Affiliate Disclosure

This section is here to talk about how we make money here at Know Your Grinder, and we use two different ways to do this.

Display Ads – Mediavine

Know Your Grinder has display advertising in effect on certain articles, which comes from a company called Mediavine.

Before we tell you how this works, we should say that this is how it works according to us. As in, if someone were to see us on the street, and ask about it, this is the explanation they’d more or less get.

That being said, the way Mediavine works is, on certain selected posts, there are targeted pop-up ads that appear, sometimes sparsely, sometimes more frequently.

We know that some web users generally have ad blockers to disable such ads, that they consider annoying or invasive, but all users should understand that those same ads that we show does help fund the site’s existence, and they’re targeted for the user’s benefit, actually.

Here’s a picture below of an ad seen on my (Dave’s) browser, which is an ad for Spotify, probably because I was just looking up something about Spotify on my browser.

FYI, it’s not an actual ad, ie. you can’t click it and nothing happens if you do.

mediavine ad

We’ve had a good relationship with Mediavine over the years, and they are nice people if you ask us. Here’s their Facebook page, if you want to check them out a bit closer.

We’re on their Publisher FB page, because we work with them (it’s for publishers only), and generally what happens on there is it’s just people merrily talking about advertising and how to improve user experience with the ads, and connect with people overall.

For your information, Mediavine aggregates the ads, which means the ads come from other companies and through Mediavine, who distribute and set up the ads to us at this website.

This is done through codes placed on the server level that allows them to have some control over the ads. This is to say, the ads are under the supervision of both Mediavine and Know Your Grinder, and so that means if the ads are doing anything out of the ordinary, that’s on us.

How Display Ads Work, Continued…

Behind the scenes, at the point where you as a user are viewing this website, ad companies are constantly bidding on ad space on this website to be shown to you.

And so, the ads, while they are brought to you by Mediavine in terms of how they appear, their content is paid for by ad companies who have things to promote, such as Google, or some other advertiser. It is much the same on other websites like ours across the internet. It is a constant bidding war for ad space, however the webmaster (us) dictates the frequency and other characteristics of the ad.

Here below is a sidebar ad, as it displays on desktop.

display ad sidebar

Who Advertises with Mediavine?

Also, just so you know, Mediavine doesn’t just let any old website advertise with them. Know Your Grinder was screened by Mediavine first, who have strict policies on who we are and what our intentions are with our users.

On a side note, if you are a website owner and you are looking to monetize your website, we would recommend them for such a purpose, as, again, they are great people to work with.

Ad / Website Synchronicity – Keeping it Kosher

Now, the ads we show are generally held to a certain standard whereby we here at Know Your Grinder don’t produce content that can be taken as offensive to users, and Mediavine doesn’t let ads through that could be considered controversial or bothersome. We are both beholden to one another in terms of making sure everything is on the up and up.

This is also why, if you are a user who doesn’t understand the nature of ads themselves, that the ads target your interests, based on your browser activity on your phone, tablet, or laptop. This is why people get a bit nervous when they see ads that look like they’ve been reading their mind.

When actually, it’s just the ad companies trying to make sure that if you’re going to see advertising, it’s for things you might actually want to buy, vs. random stuff you have no interest in or ads for NSFW inappropriate stuff.

Here’s a fitting picture we found online that points to issue, although we don’t know who Wirenode is or what kind of ads they run…

Here’s a good article about how ads work on websites: http://mediumwell.com/online-advertising-works/

These ads are meant to give users the best user experience, and of course that experience will have ads, because ads help pay for the experience you’re having. This is why all platforms have some form of ads – because people who run the platforms need money to do so, and these ads supply this.

This is sort of a high level overview of ads on the ‘net, but for us here at Know Your Grinder, the ads are there because they fund the site, and hopefully they’re not too bothersome to you.

We control how and where the ads appear, so that is to say, don’t blame Mediavine for how they come across while on this site. There could be other ads floating around from other places in your browser, so don’t assume we’re responsible for having ads follow you across the internet. We at Know Your Grinder are only responsible for the ads you see while visiting us. Beyond that, we have no control or ability to keep track of visitors or what they do.

Mediavine does their best to make the ads nice looking (think like a very sleek Pinterest Pin) and targeted for people.

