Adding A Buy Button

A friend of mine recently went to see journalist George Packer reading from his new book, a biography of American diplomat Richard Holbrooke. 

I wanted to know more about the book, so I looked for a review and found one in The New York Times Book Review.

The first thing I noticed at the top of the review page was a BUY BOOK button with a few choices for how to purchase, plus a line of explainer copy. 

The explainer copy offered transparency into affiliate relationships between the publisher and each of the sellers. Clear labelling is a good practice, and also an FTC disclosure requirement.

This little example of shop-ifying book review content is of interest to me because it represents something much bigger, a new source of revenue for publishers, who in the past have relied mainly on advertising placements and reader subscriptions.

When done correctly, the model rewards everyone. Sellers, by getting behind relevant content. Consumers, by providing information-based marketing. Publishers, by monetizing content without having to fight ad and pixel blocking.

A recent study from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford (reported in e-Marketer) shows that over 30% of news publishers include e-commerce such as affiliate links among their revenue streams. This is smaller than Display Ads (~80%), Subscriptions (~80%), Native Ads (~70%) and Events (~50%) but it appears to be part of a successful mix.

The end of advertising? An experimental incremental? どちどち？

I think it’s here to stay and likely to keep growing.