NYT buys Wirecutter for $30 Million

[backwoods]

Too late to edit but I see what you are calculating now.

Sounds like they are going to start pushing this a little more:

"Other revenues are expected to increase in the high-teens largely from the impact of the
Wirecutter business we acquired early in the fourth quarter."

 

[CCarter]

Where are you getting $4M?

It's in the wording of your quote and math. They increased TO $29 Million - the percentage being 16% (so 116% in math). $29,000,000 divided by 116% = $25,000,000. So the Forth quarter 2015 they made $25,000,000, and the fourth quarter 2016 they made $29,000,000 - an increase by 16% = $4,000,000.

They actually are rounding up, since if you look at your screenshot, they made $28,681,000 (yellow highlight) in the fourth quarter of 2016, and immediately to the right is the number for fourth quarter 2015 = $24,676,000 (pink highlight) and the % Change = 16.2%+ (green highlight):

By those numbers it comes out to $4,005,000 for the 16.2% increase. The acquisition of TheWireCutter was definitely a great investment for them. Will it save them? Doubtful.

 

[Iceman10]

The monetisation heavily leaned towards Amazon previously. I wonder how the new commission structure has affected revenue given that they are tech focused and some of these commissions are dramatic changes, i.e. TV's down to 2%.

Old commission structure

New commission structure

Wonder if Lam/NYT knew about the upcoming changes before/during the sale...

They appear to be using a lot more merchants than just Amazon now, which could be in response to these changes.

 

[Prentzz]

Wonder if Lam/NYT knew about the upcoming changes before/during the sale...

Honestly, I feel like anyone who is in this game full-time knew this was coming. They've had this structure in Europe for a while and they were paying out higher rates than similar affiliates.

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You don't buy a company like the Wirecutter for the revenue it's making, you buy it for the potential. NYT gambled with some pocket-change that Wirecutter would rank for most keywords and it wasn't going to get penalized. That's it. Then they funded the team to put out more content on higher ticket items. I'm not uncertain that the Wirecutter/NYT team hardly cares that the rates decreased on some sections, when overall revenue will still be growing greatly each month.

 

[animalstyle]

It's easy to forget that the value of your project is the traffic, not the monetization.

If there is one thing this amazon commission restructure created its opportunity. Opportunity for those who are ready to put the work in.

Honestly, I feel like anyone who is in this game full-time knew this was coming. They've had this structure in Europe for a while and they were paying out higher rates than similar affiliates.

-----

You don't buy a company like the Wirecutter for the revenue it's making, you buy it for the potential. NYT gambled with some pocket-change that Wirecutter would rank for most keywords and it wasn't going to get penalized. That's it. Then they funded the team to put out more content on higher ticket items. I'm not uncertain that the Wirecutter/NYT team hardly cares that the rates decreased on some sections, when overall revenue will still be growing greatly each month.

Totally agree with this.

 

[backwoods]

Stumbled across this article that mentioned The Wirecutter and a few other affiliate sites. I know a lot of people on here request to see a couple live examples... the Lucieslist.com a great one.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/02/th...e-meet-the-mom-whos-been-doing-it-since-2010/

A few highlights:

-Started Lucieslist.com in 2010 after being laid-off from her job

-Lucie’s List publishes dozens of baby gear guides, covering everything from big purchases like car seats and strollers to little items like winter gloves that will stay on a toddler.

-weekly email newsletter with 360,000 subscribers w/ open rate of around 45%
-Facebook page with 90,000 followers

Her husband is the company’s CTO, and she has a small staff: an assistant, a contributor who specializes in gear for twins, and a social media staffer. While Collins didn’t disclose exact revenues, she said she’s making enough to fully support her family of four — in San Francisco, no less.

Pinterest really got us through those first couple of years,” she said. “We didn’t have to spend any money on marketing or advertising.” Pinterest now makes up a “relatively small” portion of Lucie’s List’s traffic; the main driver now, accounting for about 60 percent of the site’s traffic, is Google organic search, “which is also awesome, because you don’t have to pay for that.” The rest of the traffic is roughly split between her weekly emails, which are geared to your child’s age, and from social media.

Collins repeatedly told me that her success was due in part to “lucky timing,” that “anyone can do this, the barriers to entry are so low.” I argued that she was selling herself way short; when I asked what she thought made her recommendations so successful, she mentioned that she became a certified car seat technician “so I could really speak the language and understand all the nuances of car seats.” See? I said. Well, “I think I have a really good high-level understanding of things and can break it down into something that people can understand. Not that that’s rocket science. It’s not.”

 

[backwoods]

Here are some SEMrush stats on LuciesList.com

(she said she’s making enough to fully support her family of four — in San Francisco) ... she is ranking first page for some 15,000+ big time, high value keywords. Looks like there are about 338 total pages.