The senior leadership team at Forbes has explained how the business title is drawing on a range of revenue streams such as events, online subscriptions and direct-sold advertising.
Chief executive Sherry Phillips (who has been promoted from chief revenue officer since this interview took place), SVP of sales Kyle Vinansky and managing director of Forbes CMO Network Seth Matlins spoke to Press Gazette while in London for the inaugural Forbes CMO Summit Europe in November.
The summit, a conference for leading figures in European marketing, is part of the publisher’s strategy of building up niche but influential reader communities. Forbes has separately launched a private members’ club in Madrid, with plans for more around the world.
As well as its CMO Network, Forbes runs a chief information officer network and a chief executive officer network, plus a suite of verticals built around industries or identities, including health, law, certified public accountants and black and Latino professionals.
Forbes has dedicated newsletters catering to these communities and also, famously, lists. In addition to the three regional editions of its annual “30 Under 30” young professionals list, the publisher makes or has made lists of, to name a handful, the world’s most entrepreneurial CMOs, the top CIOs, the top CEOs, “Asia’s Heroes of Philanthropy”, the top 200 architects, lawyers and CPAs in America and 42 leading lights in the cannabis industry.
Several of these lists double as events, which allow the professionals to network under Chatham House rules (information shared on a non-attributable basis) and get the in the same room as Forbes journalists.
Matlins, who oversees the CMO Network, said they “curate the audience and the conversation” at the events.
“Everything we do, whether it’s written journalism or live journalism, is intended to make our readers, our audiences, our viewers wealthier and smarter.”
The communities are monetised through sponsorship.
Vinansky, the global sales SVP, said: “From an editorial side, we really focus on the exclusive stories and the one-on-one connections that we create with these individuals.
“I think the Billionaires [ranking] is probably the easiest example to see that — we’re not just talking about Elon Musk, we’re talking to Elon Musk.”
Subscriptions ‘a small but growing segment’ of Forbes revenue
Forbes, which is privately owned by investor group Integrated Whale Media Investments, has not published its financial details since the 2021 financial year, when it generated revenue of $259m. At the time it was planning to go public via an ultimately-cancelled merger with a publicly-traded special-purpose acquisition company. An acquisition bid by entrepreneur Austin Russell was also called off in late 2023.
Advertising is the largest part of the Forbes business, Vinansky said, of which direct-sold inventory is “the biggest piece of that pie”.
“The other large piece of that is basically open exchange inventory, because we’re reaching 100 million unique visitors… so it’s a massive operation from the digital content standpoint.
“Our live event business has grown very, very rapidly… and then, of course, our content business, both traditional branded content as well as that research-led branded content that we do in the marketplace.”
Print, he said, “is actually very stable for us at this point, but rather small in terms of the media mix”.
In 2022, 7% of Forbes’ total revenue came from its print product — down from 16% in 2019.
[From 2021: Forbes CEO Mike Federle interview — Why the business brand is now worth $630m]
Although Forbes does operate a paywall, new chief executive Phillips said subscriptions are “a small piece of our business”.
“It’s always been evolving. I’ve been at Forbes for 29 years. That business at first was print and only print, really — a little bit of live events.
“But we feel we’re ahead of the curve in the industry… but really, what we stand for, no matter what audience we’re serving, is success.”
On the B2B front Forbes also features a research business largely catering to customers in finance, enterprise, tech and consultancy, with reports spanning sustainability, AI, high net worth individuals and small business.
Forbes on e-commerce hit: Diversification means we can ‘hit other levers’
In 2024 Google rolled out a “site reputation abuse” update to its search ranking algorithm that gave less prominence to publisher websites with large affiliate and e-commerce operations.
Forbes was reported to be one of the sites worst affected by the change, and Vinansky said “it did have an impact. I would say March and April, we saw the biggest impact, but it has since rebounded”.
He added that Google’s workings are mysterious, meaning “we have to be a little bit reactive and try to figure out processes to make sure that we’re relevant… But I think Google also pays attention to that and probably made some corrections to whatever was changed”.
[Read more: Google search change hits publisher Black Friday e-commerce revenue]
Phillips said diversification of the Forbes business means that “when those changes come, we’re able to hit other levers, whether that’s live events or direct digital or open exchange”.
Despite the site reputation abuse hit, Forbes has seen significant web traffic growth, data from Similarweb shows. In the most recent Press Gazette rankings of the top 50 news sites in the world and the US, Forbes saw 42% and 46% year-on-year increases in visits respectively. In November the site charted as the 14th most-visited English-language news website in the world and the 11th most-visited in the US.
The results of the 2024 US presidential election prompted a surge in the stock markets, signalling optimism for the second Trump presidency among investors.
Asked how Forbes was poised for the tenure — which Trump has said will involve both tax cuts and price-rising tariffs — Phillips emphasised that the publisher did not endorse any candidate ahead of the election.
“We try to stay bipartisan, and breaking news is a big part of that. So again, we champion capitalism, but I don’t think that’s red or blue — I think that’s celebrated across the globe. So I do think as markets rise, yes, I think all of us will benefit, but we’ll see if that’s sustained…
“No matter what candidate won the election, we see great opportunity in 2025 and beyond, based on what we’ve built, certainly over the last few years. [There was] a lot of creativity during the pandemic that set us up for success now, and so as the economy rebounds — again, not based off of either candidate — we feel very poised for success.”
Email [email protected] to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our “Letters Page” blog
This post was originally published on here
