The Balance currently reaches 19 million unique viewers in the US each month.[1]
History
The Balance grew out of the financial content written for the website About.com, which was launched in 1996.[2] The site was re-launched as a stand-alone personal finance vertical with updated content from About.com, as well as new content, on September 6, 2016.[3][4]
The site was the second of five vertical sites launched from the content that had comprised About.com by Dotdash, the rebranded About.com entity.[5]
Website
While Dotdash launched all of its brands with a graphics-heavy design scheme, The Balance's is more restrained to "reflect the weightiness of the topic", according to Dotdash CEO Neil Vogel.[5]
At launch, The Balance featured more than 34,000 pieces of content written by 70 contributors.[6]
The site is written with a tone designed to appeal to millennials and younger generations, though it covers financial topics that are relevant to readers of all ages.[6] It was created to serve what CEO Neil Vogel referred to as an underserved market: the average consumer. The Balance seeks to explain difficult personal finance topics in simple terms. As of its launch, the readership of The Balance was 60% women and approximately 50% millennials.[7]
The site won the 2019 Communicator Award of Excellence for the Best Financial Services Site.[8] Its general manager, Lauren Silbert, was named a winner of the 2019 Top Women in Media by Folio magazine and a 2020 HERo Future Female Leader by Yahoo! Finance.[9][10]
Traffic and revenue
The Balance had a readership of 6.5 million unique users when it launched in 2016, which grew to over 17 million by October 2017.[11] As of August 2020, The Balance was ranked #2 of financial news sites and reached 19 million unique US viewers.[1]
The Balance is supported through display and performance-based advertising.[12][13] At the time of its launch, Dotdash reduced the number of ads on its sites, including The Balance, by 35%, betting that "fewer, better ads will attract a larger audience."[14]
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