Advertise on VivreAthènes.com
If you want to target a French-speaking public visiting Greece or French expatriates living in Greece, we are THE site to go to.
While maintaining a strong editorial line, we offer advertisers several formulas adapted to their objectives and budgets. I let you discover our site(statistics, readership, content) and the formulas(advertorials, directory, banners, affiliations) that we offer in our
MEDIAKIT
. You can also contact us by email.
Partnerships and advertisements… in all transparency, we tell you everything about our commercial policy!
Sophie and Laure in a street of Psyri
Yves Grosfils
We launched Living Athens in April 2017. And how far we have come since then! Our site is growing, developing and above all, what makes us happiest is that it attracts more and more readers every month. Loyalists of the first hour, newcomers to Athens, tourists passing through, lovers of Greece… you are always more numerous to follow us. And that’s what motivates us every day.
There are two of us (Sophie and Laure) and we both devote a lot of time and energy to this site. There is of course the “visible” work: the publication of new articles. We publish an average of four per week. And you have to know that between the research of a theme, the visit on the spot, the taking of pictures, the writing of the article itself then its setting on line, the creation of the visuals, the writing of the practical information, that takes us time. Each new publication takes about one day to complete. But there is also all the “invisible” work: the technical part, the update of the old articles, the creation of the visuals, the meetings with the partners, the administrative side (it is clearly not what we prefer ), the time spent answering our readers’ messages (that on the other hand, we like), etc.
We do this site with a lot of pleasure and enthusiasm… and we are greatly rewarded because we get great traffic. Thanks to all of you! Thank you.
But now we would also like to be able to live from it. Because we each work full time for Vivre Athènes… and all work deserves a salary, right?
That’s why we have inserted on the site :
- Advertorials: partners offer to present their products and/or services in exchange for a financial consideration
- Affiliation links in some articles or on the home page of the site (Booking for example): if you click on these links from our site, this allows us to receive a small commission when you make a purchase from this partner.
Wondering how it works? How do we choose our partners? Can you follow our recommendations while the article is sponsored?
Continuing to keep your trust is ESSENTIAL to us. So, we explain it all to you, in all transparency. And if it is not clear, if you have other questions, do not hesitate to contact us, we will answer you with pleasure.
Infomercials. We like = we accept. We are not convinced = we refuse
From time to time, we write sponsored articles. We reassure you right away, the proportion of these items is marginal. To date, we have written only 25 advertorials and there are over 400 articles on the Living Athens website. So sponsored articles are a very small part of our content .
Secondly, and this is important to us, we ALWAYS mention at the bottom of the article when it is an advertorial or when we have benefited from an in-kind contribution. That way at least it’s clear to everyone. We are perfectly transparent.
Then, THE essential question is: do we keep our independence even when we are paid to write an article? The answer is, without any possible ambiguity: YES. Why? Well, first of all, because we freely choose the partners we want to work with. Often, they are companies/people/places that we have tried on a personal basis. We liked the offer/product/service, we wanted to tell you about it.
For example, Sophie went toRosy’s Hotel in Agistri. A favorite! She wanted to introduce this little paradise to the readers of Vivre Athènes. At the same time, the owners of Rosy’s wanted to be able to address a French-speaking clientele. Banco, we wrote an article. Everyone wins:
- readers who benefit from quality information,
- us because we are paid,
- the hotel because it has a new way to address the French-speaking clientele and benefits from a visibility on the Internet in French.
Another example: Laure has moved twice since she arrived in Athens. Each time, she used the Celebrity moving company. She was very pleased with their services and thought that newcomers to Greece might be interested in this information. So she offered a sponsored article to Celebrity.
In short, we only work with partners we like. And we ALWAYS test their offer before accepting. In particular, we have several partnerships with guides who give tours of Athens in French. Each time, we made a tour with them before writing the article dedicated to them to be sure of the quality of the visits. So yes, we have seen the Acropolis dozens of times, we have traveled around Athens on foot, by electric bike or by Segway… and we love it!
Since January 2018, Living Athens has experienced significant growth. We are starting to be solicited for sponsored publications. We always keep the same philosophy. We test and see if we like it. It takes time, a lot of time (the invisible work we mentioned earlier), but it is fundamental.
We have already declined advertorial proposals. Thus, last May, we tested a tasting of Greek wines. It was a nice idea and we thought our readers might be interested. The experience was bof-bof. Nothing horrible but nothing extraordinary either. As we left the tasting, we looked at each other: ” would you recommend this address to friends who would come to visit you in Athens? “. ” No, and you? “. ” I don’t like it either “. So, stop, we politely refused the offer that was made to us (by the way, if you know of a nice establishment that offers Greek wine tastings, we’re interested ).
We have also been contacted for “high-end” guided tours of Athens. We studied the offer that this agency proposed and we found that it was expensive (really very expensive) for the proposed service. We were not convinced of the quality-price ratio. So, there too we said no.
In addition, we always write the article in our own words. Here again, we remain independent. We care. OUR integrity and YOUR trust are worth much more to us than the money we are offered to write an article.
Conclusion: whether it is a sponsored article or not, it always stays true to our feeling.
If you are interested in an advertorial in these conditions of respect of the community Living Athens, we invite you to contact us at the following email address to discuss your project: laure[at]vivreathenes.com or Sophie[at]vivreathenes.com
Affiliation: only with trusted partners
You can easily understand that with such a policy of sponsored articles, we have not made a fortune so far (but maybe it will come, who knows?). In the meantime, we had to find other resources to finance the costs related to the site (maintenance and hosting among others). That’s why we have set up affiliate links.
What is it? Well, for example, the Booking insert on our homepage. If you click on the Booking links from Living in Athens and book a hotel, we charge a commission. Not very important (about 5% of the total amount of your reservation), but it’s fine with us. And most importantly, YOU DON’T PAY MORE. Whether you open the Booking website from Vivre Athènes, Google or other, you pay exactly the same price.
Likewise, we have an affiliate program with Rental Cars for car rentals and with Ferry Hopper for boat reservations to the Greek islands.
How were these partners chosen? Well, for Booking, Skyscanner and Rental Cars, we use them regularly for our personal use and we find it very convenient to be able to compare the different offers at a glance. And we know that these partners are reliable.
For the ferries, it was more complicated. It’s not easy to find an online platform that is in French, with a clear interface, easy to use and without additional fees. We tested a first affiliation but we were not satisfied to 100% because the reservations to go from island to island were not easy. So we searched, tested and found a good company that met all our criteria. We also made test by our relatives for their trips this summer, they confirmed that our choice was the good one. So that’s how we got an affiliation with Ferry Hopper.
We also have a partnership with Welcome PickUps, a Greek start-up that organizes transfers from the Athens airport to the city center or the port of Piraeus. And there, I can say to you that we tested many companies of cabs or private transport before finding Welcome PickUps. It took us several months of testing before we found a company that met all our criteria.
What is important to us is that these affiliate programs have NO ADDITIONAL COSTS ADDITIONAL COSTS FOR OUR READERS. By clicking on the affiliate links, you don’t spend any more and you allow us to keep this site alive. Not bad, right?
If you are interested in an affiliated promotion of your services, always in these conditions of respect of the community Living Athens, we invite you to contact us at the following email address to discuss your project: laure[at]vivreathenes.com or Sophie[at]vivreathenes.com
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There, we have told you everything. If you have any questions, ask us and we’ll be happy to answer them (we told you, we like to talk to our readers).
Sophie and Laure
In order to know the pricing and to have more information about the solutions we propose, do not hesitate to contact us.