Appear on a Buyer Guide
A labeled placement on the guides where CIOs are shortlisting your category.
What it is
A placement puts your company on the Buyer Guide for your category. It is labeled as advertising and sits beside our analysis, not inside it. There are two kinds: a Spotlight card, and the single Featured Vendor band above them.
What it costs
$399 a year for your first guide, which also claims your Directory listing. Additional guides are $199 each. The Featured Vendor band is $699 a guide.
The full rate cardWhat you get
- A card on the guide you choose, with your logo. Each guide has 5 Spotlight slots
- A link from the card to your website, or to any page you name
- Your claimed Directory listing, included in the price
- Buyer inquiries from your listing, sent to you in full
- A document readers can request, on the Featured Vendor band
What it does not buy
- A place in the guide's vendor analysis, or a better position in it
- Leads, traffic, or a number of clicks. We do not sell an outcome
- A say in what our editors write about you or your market
- Rankings, review scores, or an editorial mention
How to do it
- 1Choose your guides
The purchase page shows every guide your category maps to and which slots are still open. Pick the tier for each one.
- 2Tell us where the card should link
Your website by default. A page about what the guide covers usually works better than a homepage.
- 3Submit, and we hold your card
Nothing is charged at this point. An editor checks that the company is real, the category fits, and the profile is accurate.
- 4We approve it, or you pay nothing
On approval the placement appears, we charge for the year, and your portal opens. If we cannot approve it, the hold comes off and we tell you why.
The same products: what a placement looks like, and how the Directory is built.
Questions
What exactly is a Spotlight Listing?
A paid card in a Buyer Guide's Spotlight block. Each guide has 5 of them. The card shows your logo and your summary line, and links to your website or to any page you name. It is labeled a paid placement and sits beside our analysis, not inside it.
How Spotlight worksWhat does it cost?
$399 a year for your first guide, which also claims your Directory listing. Additional guides are $199 each. The Featured Vendor band is $699 a guide and includes the listing too. Nothing is charged until we approve the placement.
Buy a placementWhat is a Featured Vendor placement?
The one placement of its own on a guide. It is a full-width band above the Spotlight cards, with your logo, your name and your summary line, marked “Paid placement” and linking to your site. $699 a guide for the year, including the claimed listing. Only one company can hold it on a guide.
How placements workCan we offer a data sheet, brochure, or video?
Any claimed listing can, and it is optional. Upload up to three PDFs and one video of up to three and a half minutes in the portal. An editor checks each one is what the title says and is yours to publish. A reader who wants a document gives their name, title, company and work email, and we send a link that works for seven days. Those details come to you as a lead, and the reader agrees to that first. A video plays on your profile with no form. We review this material, we do not write it, and we do not check what it claims.
What do you expect from us when a buyer gets in touch?
That you reply. We tell every buyer who fills in a form on your listing that you will be in touch. Your portal shows how long each lead has waited and lets you mark it answered. We remind you after two days and again after a week, then stop. We cannot see your mailbox, so marking it answered is the only way we know. If buyers are repeatedly left without a reply, we may stop selling you placements.
Directory Terms, section 10.2Do we need to buy anything before we can appear on a guide?
No. $399 a year claims your listing and includes a place on one guide. If your listing is already claimed, you pay only for the guides you add, at $199 each.
When are we charged?
Not at checkout. We authorize your card and hold it while an editor reviews the placement. We charge it and publish the card only when we approve. If we decline, the hold comes off and you are not billed.
What do you review before approving a placement?
Two things: that you belong in that guide's category, and that the facts on your profile hold up against your own public pages. We do not check marketing claims, because a Spotlight card shows the same reviewed profile fields as every other listing.
Can we appear on more than one guide?
Yes, and most vendors who fit several categories do. Placements are priced per guide, so you can take the Featured Vendor band on your main category and Spotlight cards on the ones next to it.
There's no Buyer Guide for our category yet. Can we still buy something?
We only sell placements on guides that are already live. You can claim your listing on its own for $199 a year. When we publish a guide you are eligible for, you add it from your portal for $200, so you end up paying the same $399 as a vendor who claimed with a guide. Tell us which guide is missing; it feeds into what we publish next.
What does a vendor look like inside a guide?
Two things, kept apart. Our vendor analysis is a comparison table and a short assessment of each vendor, written by us from our own research. The paid placements sit separately and are labeled: a row of Spotlight cards built from the reviewed Directory record, and one Featured Vendor band above them where a guide has one. There are pictures of both on the pricing page.
See what a placement looks likeWill buying a placement get us into the guide's analysis?
No. We choose which vendors appear in the analysis on market relevance, and we do not look at who has paid.
Our principlesCan we supply our own copy or creative for the card?
Your logo, yes. Upload it in the portal and it appears once an editor clears it. A claimed listing can also carry your own documents and a short video, which are yours and in your words. The card itself shows the profile fields we already review: your company name and its summary line. To change what the card says, change the profile. We do not put supplied ad copy on it.
Can we cancel?
Placements are annual and you manage them from the vendor portal. Cancel at any time to stop the next renewal. The current term runs to its end, and then the slot reopens.
Vendor portalDo you sell newsletter sponsorships, webinars or other placements?
Not at the moment. Buyer Guide placements and the claimed listing are what we sell today. We expect to open other formats, and this page is where they will appear first, so tell us what you are looking for.
Tell us what you wantNot what you were looking for?