Third-Party Content Guidelines

TheChocolateLife does not entertain inquiries from email addresses not associated with an agency. When we get those inquiries we reply with the link to this page and require a response from an agency email address to engage further.

TheChocolateLife does entertain inquiries from entities that use a corporate email address and there is a website associated with the email domain. A member of TheChocolateLife staff will perform due diligence on the agency. All inquiries are subject to the following guidelines. Please read the guidelines before you contact TheChocolateLife.

Third-party posts and posts with embedded links will be identified as “Sponsored”. This is non-negotiable.

All links must be fully qualified and will be tested before a campaign goes live. TheChocolateLife does not accept links served by third-party ad servers and those using URL forwarding services like bit.ly.

A member of TheChocolateLife staff will examine EXIF data and look for any information that might be in the media that could be used for tracking purposes.

Third parties must agree to indemnify TheChocolateLife against DMCA and all other claims made against content provided to TheChocolateLife. By submitting content to TheChocolateLife, a third party is certifying they own or have been assigned all necessary rights for TheChocolateLife to publish it.

Clients will be given the opportunity to approve what goes live before it is published on TheChocolateLife.

TheChocolateLife reserves all rights to make final editorial decisions over all supplied content, irrespective of type and file format.

If you are interested in a reciprocal no-cost RECIPROCAL link share, you must provide the URL of the post on TheChocolateLife you want the link added to AND the URL of the post on the site where the reciprocal link will be placed to be considered.

The reciprocal linking MUST be approved in advance before the link to TheChocolateLife is placed on the third-party site.

TheChocolateLife does not accept embedded links that are non-contextual. If you are interested in this option you must provide the URL of the post on TheChocolateLife you are interested in embedding a link, the text the link will be embedded in, the URL, and the location in the post where you want the link inserted to be considered. The location of the text and the link destination must make sense in context to the surrounding text to be considered.

TheChocolateLife’s editorial team will consider suggestions for altering the existing text of a post to accommodate a link. Any changes in the original text are at the sole discretion of TheChocolateLife.

By default, all outbound links on TheChocolateLife are Do-Follow.

By default, the hosting software TheChocolateLife uses inserts a /?ref=thechocolatelife.com on the outbound link. It is up to the destination site to handle this properly. TheChocolateLife is not able to change this behavior on a link-by-link basis.

The minimum price for a non-reciprocal (outbound) links is $25.

Creative is accepted in 728x90 (IAB Leaderboard) and 360x150 formats. .JPG files are preferred but other formats are supported by our ad server, Revive. and may incur an upcharge to run.

Up to three pieces of creative can be in rotation per campaign at a time. By default, creative can be updated once per month. More frequent update schedules are available for an additional fee.

The minimum length for a campaign is one month (30 days). There is no maximum campaign length and we recommend changing creative monthly.

TheChocolateLife limits the number of campaigns running in a zone to five.

Most campaigns on TheChocolateLife run on a flat fee, no delivery cap, basis. Performance-based pricing (CPC and CPA) is an option for some advertisers upon request.

Reports can be generated as often as weekly and are emailed directly to the advertiser contact.

There are no performance guarantees. The only mechanism for makeup is to extend the campaign.

The starting price for basic advertising campaigns (up to three pieces of creative updated once per month) is $50/month. Non-profits and educational institutions may be eligible for discounts. POA.

TheChocolateLife uses the Ghost platform. Any content type that is supported by Ghost can be considered.

To be considered:

a) You must supply a title for the post, an excerpt of no more than 300 characters (for search engines), and the text itself.
b) All outbound URLs.
c) An image that is exactly 1920x1080 (landscape) pixels that will be used for the featured/hero position with attribution information and alt-text.

For SEO purposes, a minimum of 300 words is required. Because it is important that members and visitors find the information on TheChocolateLfe useful without having to leave the site, the suggested length is 500-700 words. Posts over 1000 words in length will be subject to an upcharge.

By default, posts on TheChocolateLife are not deleted and a permalink is generated upon publication. Posts can be unpublished after a time set by the client, if desired. There is no upcharge for unpublishing a post.

One image in the body of the post is included in the basic price. The size will be adjusted to fit the layout. Additional images will be subject to a per-image upcharge to a maximum of nine images per post. A lightbox/gallery format is the default display, even for one image.

YouTube and Vimeo URLs are supported by Ghost, and Ghost does have a native video player. Adding video to a post requires an upcharge; use of the native player requires covering the cost of storage and bandwidth.

Spotify and Soundcloud URLs are supported by Ghost, and Ghost does have a native audio player. Adding audio to a post requires an upcharge; use of the native player requires covering the cost of storage and bandwidth.

There is an HTML object in Ghost that can be used to embed Instagram posts and other content. Requests for including HTML content are subject to a code review.

Ghost supports a Product object which consists of an image, a title, text, a call to action, and a URL. Adding these to a post will be subject to an upcharge.

a) “Pinning” a post in the top rail in weekly increments for up to one month.
b) Including a bookmarked link to the post in the monthly member newsletter.

The starting price for a basic third-party post (no upcharge features) is $50. The actual price will be dependent on the number of content upcharges requested. POA.

All prices quotes are in $USD.

Invoicing and payments, including recurring payments, are managed through TheChocolateLife’s payment processor, Stripe.

For ad campaigns running three months or less, payment is due in full before the start of the campaign. For campaigns running three months or longer, payment for the first three months is due before the start of the campaign, with future periods billed monthly.

Payment is required in full, up-front.

Send private email to advertising@thechocolatelife.com. You can comment publicly, below, if you are a member of TheChocolateLife.