The Guardian is bringing its product suggestion website, The Filter, stateside – a 12 months after its U.Okay. launch – because it appears to be like to push more durable into commerce income.
The transfer displays the writer’s aim to develop commerce into a much bigger slice of its income pie, alongside advertisements and membership donations. Digital reader income grew practically 22% to £107.3 million in its fiscal 12 months ending in March 2025. Digital promoting income grew about 3% from £62 million to £64 million, in line with its newest earnings.
The Filter’s U.S. launch places the writer up towards established rivals like The New York Instances’ Wirecutter and New York Journal’s The Strategist. The Guardian plans to distinguish itself by attempting to show its editorial values right into a commerce benefit and lean arduous into moral consumption and sustainability, in line with Nick Mokey, the newly appointed editor of Filter US.
The Filter supplies buying suggestions, in addition to recommendations on which merchandise to keep away from, and thrift, repair and repurpose objects. The Filter US will deal with three principal verticals at launch, together with residence (reminiscent of kitchen and tub), journey gear and wellness. The Filter US will increase to different verticals (in addition to article sorts and kinds) based mostly on viewers suggestions, search engine marketing knowledge and insights from retail companions, Mokey famous.
“The start line is what’s been taking off on Filter UK, after which getting extra knowledge from what takes off within the US,” he stated.
Since its launch final October, The Filter UK has pushed 62 million web page views and round eight million clicks to retailers, which has led to a “important quantity in gross sales,” in line with Mokey. The Guardian declined to share particular gross sales figures.
Publishers are doubling down on affiliate commerce companies as conventional advert income streams have turn into much less dependable, in line with 4 e-commerce analysts who spoke with Digiday. (The IAB revised its 2025 U.S. advert spend forecast to five.7% development – down from its preliminary forecast of seven.3% – citing tariff considerations and broader financial headwinds.)
In the meantime, the expansion of generative AI buying instruments – reminiscent of Amazon’s Rufus and OpenAI’s ChatGPT – would possibly present a possibility for publishers stepping into this area, with individuals craving curated, private product suggestions for sure, big-ticket objects. Conde Nast, Hearst and The New York Instances have already been tapped by Amazon for AI licensing of their life-style content material to feed its buying assistant Rufus. Affiliate commerce income is scalable and performance-based and fewer depending on the advert market, the e-commerce analysts stated.
“The launch of devoted product suggestion websites is publishers’ strategic protection and offensive towards the foundational menace of LLMs and [Google’s] AI Overviews, that are actively disrupting natural discovery. It’s not simply an financial crucial to transform advert impressions to commerce income – it’s a very important transfer to ascertain content material quotation authority,” stated Erin Killian-Kristyniak, vp of worldwide partnerships at online marketing platform Partnerize.
Different e-commerce execs stated this technique is one among survival for a lot of publishers.
“Wirecutter and The Strategist confirmed that readers really belief editorial voices relating to buying selections, and that belief converts. For large information retailers with thousands and thousands of readers, it is sensible to show a part of that viewers towards evergreen shopping for guides that hold producing visitors and gross sales lengthy after a information story dies down,” stated Phurba Sherpa, director of e-commerce at luxurious watch retailer Wrist Aficionado. Publishers additionally get extra viewers perception knowledge from commerce-focused verticals, which may help inform technique in different areas, he famous.
However publishers must watch out about wading into this area, Sherpa pressured. “The problem is ensuring the suggestions keep credible. If it appears to be like prefer it’s all about commissions, readers will tune out. Those who get this proper will deal with commerce as an actual service to their viewers, not simply one other income stream,” he stated.
Mokey stated The Filter’s first precedence is serving The Guardian’s viewers – even when which means passing on among the most profitable product classes. It’s a trade-off the workforce is prepared to take, he stated.
Like its rivals, The Filter will generate profits from affiliate hyperlinks – by an association with affiliate community Skimlinks, which has offers with quite a few retailers.
“We don’t must strike out particular person relationships with tons of and hundreds of outlets. All the pieces goes [through] them,” Mokey stated.
The Filter is launching with a slim full-time workforce of three, the identical measurement as Filter UK. Along with Mokey, The Filter US may have a photograph editor, editorial coordinator and commissioning editor.
The Filter’s sustainability dedication additionally means samples (devices, home equipment, clothes) which might be despatched from producers for editors to check will both be returned after testing or donated.
The brand new vertical will depend on a community of contributors, tapping specialists to check merchandise. For instance, one among The Filter US’s check articles checked out 17 completely different rice cookers. The workforce introduced in Kiki Aranita, the proprietor of a Hawaiian restaurant, who cooks “hundreds of kilos of rice,” to evaluation them, Mokey stated.
“We’re going to cowl so many verticals, there’s no method we will have in-house specialists on all of them,” Mokey stated. The Filter US will publish 30-40 guides a month, he stated.
Constructing a “layer of insulation”
Google algorithm modifications over the previous few years have precipitated complications for publishers’ affiliate income methods. With AI Overviews, customers typically get product recommendations immediately from Google’s AI Summaries, bypassing the click-through to publishers fully.
However regardless of all of the gripes from publishers about Google referral visitors challenges this 12 months, the share of visitors from Google search has grown for The Filter UK, although the Guardian declined to share by how a lot. Visitors from Google makes up greater than 20% of the general visitors to The Filter.
In the end, most of The Filter’s visitors is coming from the Guardian’s personal homepage, which represents about 60% of total visitors to The Filter. This helps present “a buffer” towards Google referral modifications, in line with Mokey.
The Filter US is banking on an analogous stream of direct visitors from the Guardian’s homepage as its UK version. This provides The Filter a “layer of insulation,” towards the volatility of search, Mokey stated.
Mokey stated affiliate commerce companies can succeed throughout Google referral visitors challenges, if executed the best method: leaning into private, voicey and fun-to-read items.
“Individuals need private suggestions…. If you wish to go purchase a $5 iPhone cable [right now], I completely imagine that somebody would Google ‘iPhone cable,’ get the AI Overview, click on the highest consequence after anyone paragraph and say, buy executed,” Mokey stated. “Nonetheless, for another product classes… [such as] our greatest blenders, the highest choose is $500. I don’t assume most individuals will probably be glad with a two-paragraph abstract earlier than spending $500 on a kitchen equipment.”
That additionally means giving behind-the-scenes appears to be like into the testing, like a smoothie blowing up within the check kitchen, Mokey stated. Lots of that may dwell in The Filter US publication, which can exit weekly on Fridays, beginning October 3.
“The human contact just isn’t going away,” Mokey stated. “We’re completely going to do the testing to again that up, however we’re not going to fill the web page with benchmarks and Excel spreadsheets. I don’t assume that’s what most individuals need.”
