Disclosed Sponsored Features in Health and Food Trade

Every link in this work carries rel=sponsored and passes no ranking signal, by design and by my instruction to the publisher. Across the last four programmes a single trade feature returned between 400 and 2,600 referral sessions in its first 60 days, along with a measurable rise in branded search over the eight weeks after. That is what the line item is defended on. If ranking value is what you are buying, this is the wrong budget line and the digital PR engagement is the right conversation. Where these run: Irish and UK trade first, because that is where the person who signs your contract actually reads. Grocery and retail buyer titles for food and drink, clinical weeklies for hospital consultants, community pharmacy press for OTC and adherence products, formulation and regulatory titles for ingredient and device suppliers, and the Irish business and technology press when the audience is an investor or a founder rather than a practitioner. Consumer nationals only when the product is genuinely consumer and the budget can carry a national health rate card, which starts well above what most teams have been told. Disclosure, which is not negotiable: The ASAI Code requires a marketing communication to be identifiable as one before it is read, not after. The label goes at the top, in the publisher's house style, and it stays there. Titles that offer to run the piece unlabelled come off my list, and you will be told which ones offered, because a publisher who will hide a paid feature from a reader will hide other things from you. The writing: I write from your material and one interview, submit to the commercial editor, and take their line edits. It reads like the title, not like your deck. Product mentions are limited to what the argument needs. In health and medtech every claim is checked against the EU Register, the HPRA product information or the device instructions for use before submission, because an overstated claim in a paid feature is the one a competitor screenshots and forwards to a regulator. What is measured: GA4 referral sessions and assisted conversions tagged per placement. Branded query volume in Search Console for the eight weeks either side. Time on page from the publisher's own analytics, which most trade titles will share if it is asked for at contract stage, so I ask at contract stage. And a fixed set of category questions run through the main assistants before publication and 60 days after, to see whether the piece is cited when a buyer asks a machine instead of a search box. That last one is imperfect and it is reported as directional, not as a target. Not included: No media buying beyond the placement. No display or programmatic. No newsletter sponsorship management. No renegotiating your existing agency's rate card. No follow links. I also will not write a sponsored feature attacking a named competitor: trade editors remember it, and it costs you the next three placements. Who this is not for: Teams whose real objective is a link and who intend to ask the publisher for a followed one after signature. Brands with no proprietary data, customer evidence or clinical position, because paid space amplifies whatever you already have to say and at rate card prices nothing reads expensively as nothing. Companies mid-regulatory-review, where anything published becomes discoverable. What you receive: The rate card and my read on whether it is worth paying, the drafted feature, the publisher's edits, the live URL, and a one-page memo at 60 days saying whether I would buy that placement again. About a third of the time the answer is no, and that memo is the part of this engagement that saves the most money.