsored posts provide the most income for the site. And that makes them tempting, because it means we can have a cleaner layout. It means I don’t have to hide affiliate sales links in the content. And it means that our writers can get paid.
Pay versus Product?
Yet I understand how sponsored posts can hurt our reputation as a quality source for travel content.
That’s why I’ve kept these posts to a minimum (less than 8 since the site launched over a year ago) and they always remain relevant to travel (which is why you don’t see sponsored posts about gambling or pharmaceuticals). And as always, the posts have been clearly labelled as sponsored, and not regular content.
So how to proceed? I’d like to hear your feedback on sponsored posts: whether you agree with them or not. I want to know if you have ideas on generating alternative income for BNT, and how we can keep publishing brilliant new writers, and share them with an ever growing audience of conscious and intelligent travelers.
Thanks in advance.
Ian MacKenzie is editor of Brave New Traveler. Aside from writing, he spends his time exploring the fundamental nature of existence and wishing he did more backpacking.About the Author
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17 Comments... join the discussion!
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BNT: Given that you have so many writers, a tone shift isn’t going to cut it for distinction. There is no one tone to the work you publish. And the sponsored posts don’t bother me, I skip them.
A person has to get their money from somewhere. Travel writers may not do sponsored posts, but they do accept hotel stays and other goodies from PR companies, and then they write about that without disclosing that their adventure was free. Others write about travel services and products by just regurgitating what’s in the press release, without experiencing the thing first hand, free or otherwise.
I think it’s an editorial call if you keep up the sponsored posts or not. But along with that, I think it’s also essential to disclose, disclose, disclose. Which you’ve done. If you keep doing that, the independent voice of BNT should stay clear.
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Hi there Ian, I have to agree with you on this. I do not find the sponsored posts intrusive or misleadig. You guys do an outstanding job to have such a good quality website, with such little advertising. It shows that you are dedicated to the cause, and not just there for the profit. I know how difficult it is to earn a living off the web, without selling your soul to the big-buck advertisers. If you can get by on this little advertising, and pay the writers, you are doing well. I have submitted a lot of stories for free, just to try and get published. By getting paid, even if it is not a lot, does make me feel a lot better, and it motivates me to write more.
One thing that would annoy, are those horrible flashing pop-ups.
That is bad, and should be banned along with bling-bling and hip-hop gangsta-rap!Once again, keep up the good work! I like this site a lot!
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haley – thanks for the comments.
pam – well the tone shift was one from our editor (in this case tim) no longer be the reviewer of the product/service; instead the writing was a more commercial nature. i but absolutely agree, disclosure is a must.
cedric – thanks the comments and compliments as well. and don’t worry about the flashing pop-ups, you’ll never see them here.
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I agree with other commenters that sponsored posts don’t really bother me. I’m sick of websites that expect you to write for free and then slap ads all over your content. I applaud you for “sharing the wealth” and paying writers once you were able.
That being said, I was put off by the “Can You “SideStep†An Expensive Plane Ticket?” article because it was an advertising piece actually written by a BNT writer/editor. I feel it compromises the independant voice of both BNT and the writer. My suggestions are to a) let your advertiser take responsibility for creating its own content or b) ghost write.
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I’m OK with it as long as you disclose, clearly, up front.
If someone has a more “virtuous” way of making money from online content besides ads and/or occasional sponsored content, I invite them to step right up and tell the rest of us about it.
The only option I can think of right now is requiring people to pay for “site membership” to read all the BNT stuff, and you’ve already said that’s not in the cards.
Most writers make their actual money from some other job, consulting or doing the speaking circuit. It’s tough out here, so thanks for your honesty BNT.
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Ian,
I’ll preface this by saying that my reply is admittedly colored by the fact that I edit/author a site similar to BNT.
From a reader perspective, I don’t find your “Sponsored Posts” deceptive or objectionable at all. You clearly make it known in the first line of every such post that it is in fact a paid review/post. I agree with Pam – as soon as I see that a post is sponsored, I skip it. I recognize it as your cost of doing business.
The reality of creating quality web content – as with any medium – is that writers need and deserve to be paid. After working in this field for almost ten years, I’m still shocked to occasionally hear co-workers deriding their favorite blogs and other sites for “selling out” simply because their continued existence depends on at least a minimum level of revenue generation via banner ads, text links, sponsored posts, what have you.
I’d argue that you can’t please everyone all the time. As a site that receives thousands of visitors each month, you’re going to catch flak from someone no matter what you do or say. Unless your inbox is positively flooded with nasty e-mails criticizing your advertising methods, chalk it up to constructive criticism, keep doing what you’re doing, and move on.
