We are initiating a new pilot program on CoffeeGeek to introduce limited commission generating links for some of the products we review and write about.
This policy change has been a long time coming. Yet it remains something that weighs very heavily on me, as the Senior Editor for this website, and the person ultimately responsible for all the content, and the unbiased nature of what we try to do here. However, with the evolution and changes to how content creators can expect to generate a sustainable income, after resisting this change for half a decade, I’ve had to finally adopt and adapt to this.
For 2024 and beyond, we are starting a new pilot program, working with select manufacturers (no vendors) to use commission-generating links whenever we review or write about their products on CoffeeGeek. Every manufacturer we contract with this new policy is very clearly informed the use of their commission links has no bearing or influence at all on any of the content we write, or the products we decide to cover, on CoffeeGeek.
This policy change is fully detailed on our Terms and Conditions Page, but I also wanted to give some context and history here. Feel free to read either or both for more details, and how I came to this decision and how it will influence our website in the future.
Background on CoffeeGeek’s Avoidance of Affiliate Links
For the 23+ years CoffeeGeek has been online, we’ve steadfastly avoided and refused to participate in direct vendor and manufacturer affiliate links, or direct commission sales schemes for any product we’ve listed, written about, featured or reviewed. We have done this to avoid any perception of bias in our product reviews, and also because we did not want our readers to be under the impression we were solely covering products and services for the purposes of generating income.
There has been one exception to this blanket “no affiliate links policy”: Amazon. Back in 2011, we started a pilot program with very strict rules: we would link to our newly created Amazon Affiliate link in a product review only if a) we bought the product ourselves, and b) none of our active advertisers sold the product (if they did, we linked to their product sales pages directly, with no commission generating links used).
In 2014, we amended this policy to a) products purchased directly by CoffeeGeek or b) products supplied to us by a manufacturer directly. We still gave priority links to our active site supporters who sold those products, again, with no income-generating url links used.
Amazon was a good fit within our site ethics policies because Amazon had no expectations of positive or negative reviews, indeed, they had no involvement at all, other than providing our website a place to point people to if they wanted to buy a product we reviewed or wrote about. When independent vendors decide to give out commission-generating links to reviewers, there are often implied and direct expectations of positive reviews, in just about any product category, not just the coffee and espresso world.
Even when we did use Amazon links in our reviews, guides, how tos, and blog articles, we still provided direct links to a) manufacturers, b) manufacturer sales pages, and c) our active banner advertiser supporter pages that sell those products. All three of these link types were straight URLs, no commission-generating links were used. We did this so you, our reader, would have a choice and range of where to buy the products we review and write about. One link on the page made us income. The others did not.
There was another part of this ethics policy we practiced: if a vendor supplied us with a product for review and coverage, we would not use our Amazon affiliate link in the content published on that product for one full year. All the “where to buy” links would point directly to the manufacturer, and exclusively to the product supplier. And these links were direct vendor links; they contained no commission-generating cues. We made nothing off these reviews for the first year after publication.
Further, I was determined to never post “click bait / affiliate link only” content just for the sake of making income for our website. Any content we produced had to first and foremost be of interest and newsworthy to our readership. It would also have to be about products that we’ve had a chance to review and evaluate.
For the first 20 years of CoffeeGeek’s existence, these policies worked well for us because we were able to make a sustainable income as a website from traditional Internet advertising models: banner and graphical advertisements.
However, this source of income is drying up. More and more specialty coffee vendors and manufacturers are moving towards spending their Internet advertising budget on giants like Meta and Google. Others believe banner advertisements are no longer as effective as they used to be (this may be true for many websites, but our website still enjoys industry leading click through rates and most of our self-hosted banner ads cannot be blocked by ad-block style systems).
Meanwhile, just about every other influencer website, Youtube channel, Instagram account and TikTok account covering specialty coffee had moved to the 100% commission link system. This started about ten years ago, but in the past five years, it has become the norm. It is very rare that any website or social media channel that reviews coffee and espresso equipment has any link that does not generate some income for the content creator. CoffeeGeek was, seemingly, the lone holdout on this kind of policy.
Commission Links on CoffeeGeek in 2024
Even though our website enjoys some of the industry’s highest click through rates for our traditional banners and graphical advertisements (all sold directly to specialty coffee businesses: we do not use Google or Meta’s ad programs here), over the years, the number of vendors who use our website to connect with you, our readers, has dwindled. It is at the point, in 2024, where CoffeeGeek is no longer sustainable. As the Senior Editor, I had to finally consider a change I’ve long put off: using commission-generating links (and not just Amazon links) in some of our content, going forward.
I’ve thought long and hard about this. I know, from past experience, that some (certainly not all) third party vendors have certain expectations if you enrol in their commission generating link program. Namely, they expect positive content. If the content creator doesn’t provide this positive, promotional content, they will not maintain the creator’s commission program, or reduce their commission rate (yes, this is a bit inside baseball, but it’s the main reason I’ve avoided doing vendor commission linking as a blanket policy).
Manufacturers are a bit different. Most do not have expectations of positive content if you enrol in their commission-generating link programs. Of course, they expect the products they make will garner positive reviews, but it is rarely a requirement to be part of their programs. Again, just like vendors, not all of them are like this, but my own experience within the industry is, most do operate this way.
After a lot of discussion and debate, both within my own team, and with select manufacturers, we’ll be going forward in a test pilot program enrolling in three manufacturers’ commission sales programs. Those companies are Lelit, Shark Ninja, and Breville. The first you’ll see on CoffeeGeek is for Ninja.
We selected Lelit because they do not sell their machines on Amazon, and have overhauled their direct sales model in the US for 2024 and beyond. We selected Shark Ninja because their direct sales channels provide the best prices and warranty services. And, we selected Breville because we have a very long working history with Breville on this website, and never once have they a) had expectations of any kind of positive review (indeed, they’ve taken some of our past criticisms of products we reviewed to improve their products with updates); and b) continue to be one of our premier site supporter and advertisers, even though we’ve been less than kind to some of their products in our reviews.
For these same reasons, we may be also adding Baratza to this list in the near future.
Our new policy still will not be applicable to third party vendors. For the foreseeable future, the only commission-generating links will be for manufacturer-direct sales pages, and only if the manufacturer agrees to our “no influence, no guaranteed positive review” policy that we share with them. If a manufacturer does not agree to those terms, we will not participate in their commission links program.
What This Means For Our Readers
Your trust in all the content we publish on CoffeeGeek is absolutely paramount to me. We spent 23 years earning and maintaining your trust, and it is one of the most valuable things I feel I have earned in several decades.
I hope this rather long post reassures you that, going forward with this new limited and curated commission links program will result in no content editorial changes to CoffeeGeek. We will still call out companies when they can do better. We will still be brutally honest in all our reviews. We will still write everything with the mission of “we fight for the consumer”, providing you with the best information we can to make informed and sensible choices in the coffee and espresso equipment you are considering.
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