StockNews

In 1998, Steve Reitmeister launched an investment newsletter as a hobby that rekindled his passion for investing. Shortly after, he turned that hobby into a career as he fueled Zacks.com to nearly 20 years of continued growth. Then in 2019, he decided it was time for him to return to his entrepreneurial roots and launch his own investment venture, StockNews.com.

At StockNews, Steve and his team of 15 people pride themselves on being champions of real investing for real people. “Oftentimes, when people think of investments, they think of just making money for money's sake -- but it’s way bigger than that,” he says. “It’s for taking care of your family, creating a better retirement, putting your kids through college, buying a home, passing something on to the next generation. Knowing that so many people turn to StockNews to learn how they can create a better financial future for themselves and their families is what keeps me motivated.”

With a focus on creating articles centered around helpful, realistic financial success, Steve has grown the site from around 100K page views per month in 2019 to over 1.5M today. StockNews uses a freemium model to offer free, ad-supported financial tips along with six different paid services with premium content. “The freemium model,” he explains, “helps our business on two fronts. First, most visitors aren’t willing or able to pay for a subscription but ads allow us to monetize those visits so that we can still offer them great content. Second, having a free-to-access site is free marketing for our business and helps keep our traffic up. We need to be able to show someone excellent content for free, grow our relationship with them as they keep coming back, and then ideally convert them into a loyal paid subscriber over time.”

Combining growing page views combined with using Google Ad Manager has helped to drive the company’s business success. “Since we started using Ad Manager we’ve seen tremendous growth,” Steve says. “Having multiple ad networks compete against each other has helped increase our CPMs to the point that we’re now earning 7x more per page than we were just 2 years ago. That additional revenue fuels new investments into the business to help us grow.”

And as the business grows, Steve supports his team’s efforts to stay true to their original mission. “When I coach the investment writers on my team,” he explains, “I remind them that we’re leading people through a confusing, complicated space. The best thing we can do is make our articles feel like you’re putting your arm around your buddy and saying, ‘Let’s go walk through this maze together.’ We’re helping people towards better financial outcomes, and that takes some TLC.”