December 6, 2024


2024 AWARDS & GIVEAWAY
Similar to last year, I will be sharing my favorite discoveries during 2024 (older releases) and my favorite releases from 2024 in an end-of year awards article. The Best Of 2024 Awards will be posted in the weekend of December 21-22.

It will be accompanied by a giveaway that you can join via Instagram and/or directly via the website or app. It will not be a massive giveaway like last year, but there will be a couple of bottles up for grabs.

In case you missed it, check out the Best of 2023 awards.


MILESTONES & GOALS
ScentAdvice will close out 2024 with approximately 2 million all-time visits, of which it crossed 1.35 million visits during 2024 so far. Given that I’d projected a goal of 750K visits for 2024, I’m very happy with these numbers and especially the consistency in them. I’m not sure (and not desperate) about these numbers growing at the moment, but I hope to post as consistently in 2025 and keep this audience of ±100K visits a month engaged.

What has been growing is the r/newfragrances Reddit group. It picked up steam after hitting 1K members in August and is on pace to cross 3K members before the end of the year.

The database has now crossed 27500 fragrances from over 900 brands, of which I’ve reviewed around 1750. Adding brands to the database will continue into next year, albeit it at a slower place.

Since last month I’ve taken a break from my personal / photography Instagram account (@BrainFragrances), which means I get a lot less opportunities to review PR (or at least, I’ve refused them). I’m not sure yet if I’m going to start posting in any way frequently again on Instagram in 2025. Perhaps I’ll switch the (leftover) PR possibilities strictly to the ScentAdvice site. Either way, this means missing out on some new releases and ‘second-hand-revenue’, but depending on my financial possibilities, I will keep a focus on sampling and reviewing new & bigger releases throughout 2025.

Sneak peek: New reviews I expect to have up this month are: Amouage Essences (Outlands, Reasons & Lustre), Roja Parfums Aoud Extraordinaire, Electimuss Caspian Cherry & Etat Libre D’Orange Story Of Your Life.


MONETIZATION
Money is not a topic that anyone likes to talk about, but as I’ve been transparent about my aim to never have random or moving ads on my website or app from day one, I like to address the commissioned links / ad banners that I do run on ScentAdvice and my considerations for the way I monetized the site.

In 2024 I’ve added a lot of ‘buy here’ or ‘shop this brand’ banners to the database entries. Essentially, there is 1 general ad banner at the top of a page and 1 somewhere in the post that links to purchase from the brand that you’re looking at. Both those banners are relevant and in the style & color of the page. I think this is a reasonably unobtrusive way to monetize the site (compared to similar sites for example), but I’m open to suggestions.

For the bigger brands, these banners link almost exclusively to places where I can make a commission on sales; which means it’s not always the brand’s own site or the most convenient place for you to shop. It’s also hard to account for location, as visitors come from all around the world and many sites only deliver to specific regions (in some cases I do have geo-targetted links for my biggest audience groups, which are US/CA, UK & EU).

While I know and totally understand that some people find this steering to commissioned links annoying, do understand that this is the only means of income for ScentAdvice. There are structural costs of running a site and app, but also to afford upgrades like the new servers that sped up the site last month. Generating revenue also enables me to purchase samples to review.

I think it’s fair to mention that I’ve reached out to a couple hundred brands and retail stores this year, to see if I can get either a discount code or non-discounted commissioned links to share instead of the current options. Just like I offered dozens of brands and retailers (laughably inexpensive) exclusive ad space to no avail in 2023 to cover the operational costs, before I even considered using commissioned links. Only a handful have been able to arrange this (or respond). In the (niche) perfume space, this is unfortunately not as common of a practice as it is for department stores, the beauty & skincare industry or discounters.

So there’s a mix of links to retailers (mostly bigger ones in the UK/US like Harrods, Selfridges, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman), brands directly (mostly bigger designers like Dior, Chanel, Guerlain) and discounters (FragranceNet, Beautinow, Notino). However, for some of the newer or smaller niche brands and some new releases there are non-commissioned links to their own website or specific niche stores. Those non-commissioned links will be expanded on in 2025, while I try to generate a reasonable revenue through the bigger brands.

Rest assured; while server upgrades have made running the site more expensive, there’s a healthy revenue stream to run the site as is and unforeseen circumstances set aside, I can guarantee that there won’t be any extra or different type of ads than currently on ScentAdvice.

Your support by shopping via these links is very much appreciated.


PATREON
Speaking of monetizing. I find that other ways have not worked out, like this Patreon. For now, I will keep Patreon open to post these regular updates to, but I’ve disabled the paid tiers since last month, as I wouldn’t want anyone paying for a community that’s too small to actively offer any of the proposed benefits (for example polls). Maybe this is something I’ll try again in the future. In the meantime, if you want to support, you can also do so by donating.


BRANDS ADDED
Scentologia, Venti4, Morph, Attar Collection, Amphora Parfum, Overose, Viage Fragrances, Raconteur, Dolly Beauty, The Fragrance, Aphorismes by Dominique Ropion, Astier de Villatte, Butterfly Thai Perfume, Arielle Shoshana, Carlo Colucci, Hollister (partially), Czar, Mallo, Khadlaj (partially), Discotheque, Moro Dabron, Atelier Mignon, Maison De L’Asie, Dorin, Cosmopolitan, Marrakech Imperial, Astree, Fraganote, Queen Latifah.


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