Commercial
Advertising and sponsorship
How we make money, stated plainly, including the things we will not sell.
NASHVILLE is supported by advertising, sponsorship, and affiliate commissions. We would rather tell you exactly how that works than let you guess. The short version: money can buy attention on this site, clearly marked as such. It cannot buy a recommendation.
What is for sale
Sponsored listings
A business can pay to appear in a marked sponsored slot on a relevant page. Sponsored slots sit outside the editorial list, carry a Sponsored label with the sponsor named, and are styled so they do not read as an editorial pick. They do not displace, reorder, or remove any editorial entry.
Newsletter sponsorship
A single sponsor slot per newsletter send, labeled in the email itself. Sponsors receive delivery and click reporting. They do not receive subscriber names, email addresses, or any other personal data.
Neighborhood sponsorship
A business can sponsor a neighborhood section for a set term. The sponsor is named in a labeled unit on those pages. Sponsorship does not give the sponsor any influence over which places appear in that neighborhood’s coverage, how they are described, or the order they appear in.
Display advertising
Standard display units in fixed positions. We do not run units designed to look like editorial content, auto-playing audio, interstitials that block the page, or anything that makes a page harder to read on a phone.
Affiliate links
Some booking and ticketing links earn us a commission. These are placed on editorial picks we already recommend, and they are labeled. See the disclosure below for how this works and what it does not affect.
What is not for sale, at any price
- Editorial rankings and inclusion. There is no fee to be recommended, to rank higher, or to appear in a guide. Editorial order is set by editors on the criteria in how we choose.
- Removal of criticism. We correct anything factually wrong for free and immediately. We do not remove accurate criticism, for money or for the promise of future business.
- Guaranteed positive coverage. Nobody buys a favorable review, a specific adjective, or an agreement to publish at all. A comped meal or room is not a purchase of coverage.
- Copy approval. Advertisers do not read editorial coverage before publication and do not get to change it afterward.
- Exclusion of a competitor. Buying from us never keeps someone else out of a guide.
- Reader data. We do not sell email addresses or personal information to advertisers. See the privacy policy.
Asking for any of the above ends the conversation, and it does not affect how we cover the business afterward, in either direction.
How paid content is labeled
Every commercial relationship is labeled where you encounter it, in words, not in a symbol you have to decode. We use three labels and no others:
- Sponsored. The placement was paid for. The sponsor is named. It was not selected by the editorial desk and is not part of any ranking.
- Paid partnership. The content itself was paid for. It is written or reviewed to a separate standard, is visually distinct from editorial, and names the partner at the top. It never appears under an editorial writer’s byline as though it were editorial work.
- Affiliate link. An editorial recommendation whose booking link earns us a commission. The recommendation came first.
Labels appear next to the item, before you click, and they are not styled to disappear into the page. If you find a paid placement on this site that is not labeled, that is a reportable error. Send it to corrections@nashroam.com and we will treat it as a correction.
Partner with us
If you run a business in Nashville and want to reach people planning a trip or looking for somewhere to go this weekend, write to advertise@nashroam.com.
What to include
- Your business, its address, and the category it fits.
- What you want out of it: bookings, covers, ticket sales, awareness of an opening.
- Your timing and the budget range you are working with.
- Whether you need creative produced or already have it.
How the process works
- Commercial staff handle the entire conversation. No editorial writer or editor is involved in a sale.
- We confirm available inventory and terms in writing, including how the placement will be labeled. Labeling is not negotiable.
- Creative is reviewed against the same standards as everything else on the site: no claims we can see are false, no design meant to imitate editorial content, no dark patterns.
- You get reporting on the placement. You do not get reader data, and you do not get advance notice of editorial coverage.
Who we turn down
We decline advertising that is misleading, that targets vulnerable people, or that comes with conditions about editorial coverage. We also decline placements we could not defend to a reader who asked why they were there.
Sponsorship and affiliate disclosure
This is the formal statement referenced by the disclosure notices throughout the site.
NASHVILLE earns revenue from advertising, sponsored placements, paid partnerships, and affiliate commissions. Some links to hotels, restaurants, tours, and ticketing on this site are affiliate links. If you book or buy through one of them, the merchant or booking platform may pay us a commission. The price you pay is the same as it would be if you went to the merchant directly. Commission rates differ between partners, and we do not allow that difference to influence what we recommend or the order in which we list things.
Affiliate links are only added to places our editorial desk already recommends on the merits. Many of our recommendations earn us nothing at all, because no commission program exists or because we chose not to join one. Removing a place from a guide because it does not pay a commission is not something we do, and adding one because it does is not either.
Sponsored placements and paid partnerships are bought by the business named in the label. They are separated from editorial content, do not enter editorial rankings, and are identified with the labels described above. Editorial staff have no revenue targets tied to any specific business.
When a visit was comped, discounted, or provided as part of a press trip, we disclose it on the resulting page. Accepting one never includes agreed coverage or approval over what we publish.
We do not sell your personal information. Affiliate partners and advertisers may set their own tracking when you follow a link to their site, which is described in the privacy policy.
The editorial rules behind this are in our editorial standards and how we choose. Questions about a specific placement can go to hello@nashroam.com.