Money.com Owner Ad Practitioners Rebrands to Money Group

The media company behind the editorial titles Money and Consumers Advocate, as well as proprietary ad tech Navchain, has rebranded from Ad Practitioners to Money Group in an effort to better reflect its commercial focus, according to its chief executive Greg Powel. The company made the change earlier this month. The new identity comes as part of a broader reinvention of the Money brand, a legacy publisher that struggled to transition to a digitally native operation—until it was purchased in 2019 by Ad Practitioners from Meredith Corp. for $20 million. Led by Powel, a former senior account executive at Google, the title has undergone a digital overhaul designed to reduce its page load speed, increase user sessions and improve its visibility in search engine results. In July, it redesigned its website and the publisher will celebrate its 50th anniversary in October. Along with Consumers Advocate, Money generates the vast majority of its revenue through intent-based financial advertising, or surfacing highly relevant content for financial query searches, such as articles comparing credit cards or travel insurance providers. Advertising run against this content is competitive but lucrative, and Money Group generated a nine-figure revenue in 2021, according to Powel. Money itself has grown its email readership to 400,000 free subscribers across its four newsletters and reaches 2.6 million monthly readers, according to Comscore. Money Group has been profitable since 2016. “When someone is planning to make a big-ticket purchase, like a house or a car, they are going to have questions and look for answers online,” Powel said. “If you can create content that answers those questions, the likelihood that they are going to take action on a contextually relevant ad they see there are orders of magnitude higher.” The facelift and its resulting uptick in revenue reflect a larger trend reshaping the media industry, as investors have identified a model for acquiring, flipping and monetizing distressed editorial properties with significant brand equity. Although smaller and more targeted than its peers Red Ventures, Recurrent Ventures and Dotdash Meredith, Money Group has implemented a similar playbook, using search data to inform its editorial and streamlining its web presence to rank favorably in the results. What to Know About Mel Magazine’s New Owners, Recurrent Ventures Traffic through search, syndication deals and ad products Since overhauling the Money website, the publisher has sought to increase its traffic using four tactics. Paid search represents its largest source of traffic, followed by organic search results, according to Powel. Ranking for both results requires a lightweight website and content tailored to meet inquiries. The sum is greater than the parts, says Powel, who became familiar with the strategy while working at Google. Money Group has also boosted its footprint through a series of syndication deals, lending out both its proprietary ad products and its editorial coverage. One of its ad products, called Ads by Money, displays an interactive map of the U.S. and prompts users to learn more about a specific financial product by clicking on their home state. In another version, the ad functions like a calculator, letting people determine the cost of a product based on personal factors. Publishers such as Insider use these products, which do not lead back to Money itself but boost its brand awareness. Similarly, Money Group has also struck content syndication deals with publishers including Hearst, McClatchy, Lee Enterprises and Apple News. These arrangements generate revenue for Money Group, in addition to exposing its brands to readers who might be unfamiliar with its sites. CNET Hires Condé Nast Chief Data Officer to Build Out Its Performance Advertising Navchain tech makes attribution more precise While still operating as Ad Practitioners, the company developed an ad tech tool called Navchain, which tracks the navigation of a user as they arrive at a Money Group property or when they leave for one of its advertisers’ sites. Like other such systems, Navchain lets Money Group determine what keyword a consumer searched to arrive at their website, the website they came from, the timestamp of the action and other search-related information. By sharing that information with its network of 1,200 advertising partners, Navchain lets parties monitor and attribute future actions from that consumer for up to 30 days without using third-party cookies, said Powel. The feedback mechanism lets Money Group ascribe value to different traffic sources, which means the media company can determine which keywords offer the most effective return on ad spend. After aggregating that data, the publisher uses artificial intelligence to automate those purchases for efficiency, Powel said. “This technology was part of the reason we were confident we could acquire a name-brand website like Money.com,” said Powel. “We fine-tuned it over the course of two years—and we knew we could use it to do something transformative.” Vox Media Relaunches and Expands Group Nine’s Performance Marketing Solution