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Hey guys, Jason Stogsdill here and today I want to dive into a deep breakdown of a really clever marketing strategy being used by The Penny Hoarder.
As many of you know, I'm always on the lookout for unique and innovative ways that companies are driving traffic, converting leads and monetizing their business. The Penny Hoarder in particular caught my attention because they've found a way to do all of the above in a major way through a dynamic combination of organic, paid and affiliate/sponsorship efforts.
So let's jump right into the analysis and I promise you'll walk away with at least one big idea you can apply to boost your own results.
Diving into The Penny Hoarder
To kick things off, let me give you a quick overview of The Penny Hoarder website itself.
At first glance, it really does seem like your typical money-focused blog covering topics like saving money, budgeting, investing and other financial content.
However, what's interesting is just how broad their topics are - they seemingly cover any and all things related to personal finance. Beyond the diverse article catalog, some other things that stand out include an active newsletter sign-up prompt and lots of internal linking to keep readers engaged. It's also clear they publish frequently with dozens of new articles and updates hitting each week.
Overall, the site is set up like your traditional publisher with a focus on creating and curating tons of valuable content for their audience. As we'll soon uncover, there's much more happening below the surface as well.
The Traffic Behind Their Massive Audience and Channel Mix
Let's dive into the traffic sources and numbers that The Penny Hoarder is pulling in each month.
When taking a look at SimilarWeb, a couple things really stood out to me:
First, they're attracting an impressive 1.2 million monthly visitors. Not too shabby for a personal finance site!
Even more interesting though was analyzing the breakdown of organic vs paid traffic. While 27% of their visits are coming from organic search, another 18% is coming from paid search efforts.
They're also generating meaningful traffic from Facebook, Pocket and other paid distribution channels.
This told me there was more to the story - they clearly weren't relying solely on search engine ranking and were supplementing organic with paid. As you'll see, this hybrid approach is a big part of their success. Stay tuned as we dissect their specific strategies shortly.
Their Hybrid Growth Engine for Continuous Traffic Scaling
At this point we've established The Penny Hoarder is no ordinary personal finance blog - they've crafted a complex multi-channel traffic strategy. Let's break down exactly how their paid and organic efforts work together so harmoniously.
On the organic side, they're relentlessly focused on SEO with a huge catalog of evergreen, topic-focused articles. This lands them top 10 results for dozens of money-related keyword phrases.
However, their paid search efforts are what really stood out to me. Using keyword research tools, they target high-intent, transactional terms around making money and side gigs. Rather than driving readers to sales pages though, these ads send traffic to similar evergreen content articles on their site.
Here's where it gets clever - they buy unique placements like Pocket to promote these same articles, creating a self-reinforcing flywheel effect. More traffic begets more authority which begets better organic rankings. It's organic 2.0!
They also use Facebook ads, but in a native style that looks just like regular posts. It's all tied together seamlessly without feeling "salesy" to the reader.
Turning Quality Traffic into High-Dollar Partnerships and Deals
Now that we've unpacked how The Penny Hoarder is driving massive volumes of targeted traffic, let's dive into how they elegantly monetize this all.
Upon first inspection, their site looks like any other using Google AdSense ads. But as we dug in, we realized there's so much more happening below the surface.
For starters, loads of their high-traffic articles are "sponsored posts" that promote affiliate offers. But rather than overtly selling one thing, they give readers a suite of timely, useful offers on everything from banking to surveys.
They also leverage strategic partnerships with big companies like Capital One to feature targeted messages across their owned and paid distribution channels.
Perhaps most clever is how within article content, they subtly promote offers again in a way that doesn't interrupt the flow or come off as salesy. Readers happily engage without even realizing.
Through a mix of affiliate deals, strategic ads and sponsorship promotions, they've turned high-intent traffic into highly optimized monetization. It's an absolute masterclass in mixing content and commerce.
Wrap up
In closing, The Penny Hoarder offers several key takeaways for publishers, marketers and entrepreneurs:
- Leverage both organic and paid channels to supercharge your total traffic and reach
- Optimize content for high-intent keywords related to readership interests
- Monetize strategically through affiliate deals, sponsored posts and strategic partnerships
- Seamlessly blend education and offers without interrupting the reading experience
- Use multi-channel promotions for reach amplification across owned and paid platforms
It's clear The Penny Hoarder has truly cracked the code on driving piles of targeted traffic and optimizing every step of the customer journey. Their true blending of content and commerce at massive scale is truly inspiring.
Thanks as always for learning with me today. I hope you found plenty of valuable insights you can apply. Let me know if you have any other questions!
Wishing you all the very best with your projects.
- Jason Stogsdill