Given the very minimal advertising displayed throughout BNT, I’d say that you’ve done an incredible job of balancing your need to generate sustainable revenue with the needs of your readers.
If the alternative is BNT closing its virtual doors, I think rational people would agree that one sponsored post every two months is a small price to pay.
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Hey Ian,
Obviously as a writer I’m a little biased here, since I appreciate getting paid, but as a devoted BNT reader as well I’ve never been bothered or confused by the sponsored posts. I was a little surprised by the timeshare one, only because all the others seem to have been geared more to the BNT audience (we aren’t really a timeshare crowd…are we?) but I certainly wasn’t offended.
Way, WAY better than the more obnoxious variety of ads, especially those new floating ones that practically chase your cursor across the screen! I’m contemplating a boycott of sites that use those ones.
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If the sponsors and their products meet certain quality and ethical standard, as determined by the publisher (i.e. you), then I think it’s acceptable to have sponsored posts so long as these are clearly identified at the beginning and end of the post.
If there is no income, then BTN will not be able to survive and publish quality contents. Also you “DESERVE” to get compensated for your effort in creating and maintaining BTN.
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I’d be worried if you placed a sponsored post after every non sponsored post…but one every so often with complete disclosure…what’s the problem ? Magazines do it all the time and we deal with it.
I love BNT, love that Tim and Co are now able to pay their contributors, and if that’s because there is advertizing and sponsored posts…so be it. We don’t have to read the sponsored posts if we don’t want to…
Thanks BNT for the great work. It’s been fun watching Brave New Traveler evolve.
Cheers from New Zealand.
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My only issue with the sponsored posts is the relevance. the ‘SideStep’ post is my example here… there is no way sidestep would have been mentioned (other than a bullet point in a list of competitors) if not for the sponsoring, so in some ways there was some fraudulence there. A non-sponsored mention would have said “another place to look up (potentially) cheap plane tickets”.
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I don’t find any problem with the posts, I regularly read them and I enjoy finding out about new products. As a writer, I figure that you screen any companies and their products before you let them have space on your website (no matter how much they pay) so they must be worth at least a read. Also, it’s a good way to earn occasional extra income for your site and since I like your site and want it to remain I’d say keep it up. That said, I enjoyed it better when you used your own voice.
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I don’t have a problem with this.
I don’t see it as any different from “Paid Advertisement” material that you see in travel magazines that are laid out to look like editorial content. No big deal… although the term “paid advertisement” might actually be clearer than “sponsored post” because most readers are used to that term, right?
Also, personally I don’t feel they should have authors’ bylines on them since they are essentially ads, aren’t they? and again, we are not used to seeing writers’ names on ads. If you want a name, then the name should be the name of the company sponsoring it. Just like the Paid Advertisements in the travel mags… they always have a line somewhere saying sponsored by the Department of Antigua Tourism or whatever.↵ -
I don’t have any issue with sponsored posts, other than that they really should be clearly labelled as such (much in the same way that good newspapers mark sponsored content that is laid out as if it were part of the newspaper as “advertisement”).
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Awesome – thanks for all the comments everyone. It seems most loyal readers have no problem with sponsored posts, but would prefer that they be written by ghost writers / the company buying the ad – no problem from my perspective; more time to write about stuff that interests me!
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agreed, thanks for the feedback everyone. as for using a ghost writer, the more i think about it, the more i think tim and myself should be writing the sponsored posts. after all, if all we’re doing is just re-printing an advertisement, that adds little of BNT’s own perspective to the product/service. i think it’s ultimately more interesting to ourselves (and the readers) when we give it our own spin and make it an entertaining read.
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Hey Ian – I’m out of the mountains and back in range of a wireless signal, as you could probably guess, so shoot me a mail with whatever articles need some love.
Should we put our own unique spin on the ads? I dunno…this comment by Anon. rang true to me:
I was put off by the “Can You “SideStep†An Expensive Plane Ticket?†article because it was an advertising piece actually written by a BNT writer/editor. I feel it compromises the independant voice of both BNT and the writer.
Truth be told, I’ve had editors question my integrity after noticing that I wrote some sponsored posts. Yes, we can add some entertainment and perspective by writing the posts ourselves, but is it really worth our time and effort?
Maybe. I’m not sold though. Isn’t it great that we can have a n open, public discussion about this! Thanks to our great readers – you guys rock!
-Tim
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