Investopedia finds a second revenue stream

Max Willens of Digiday writes about how personal finance site Investopedia is generating revenue through online video classes.

Willens writes, “After publishing just nine courses through the second half of 2017, Investopedia will publish two or three new courses per month this year, and it expects to grow the total number of employees working on the Academy to 50 — up from 30 last year.

“The video courses, which run a minimum of three hours and cost between $99 and $399 apiece, are part of a bid to diversify its revenue away from advertising for the first time in the company’s 19-year history. The Academy is on pace to earn $5 million in revenue this year, four times the total it earned in 2017.

“‘This is the big bet. We are all in on this,’ said David Siegel, Investopedia president and CEO. ‘I think that in two to three years, the revenues from Investopedia Academy could exceed the revenues from Investopedia.com.’

“Investopedia earns almost all of its money from advertising. A large repository of evergreen articles, some 200,000 of them, on topics ranging from interest rates to cryptocurrency to individual retirement accounts, attracts a steady stream of referral traffic and display advertising. It also has a content studio for more involved advertising programs.”

Read more here.