How it works
- Your own page, upgraded. Your entry in the guide gets your photos, your live calendar (or services), the menu items you pick, a reserve or tickets link, and top placement in your category with the Featured mark, for the term.
- A small "Featured" mark on the listing, with a tooltip linking back to this page. Readers always know what is paid and what is editorial.
- The editorial copy stays ours. We write the description, the neighborhood note, and the "why" the way we would for any place we covered. You can suggest, you can correct facts; we hold the pen.
- One featured slot per category per month. So the list never becomes a stack of ads.
- We reserve the right to decline. Places that do not fit the editorial register — chain operators, dental practices, MLMs — get a polite no, even if the check would clear.
- No promises about traffic, rankings, or outcomes. We can tell you what the page got last month. We will not pretend to know what your booking calendar will do.
What Featured looks like
Don't take our word for it. Icehouse's page is a live featured page, and it's what yours would look like:
- Your photos up top and in a row — the room, the food, the front — uploaded through a private link, credited to you.
- Your calendar, live. Every show or event we already pull from your site, refreshed four times a day, with ticket links. Restaurants and shops get hours and a reserve or order link instead.
- Your menu or services — the five to ten things you want people to see, with prices, checked and dated.
- The Featured mark on your page and at the top of your category list. It links here, so readers always know what's paid.
- Our words stay ours. The editorial paragraph is the same one we'd write anyway. That's why the mark means something.
- Off the page: an "on tonight" card on the Tonight board whenever you have a show, one spotlight a month in the Monday email, and one short a month in our daily video feed, tagged, yours to repost.
Every month you also get a plain receipt: how many people we sent to your site, tickets, or reservations. If the number isn't worth the price, you'll be the first to know.
The menu
We try to match the rate to the business — a neighborhood bakery and a downtown hotel are not the same conversation. If a rate doesn't work, tell us what does; small operators we already cover get genuine consideration.
Cannabis brands
Minnesota dispensaries are largely shut out of advertising on Google and Meta. bestofmpls is a brand-safe, local, opt-in audience already deciding where to go and spend. Licensed operators can take a Featured page, a spot in the dispensary guide, or a newsletter sponsorship.
Same rules as everyone else: the placement is clearly labeled, and the editorial picks stay ours.
What we do not do
- Banner ads, display ads, retargeting pixels, or selling your visit to a data broker. (We do run Google Analytics to see which pages get read — it is the only third-party script on the site, and the privacy page says so.)
- Sponsored content that pretends to be editorial.
- Paid reviews. We do not review places; we pick places we like.
- Affiliate links that go anywhere except OpenTable / Resy for actual reservations.
- Native ad networks, programmatic anything, or "content amplification."
To start
Tell us who you are and which option you are curious about. It lands directly with us — no mail app, no form service. We write back within a week.
Got it.
Your note is in. We write back within a week, usually sooner.
bestofmpls.com is an independent, locally-owned editorial guide. The site exists because the metro deserves a recommendation surface that is not owned by a publishing conglomerate or a tourism board. Featured partnerships are how it stays that way.