Shopify is partnering with BuzzFeed to make it easy to showcase your products to BuzzFeed’s editors.
The new BuzzFeed channel allows you to easily tag your products for BuzzFeed editors to search, find, and consider featuring in its campaigns, product lists and onsite content.
With its unique marketing style, BuzzFeed can help you reach its audience of over 200 million readers, potentially connecting you with new customers and boosting sales.
How the integration works
The BuzzFeed channel is currently only available to US merchants selling to US customers in USD.
Simply install the BuzzFeed channel on your Shopify account, select the products you’d like BuzzFeed’s editors to discover, and set your commission rate— that’s it!
Once a BuzzFeed writer has chosen your product to feature, a unique link is created for BuzzFeed to embed in its content or product listing ads promoted on Facebook. The link drives customers directly to your online store, tracking attribution for BuzzFeed sales, and organizes a monthly payout of commissions after you’ve received the customer’s payment.
Order fulfillment and customer information is provided upon purchase, just like your other Shopify store sales. All sales driven by BuzzFeed will seamlessly collect commissions from you, so all you have to do is coordinate the fulfillment of orders.
The BuzzFeed team will select products that best engage its audience. Its team of expert writers will craft content to align with the mention of your product. Similar to working with writers and publications, the content surrounding your product will be at the discretion of the BuzzFeed team.
But isn’t BuzzFeed a content site?
BuzzFeed’s editors are master curators and storytellers; by mining visitor data for trends and shopping preferences, they can package your products as compelling content. With its dedicated marketing team, BuzzFeed can then match customers looking for products with its captivating stories.
According to Ben Kaufman, Head of BuzzFeed’s Product Labs, this new Shopify integration gives merchants the opportunity to "have their products featured by BuzzFeed in a curated, distributed, and story-told way.”
"We’re leveraging the scale and reach of a media company to act like a retailer." - Ben Kaufman, Head of BuzzFeed’s Product Labs
📢 Podcast: listen to our behind the scenes interview with Ben Kaufman
The benefit of BuzzFeed’s new channel
BuzzFeed is one of the largest publishers in the world and it's already driving sales for hundreds of brands with its viral social media content and famous knack for creating easily shareable lists.
BuzzFeed’s writers can make a product go as viral as its content. Products are gobbled up quickly, and in huge numbers by its highly-desirable viewers, more than 50% of whom are between the ages of 18 and 34.
This new integration makes it easy for BuzzFeed’s writers to share your products with its massive audience, helping to grow your customer base.
How is this different from traditional affiliate marketing?
Unlike traditional affiliate marketing, there are no minimum commissions, making BuzzFeed a more affordable partner. You’re also working directly with BuzzFeed which means there’s no affiliate network playing the middleman, which means more profit for you.
For most store owners, it can be challenging to find the time and budget to create ads and marketing assets to promote products. With the BuzzFeed channel, its writers do the heavy lifting featuring your products seamlessly inside its content promoted to millions of readers and viewers.
How to get started
Simply log into Shopify and click the plus (+) icon next to Sales Channels and select BuzzFeed, or visit the Shopify App Store for more details.
To sell on BuzzFeed with Shopify, you’ll need to be on the Shopify $29/mth plan or higher, and have the Online Store channel. You must also be located in and ship to the United States, and sell in USD currency.
As always, the Shopify support team is available 24/7 to help you with any questions.
No one else is integrating selling into their content as effectively as BuzzFeed and its highly-engaged audience. So being able to put your products in front of that crowd? In a word, Shopify is buzzed.