What is Wirecutter? Wirecutter Review

Wirecutter is a professional electronic product consumer review site that focuses on consumer electronics. It has both media and deal site attributes and is a very important channel type representative for off-site traffic from Amazon.

About Wirecutter

The Wirecutter website is composed of hundreds of well-known technical engineers and critics in the industry. It is a popular website that specializes in recommending IT and home appliances. At the same time, they provide the latest audio and video information and recommended lists of audio and video products for the month or season at regular intervals, attracting a lot of browsing and attention from consumers and enthusiasts.

Development History

·Wirecutter was formerly known as "The Wirecutter", which was founded by former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam in 2011. It specializes in reviewing Gear and Gadgets products (which can be simply understood as being more inclined towards consumer electronics). Its sister website "TheSweethome" was founded in 2013 and focuses on home appliance reviews.

The New York Times spent $30 million to acquire the two websites in 2016. In 2017, the two websites merged and were officially named "Wirecutter", but the URL still uses thewirecutter.com.

income

Wirecutter generates the vast majority of its revenue from affiliate commissions. To prevent bias, staff members who write reviews are not informed of the commissions (if any) the site receives for different products. Because of affiliate revenue, the site is less reliant on advertising revenue than other blogs and news sites, although the Wirecutter site has displayed banner ads in the past.

In the five years between its launch in 2011 and 2016, the company generated $150 million in revenue through its affiliate program with its merchant partners.

Website properties and data (as of January 2019)

1. Wirecutter ranks 11th among all media traffic-generating websites outside of Amazon, but unlike the previous ones, basically all of its content is evaluation and recommendation, and almost all of its traffic is directed to Amazon.

2. The main visitors of the website are from the United States, and the traffic is quite accurate.

3. The website has 7.5 million visitors per month and 14 million page views, mainly on desktop.

Suitable categories

1. From the perspective of positioning before the merger, it mainly focused on electronic products and home appliances. Now it basically covers all major categories, with hundreds of editors, all of whom are senior experts/review editors in the corresponding categories.

2. Based on the interest analysis of traffic visitors, the audience tends to prefer topics such as consumer electronics, home furnishings, and travel.

3. From the perspective of website search traffic keywords, in addition to the website brand words, the traffic mainly comes from consumer electronics products.

Operational Mechanism

1. Professional evaluation to create authoritative media endorsement for the brand outside the site: Authority is a very distinctive point of Wirecutter and also the foothold for its rapid development. Each sub-category will have an extremely detailed evaluation, which is characterized by irregular updates, an average of more than 25,000 words, and all are real-life evaluations. The testing methods are very extreme and interesting. For example, to test the waterproof function, the user will dive directly and bring the product to the bottom of the water. Therefore, the credibility of visitors is very high. Basically, users can directly purchase the products evaluated by the website when they need them, which greatly shortens the shopping decision-making time.

2. Deal column in the site: This column is the Kinja model. The discounts required for Wirecutter's media deals are not very high, and the deal editors are easier to communicate with. The page is updated frequently and in chronological order, but there is a prerequisite: the deal you submit must be a product recommended by the editor in The Best series, which is the previous step.

3. Powerful media alliance: Wirecutter’s evaluation results are cited by many other technology websites; Wirecutter editors are often also editors of other major media in related categories; articles are published directly on other top websites (such as Forbes English website or Engadget English website) in the name of Wirecutter.

4. Amazon Verified Expert: This feature of Amazon basically opens a special channel for high-quality brands, so powerful Amazon brand owners must find a way to negotiate with Wirecutter’s corresponding category editor. This can not only increase brand awareness outside the site, but also directly benefit the site’s ranking and sales.

develop

-In 2013, The Wirecutter was named one of the 50 best websites in the world by Time magazine.

In 2015, Amazon tested a partnership with Wirecutter in a similar sponsored post format for recommendations on the Amazon website.

-As of 2018, it has more than 100 employees.