Grow by Mediavine for Food Bloggers
Grow is a tool created by Mediavine to help publishers engage with their audiences and increase their ad earnings. I started using it on my food blog, Broken Oven Baking, around January 2022 (before I became a Mediavine publisher).
As they continue to grow the platform (pun intended), I’m going to give you an overview of what it is, and how you as a publisher and your readers might use it.
Quick Clarification
If you’ve heard of Grow Social, it is not the same as Grow. Before NerdPress acquired Hubbub from Mediavine, it was called Grow Social. It’s a WordPress plugin used for sharing blog posts across social media and can be used in addition to Grow.
What is Grow?
Grow is a free software that lets publishers engage with their readers while also collecting user data. It was created by Mediavine, but any publisher can use it!
Its features are meant to help publishers grow their email lists and get readers to click through more content, which are things that aren’t always easy for food bloggers.
When readers sign up and use Grow, Mediavine is able to collect data about them, which helps them serve ads that are relevant to the reader.
How Readers Interact With Grow
Before we jump into publisher features, I think it’s important to understand how your readers may interact with Grow.
Readers can sign up for Grow and use it for free. There are a few main ways readers can use Grow, and they’re quite simple!
This is the Grow widget that’ll pop up on your website if you’re running Grow.
When readers click on the widget, it’ll present options (like Search or Share to Facebook) depending on what you have set up.
1) Bookmarking Posts
Readers can click the heart icon to save posts from your website (and any others), as long as you have the save option set up with Grow. I have a variety of my favorite recipes saved to my own account, including my No-Bake Cheesecake Bites, LadyPearTree’s Marry Me Chicken Tortellini, and But First We Brunch’s Almond Croissants.
2) Site Search
If you have site search turned on in your Grow settings, readers can use the Grow widget to find recipes on your food blog. They should still be able to use your site’s regular search as well!
3) Subscribe to Newsletters
If you set up subscribe forms using Grow, readers will be prompted to sign up for your newsletters. These forms are highlighted for your readers as they scroll through your blog posts and recipe cards. You can even set them up so that your readers can send a recipe post’s link straight to their inbox!
4) Content Recommendations
Readers can get content recommendations in various places throughout your website. In this example, I have a header carousel showing recommended recipes that readers can click on from my cheesecake bites.
Grow for Publishers
Grow’s capabilities have expanded quite a bit since I started using it years ago! There are a lot of features and settings for publishers, but you don’t need to use all of them.
I’ll go into specific details about the settings I use for my food blog in a separate post, but here’s a general overview of what you can do with it.
Email Integrations
Grow integrates with ConvertKit, MailChimp, and MailerLite. If a reader subscribes to your newsletter via a Grow subscribe form, you can set it up so that their information automatically imports into your email provider’s subscriber list.
They’re working on adding more email providers, but they do also integrate with Zapier if you want to use that to set up an automation for this process.
Exclusive Content
To encourage readers to subscribe to your newsletter, you can set up Locked Content Widgets where they need to sign up in order to receive the exclusive piece of content.
Site Search
Grow has created their own site search tool that’s accessible via the Grow widget. It can show readers how many saves different posts have, category names, recently published posts, content recommendations, and a featured category.
Recommended Content
Grow offers quite a few different ways to show readers content recommendations throughout your blog! I personally don’t use most of them for reasons I’ll get into when I show you my settings, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them.
If you turn on content recommendations, a block displaying related blog posts will appear. This can be added to your header bar (like in example 4 above), before your recipe card, below the Grow widget on mobile, and in your sidebar.
Print Pass
Similar to the exclusive content feature, if a reader wants to print a recipe, Print Pass requires them to sign up for your newsletter. This does not require them to sign up for Grow.
Subscribe
This feature is so big it has its own section in your Grow dashboard! You can set up multiple subscribe forms within Grow and have them display throughout your blog posts, pages, and recipe cards.
There are various types of subscribe forms you can create and they all have different functions.
Automailer
If you turn on this feature, every week Grow will auto-curate a newsletter featuring your new & recommended posts and send it out to your subscribers. I personally do not use or recommend the Automailer.
Frequently Asked Questions
No, Grow is different from Grow Social (confusing, I know!). Both were started by Mediavine, but Grow Social was acquired by NerdPress and renamed Hubbub at the end of 2023.
Nope! You can install Grow on your website whether you’re a hobby blogger, working towards ad monetization, or a publisher of a different ad network.
Nowadays, it’s recommended. In the past, if you weren’t a Mediavine publisher, you had to install the script tag manually via your sites’s code. However, in 2023 they released the Grow WordPress plugin to provide a simpler way of installing its script tag and enable category targeting.
No, it doesn’t. Blogs of any niche can use Grow! I’m even using it on this site 😊
Should I Set Up Grow On My Blog?
There are several reasons you might want to use Grow on your food blog.
- The extensive features it offers to you and your readers, as outlined above.
- To monetize with Mediavine’s newest ad network, Journey.
- Journey allows publishers with less than 50,000 sessions (Mediavine’s requirement) to earn with display ads on their website, but you must have Grow running to qualify.
- When a user logs into Grow, it’s considered authenticated traffic because it confirms that they’re a real person. Once they start to bookmark posts or subscribe to your newsletter, Grow gathers more information about them, which is considered first-party data. This data can help advertisers determine which ads are most relevant to the user.
So even if you install Grow and don’t use any of its many features, you may still benefit from it by being able to monetize your site with display ads and collect data that will help combat 3rd-party cookie depreciation.
Ultimately, though, the decision is up to you and what you think is best for you and your readers!
