What even is content-to-commerce?!
A brief explainer
A few times over the last couple weeks, I’ve been asked what this newsletter is about. And each time, I completely stumbled in my response. I’m notoriously bad at elevator pitches—I can’t, for the life of me, tell you what I do for my day job (all you need to know is that I’m an aspiring Barry Diller)—so my inability to describe Delivered is par for the course. That said, it gave rise to some existential questions. What is this newsletter about?!
When I started Delivered about eight months ago, I described it as such:
“Delivered is a free newsletter that covers the intersection of content & commerce. I love the concept of “content-to-commerce,” and the goal of this newsletter is to look at it from all sides: how publishers and independent creators incorporate commerce into their monetization strategies, how retailers use content to drive sales, and how platforms, big and small, keep the ecosystem running.”
That still stands, but I think it would be helpful for you, me, and this newsletter’s existential crisis to explicitly define content-to-commerce and how I think about it.
What is content-to-commerce?
Generally speaking, content-to-commerce is a marketing strategy in which content is created to drives sales. You could argue that its definition depends on your definition of content; the more broadly you define content, the more content-to-commerce becomes synonymous with general marketing and less a subcategory of it. After all, isn’t an ad a type of content? Yes, but…
There are two key factors that differentiate content-to-commerce as a more focused marketing strategy. One, the content is more editorial in nature, meaning that it seeks to inspire, inform, or entertain readers in addition to converting them into customers. And two, it’s a bottom of funnel marketing strategy in that its commercial goal is to drive sales—often repeat—not brand awareness or consideration. You already have an audience, now you’re trying to convert them and get them to come back.
The overarching theme of this newsletter is to discuss and analyze how creators are utilizing content-to-commerce strategies, which brings me to the next point that needs clarifying: who are the creators? In my mind, there are three types:
1. Retailers
Traditionally, content-to-commerce creators are retailers marketing their own products through the creation of magazine-like editorials that inspire customers to spend more time and money with their brand. Some examples that come to mind:
Costco Connection, a monthly print magazine sent to the wholesaler’s executive-tier members. Costco Connection is not a catalogue but its articles revolve around products sold at Costco, like this one about how to make candy jewelry or a travel guide to Napa (did you know Costco sells vacation packages?). This quote from a New York Times feature sums up the power of Costco’s editorial arm: “[Oprah] has no shortage of press opportunities, but she has made time for Costco Connection. So have Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen, recognizing there are few more enviable placements for a person with something to sell than the cover of a publication linked to a store where nearly one-third of U.S. consumers shop.”
Brand Substacks, like those from Tory Burch and The RealReal blend editorial inspiration with product links back to their sites. However, not all brand Substacks fit into the content-to-commerce category, as some are more focused on top-of-funnel goals like brand awareness and consideration.
Though I wouldn’t classify a standard catalogue à la L.L. Bean as a content-to-commerce play, the J.Crew catalogue, which came back last October after being discontinued in 2017, creates inspirational worlds with beautiful imagery that people want to be a part of… which they can by wearing clothes from J.Crew!
2. Publishers
The second category of creator in the content-to-commerce ecosystem is a publisher, which can be defined as anyone publishing content that drives sales to a third-party retailer. Publishers can be individual content creators (read: influencers) or media brands; their defining characteristic is that they have no product inventory of their own to funnel users to and are monetizing their editorial content largely through affiliate marketing. Longtime readers know that I often write about publisher content-to-commerce strategies because that’s my background. A few types to note:
SEO-driven product recommendations, where publishers write lengthy reviews of products based on search keywords, like mattresses, espresso machines, and humidifiers. Historically, these stories were expensive to produce but paid for themselves in affiliate revenue, however Google’s AI Overview feature and generative AI chatbots are making them less valuable every day.
The Instagram or TikTok profile of any social media personality who recommends products or services is content-to-commerce at play. Meghan Markle! Leandra Medine Cohen! My girl Nancy Anderson! Affiliate is a growing revenue stream for influencers as it provides more concrete traffic and sales data than sponsored posts.
Substack fashion newsletters have exploded in the last few years, and affiliate platforms like ShopMy make it easier than ever before for independent writers to monetize their recommendations.
3. Publisher-Retailers
And finally, we have the publisher-retailers—creators who started out as publishers, launched their own e-commerce storefronts, then attempted to marry the two with editorial content that drives users to their SKUs. Two well-known players are Goop and Food52, both of which shone bright for a while but lost their luster post-pandemic. Goop went through a few rounds of layoffs in 2024 and 17 years after its founding, is still unprofitable, according to Puck. Food52 laid off 40% of its workforce in March and brought in $28 million in revenue in 2024, down from $80 million in 2021, Adweek reports.
I haven’t written much about the publisher-retailer use case, but I have lived it: When I worked at Bon Appétit, I was tasked with launching an e-commerce store that sold products featured in recipes and cooking-related shopping content. No one at the company paid much attention to it (
at The New Consumer found it, though) and it died as quickly as it launched, largely because we couldn’t drive enough traffic to it. Publishers love the idea of launching their own store but it’s a hard nut to crack, especially if the products they’re selling are also available on Amazon.One thing I didn’t explicitly mention but is crucial to content-to-commerce are the distribution channels—where and how are people consuming all this shoppable content? That, of course, is where social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest come in, as well as search channels like Google and, increasingly, generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT. Here are some relevant pieces I’ve published that touch on those themes:
Hopefully all of this gives you a better idea of the key themes I seek to cover in this newsletter, but I’d love to hear from you: of what I’ve mentioned above, are there specific categories that you want to read more about? Leave a comment, message me on Substack, or email me directly at elaheh.nozari@gmail.com.
Thanks for reading!