NerdWallet generates traffic (but not profits) by focusing its content

Jessica Tee Orika of Foundation writes about how personal finance site NerdWallet generates $84 million in traffic to its site every month — though her enthusiasm fails to account for the company’s poor financial performance on Wall Street.

Orika writes, “NerdWallet clustered their content pieces around nine topics relevant to the searcher’s intent. Yeah, you heard right. nine topics!

“Here’s what NerdWallet’s topic clusters look like:

“What’s brilliant about their topic clusters strategy is how it ties back to their value proposition as the go-to resource center for individuals and businesses looking to make the right money moves.”

What’s not so brilliant as far as shareholders are concerned, however, is how the $84 million monthly has failed to inject some substance into the stock’s IPO hype. NerdWallet is traded on the NASDAQ under NRDS. Since going public in November 2021, its stock is down 56 percent, currently trading at about $11. The company, which has a market capitalization of $838 million, does not yet turn a profit.

Like other sites of its type, NerdWallet derives a substantial portion of its revenue from affiliate marketing. Pages that rate its credit cards, for example, come with the disclaimer that “Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This may influence which products we write about.” The statement calls NerdWallet’s journalistic judgement into question.

Read more of the Foundation piece here.