That said, some people just hate ads. We know, but it’s the nature of the beast.

Here’s an article on why people hate ads: https://www.vieodesign.com/blog/new-data-why-people-hate-ads

If we were to cut out all the ads, the site wouldn’t be able to pay for itself or anyone working for us and it would sink into the mire. At the same time, we are concerned with user experience and want you to be able to read our information without being bothered too much by ads.

For those people, there are ways around ads entirely if they so choose, but hey, why not throw a dog a bone and leave them on for our sake?


Affiliate Sales – Amazon

Now we get into the other side of how this site makes money, which is the well-known Amazon affiliate program, called Amazon Associates.

Amazon Associates is the oldest, and most used affiliate programs in existence, having started up in 1996. 1996! That’s basically when the internet was launched.

Here’s an article that will explain some of the basics of the Amazon Associates program.

https://www.business2community.com/affiliate-marketing/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazons-affiliate-program-02246461

As our About Us page states, Know Your Grinder started in 2016. Amazon Associates, back in the beginning, was the most efficient way for us to get monetized, and we still use it to this day.

Here’s an image of a table you will find elsewhere on this site, which is basically a custom built table that talks to Amazon’s official API (online inventory, basically, sorted by category), and finds products that relate to the post that are bestsellers that people may be interested in buying, or at least looking at.

display ad sidebar

Now, the next thing to understand for the user is that these are not the same as Mediavine ads. In fact, these Amazon buyer “tables”, as they are called, are put together by us and we manually add them to the post. They are meant to display bestsellers, generally, so most of these products should normally be highly rated. It is not in our best interest to show our users low-rated products.

So, when a user clicks through to a product, and then buys it, this will, by way of a special ID attached to the link to the product, allow us to collect a small commission for the product sold. We only get paid when the product is shipped, and verified.

Users are, of course, under no obligation to click on these products, but just know that if you do, and then buy something, we may get a commission from that sale. Hence this is another way for our site to collect payments that help pay for the upkeep of the site.

Amazon Review Articles

While a bestseller buying table may appear on any post on this website, including a review or non-review post, there are also Amazon links which are placed in review articles of product that can be found on Amazon.

If we review a product, which means that we test it, research it, and overall provide our opinion on it (our due diligence before recommending that product or not), there is the chance that the product can be purchased on Amazon, and so we will, in such a case, provide a link to such a product on Amazon, in case you want to buy it.

In such cases, these links are found as hyperlinks which should be clearly labelled, which might say “Buy on Amazon” or “Check Price on Amazon”. These links will take you to Amazon, where you can shop as you might if you just went to Amazon directly.

Now, if there is a link you find on this website somewhere, that links to Amazon but doesn’t let you know it goes to Amazon beforehand, do let us know (our email is at the bottom of this page).

Deals & Good Faith Recommendations

Because we work alongside Amazon, with their full approval, like we said, we have access to their API (which is a way to access their entire inventory and sort through it electronically), as well as any deals on anything that come up on Amazon, because we are in contact with them and we know what they are trying to promote and when.

As such, Know Your Grinder tries to link to the best products and best deals on those products whenever possible. Amazon is a big website, so we try to keep abreast of all the happenings there, and pass the savings on to you!

We do this because it is logical to do so, as we care about the people who visit our website, and so we treat you as we would any fellow coffee lover that we’d meet anywhere, which is to say, like a friend, and someone who we’d want to look out for if at all possible.

Hence, if there is a good deal to be had, or a product that a coffee fan should know about, we want to talk about it and point you to where there might be a deal on it if you should wish to own it.

In Closing

To conclude, the ads you will find on this website are fundamentally there to help the user, not hurt user experience. If you find this is not the case, do email us and let us know your opinion on this, as we are constantly trying to help better the user experience on this site.

Coffee maker

We do hope you find your experience on this website has thus far been sufficiently enjoyable, and we vow to make it more enjoyable as time goes on, offering a repository of valuable coffee-related material that any coffee lover can dig into and learn from.

Contact Us

If you have a question about how any of this operates, that perhaps we didn’t explain properly or clearly, please contact us at dave@knowyourgrinder.com. We will get back to you ASAP.

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