Welcome to another installment of “Here is a new amazing Grow feature!”

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!

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 freewall/paywall schema. You can sleep soundly while locking content, knowing it can still be found 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.

Hey Grow users! How does an increase in signups sound?

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 at the top under “General Settings.”)

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 Mediavine Dashboard. 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!

If you’re running Grow — and if you’re not, we’re telling you, you’re missing out — then you’re likely familiar with its awesome Recommended Content feature.

Recommended, or personalized, content provides users with a superior browsing experience, encouraging them to authenticate and consent to personalized ads.

Grow widgets will display content from your site that the user is most likely to read based on their favorites, shares and content they’ve clicked on previously.

But what if you want to exclude a specific page, or pages, from your Recommended Content widget, for whatever reason? Well, good news from the Grow team:

The ability to exclude specific Recommended Content pages is here!

The newest feature of Grow will empower our publishers to exclude posts and pages themselves to feel just a bit more in control of the content that displays on the Recommended Content widget.

How Does it Work?

A new search bar within the Recommended Content settings in your Grow Dashboard allows you to search for individual posts and pages, with the option to click exclude.

That’s it! Just one click and you can consider them gone.

How Do I Enable This?

Find the Recommended Content exclusion search under the “Recommended Content” settings in your Grow Dashboard.

Simple as that.

When & Why Should I Use This (or Not)?

The terrific feedback our publishers provided — which led Mediavine to create this feature — shed light on various reasons you might want to exclude specific posts.

Perhaps it’s as simple as noticing a particular post showing in your Recommended Content widget that you don’t think is your best work.

Maybe it’s an old post that you no longer wish to promote or you feel that other article options might look better inside those widgets.

NOTE: By default, we exclude homepages, as well as About, Contact, and Privacy Policy pages, as they follow the common permalink structure.

Whatever your reason might be, you now have the option to exclude posts. But whether you should actually do so is another story.

The articles you’re seeing in your Recommended Content widget may seem random to you, but they are there for a reason.

Whatever you as the publisher think of these selections, they could be clicked on by your readers more than you think, which is the whole goal of our Recommended Content feature.

That extra pageview and a higher CTR can mean a nice boost in overall ad revenue, along with your metrics in Google Analytics. Plus, the more that you allow the Recommended Content widget free access to your posts, the better Grow learns your website and its audience.

Grow uses AI and machine learning to recommend content that readers will engage with, and with more data to work with, will do that better and better over time.

So while the option to exclude specific posts is great to have available, remember what Recommended Content is and why it’s there. Also remember that we’re already automatically excluding things like your Privacy Policy or About page. So unless the post in question is just dumb and you have no desire for anyone to ever see it, you’re only hurting yourself by excluding it.

Why is My Recommended Content Sometimes Unrelated?

This is a frequently asked question. Are you wondering why a specific post is being recommended, even though it’s seemingly unrelated to the page you’re on?

This is because Mediavine’s Grow Recommended Content widget recommends material that your users are likely to enjoy.

Related content engines across the web and other media are using different criteria to suggest options based on the content being consumed.

Be sure to read our in-depth explanation about the difference between the two and why Recommended Content and Related Content aren’t the same!

Can You Include a Post That You Previously Excluded?

If you change your mind and decide that you actually do want that old post to show? No problem!

You’ll also find an “Include” button in the search bar where the “Exclude” button once was after a particular post is excluded. Click on that and you’re good to go.

That post will immediately be eligible for the Recommended Content widget again as soon as you include it. If you don’t see it right away, don’t worry.

The robots may still be showing it to your users, boosting that CTR a little at a time. Good robots.

We’ve talked at length about first-party data (authenticated traffic) and how Grow helps publishers harness it through a value exchange — offering enhanced user experiences to incentivize readers to log in.

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 it’s Mediavine’s solution to the impending cookiepocalypse a.k.a. the demise of third-party cookies.

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.

We’ve been on this Grow journey together for several months now with both the Mediavine team and our publishers/beta testers working to design and develop features ahead of the demise of the third-party cookie.

The Mediavine Engineering team really relies on our beta testers to provide valuable feedback that guide the Grow roadmap. (If you’re not already opted in for Grow beta, it’s available right now in your Mediavine Dashboard!)

If you are already a beta tester, you might find that Grow has a new look (that’s producing some great results!)

After many months with the initial design, today we’re proud to debut a brand-new grid layout as well as share with you a number of other updates and features.

I’m going to give you a rundown of everything Grow currently has to offer, starting with our latest and greatest:

The New Grid View

With the latest update to Grow, we added a new grid view as a default option for the bookmarks and search results pages. This new grid view is so beautiful (humble brag) that it is now the default when a reader lands on those UIs.

Users are able to toggle from the grid view to the list view, and it will remember their preference.

Tab Navigation Menu

We also added a new navigation menu that includes tabs at the top as a header. This allows users to get to their bookmarks or search more quickly. It also allows users to log out via the account tab. This will eventually become an account management page.

With the active tab design, which highlights either bookmarks or search, this menu also makes it more obvious which tab you are on.

Reducing Screen Real Estate

With the addition of the new active tabbed menu, we’re able to remove some large words (Bookmarks, Search, Site Name) and unused screen real estate.

We removed the existing header and moved the search bar to be full width and inline. We also kept your site name visible but condensed that space and added it to the inside of the search bar.

These leave more room for your bookmarks, search results and beautiful images to be front and center.

New Widget Design

The new widget unveiling from the end of October 2020 continues to boast some impressive data. Not only is the new widget 40% smaller, but it also has 5x more shares, 50% more favorites and 2x more sign-ups.

All of the data aside, it has just two main buttons instead of the previous design which included five buttons clustered together. You can now click to reveal the other Grow features (Bookmarks, Search and social sharing).

Recommended Content

The launch of Recommended Content widgets was a big feature release for Grow, and we know a lot of publishers were really excited to add the three widget placements to their site.

These widgets use machine learning to recommend content for logged in and logged out users. If you haven’t given them a try yet, you still can. Head on over to your Mediavine Dashboard and enable them today!

Save Button in Create Cards (and now WPRM Cards!)

Another big request and a feature we knew would be huge is the save button in Recipe and How to Cards. We knew we wanted to implement this button into Create so we went to work and made it happen.

This button helps encourage readers to save the recipe or how to into their bookmarks which in turn encourages them to sign up. The new save button has a 3x increase in favorites!

We made developer documentation available and WP Recipe Maker now also has the save button available.

We Hear You!

We’ve been listening to your feedback, and we’re constantly making necessary adjustments. In addition to these adjustments, we’re running A/B tests to gather data about the best possible performance.

Grow is still very much a work in progress, and the Grow that you see today will likely look vastly different in the coming months, so keep an eye out for future blog posts and updates!

We wouldn’t be able to build this product without your valuable thoughts and feedback.

We’re excited to announce the launch of a new feature for Mediavine publishers running Grow and our WordPress plugin Create: the Recipe and How-To Save Button!

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.