One growth system for CNET’s video, SEO and commerce teams

I combined three sources that hadn’t been planned together: what people search for on YouTube, what they search for on Amazon, and the price and commission of each product. That gave the video team themes and products with real buying intent, and I made the case for a new series: the best Amazon finds, often under a set price or within one category.

Its views were modest next to CNET’s big reviews. But viewers engaged, clicked through to Amazon and bought, which made the series a dependable affiliate revenue lever, so the team kept making it.

With CNET’s Design, Customer Experience and SEO teams, I ran A/B tests on how review and comparison pages present their picks: a clear winner for each need, a score, the bottom line, pros and cons, and one buy button.

The winning design became the standard across CNET’s review and comparison pages.

I matched each video to the pages it plays on and tuned on-site autoplay for play rate, while planning video across YouTube, CNET’s own pages, search and social instead of YouTube alone.

The higher play rate on CNET’s pages supported a seven-figure pre-roll ad deal.

Amazon lets publishers place recommendations inside its own search results. At CNET it was a small experiment. I ran it as a program: the planning engine picked the searches worth winning, a seasonal calendar timed them, and writers focused on the categories that paid.

Big shopping events reward the publisher that’s ready first. I led the data-driven deals strategy: what readers would shop, which deals to cover, pages published and ranking before the rush, and prices kept fresh through the event.