Portfolio's online strategy dissected

Dorian Benkoil of Jack Myers Media Business Report writes about the online strategy of Conde Nast Portfolio.

Benkoil wrote, “Carey projects that an estimated one-quarter of Portfolio’s total ad revenue will come from the website, growing to 30 percent in 2009. The largest share of advertising for Portfolio.com has been for financial brands, followed by business-to-business and corporate image, technology, automotive and a smattering of consumer electronics, real estate and — this being Condé — retail and luxury.

“But please don’t call Portfolio a ‘lifestyle’ brand, even if there are ads for watches and clothes, he urges. ‘We don’t have a lot of wine coverage. We really don’t devote a lot of the site to renting villas,’ Carey quips. ‘It’s business coverage delivered in a really stylish and engaging way.’

“At the site there’s constant balance between design and Web 2.0 imperatives; between ad dollars and protecting the brand. ‘We could bring in even more advertisers, but we are very selective about the advertisers we do bring in,’ Brandt says. ‘We want to make sure they are all prestigious brands.’

“To preserve the site’s look and feel, Portfolio.com is limited to 21 sub-sections like ‘national news’ and ‘company profiles,’ compared to more than a hundred sections at CNNMoney.com and BusinessWeek.com. Links to social networking applications like Digg and Delicious are relatively hidden. Portfolio.com has partnered for content delivery with ABCNews.com, MSNBC, Washingtonpost.com, Entrepreneur, Yahoo and AOL.”

Read more here.