The strategy behind Buy Side from WSJ

Kayleigh Barber of Digiday interviewed Dow Jones & Co. chief revenue officer Josh Stinchcomb and Buy Side from WSJ head of content Leslie Yazel about the strategy behind the personal finance website.

Here is an excerpt:

Yazel: We have consumer goods that we’re selling and we also have personal finance advice, which we also can monetize. But at the heart of this are money decisions, whether you’re buying a coffee maker, or whether you’re deciding which credit card to choose, or should you switch to a high yield savings account. We feel that WSJ.com has great authority there [and] we want it to be useful for people.

But I also think we’re well positioned for the economic situation now, because one of the main things we do is we really tightly curate for people, and we do the math for people. So when I say we tightly curate, [I mean] when you travel around the internet and look at all the best lists that are out there, sometimes you see “19 best credit cards,” or “12 best whatever.” We really narrow that for people. When we talk about cash back rewards cards, we narrowed it down to four so that people can really have an easier decision.

We create a criteria for this. We work with a panel of experts in the financial services industry and we spreadsheet relentlessly to narrow this down, but we also do the math for people. And what I mean by that is whether we’re looking at, should you get one of these coffee subscriptions that are so popular now, we don’t just look at the tasting notes. We also look at how much does it actually cost per ounce because you can compare that then with what you might be buying at your favorite market or grocery store.

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