Increasing Article Profitability: Focusing on “Hot Tickers”

The Challenge:

In the depths of the 2022 bear market, The Motley Fool faced a steep decline in article profitability. Revenue per article had dropped by nearly 20%, a major challenge given our aggressive content production targets. While some decline was expected due to market conditions, the status quo wasn’t sustainable — we needed a strategic, data-driven way to reverse the trend and boost performance across the board.

The Solution:

After digging into the data, we uncovered a clear pattern: a small group of stocks consistently drove outsized revenue and conversion rates. Stocks like Nvidia, Palantir, Microsoft, SoFi, Costco, and Alphabet were outperforming — yet we weren’t prioritizing them at scale.

To correct course, I co-led the development of a more strategic and accessible system:

  • Analyzed revenue and engagement data by ticker to determine which stocks were truly moving the needle.

  • Created an interactive Airtable base that grouped tickers into four strategic buckets:

    • 📈 Increase Volume

    • 📉 Decrease Volume

    • ➖ Maintain Volume

    • 🚫 Not a Priority

  • Held writer “office hours” to walk contributors through the tool and ensure clear understanding.

  • Integrated high-performing tickers into our Repeatables program — assigning hot-topic tickers to top-performing headline templates to amplify impact.

Results:

🎯 +25% increase in revenue per article within just a few months


🚀 Conversion rates surged, especially in our Repeatables content program


🧠 Writers gained confidence and clarity on which companies to prioritize


📊 The Hot Tickers Airtable remains one of our most-used internal tools to this day