CNNMoney.com grows audience by betting on video

CNNMoney.com, which lost content from Fortune and Money magazine earlier this year, hasn’t suffered, seeing a 40-percent increase in visitors to its website since April by betting heavily on video.

The site had 25 million unique visitors in September, up 42 percent from the 17.6 million in visitors it recorded in April, shortly before Fortune and Money left and launched their own websites in the wake of Time Inc. splitting its magazine business from its cable operation.

In addition, video views on CNNMoney.com grew 154 percent to 24 million from May 2014 to September 2014.

“We’ve invested heavily in video and the results have have been stunning, both in terms of quality and massive growth,” said Lex Haris, executive editor of CNNMoney.com, in a statement provided to Talking Biz News. “And we’ve expanded into new coverage areas. The momentum is there and you’ll only see us get bigger and better in coming months.”

At the end of May, CNNMoney.com added two new sections covering luxury and media news, an expanded tech news section and placed an increased emphasis on digital video.

The results were nearly immediate.

CNNMoney.com’s multiplatform audience was up 2 percent in June. CNNMoney.com’s video audience was up 25 percent in June compared to May 2014, while total videos were up 28 percent.

In addition, CNNMoney.com’s new luxury section delivered 28 million page views in June and made up 18 percent of total page visits to the site.