Digital Change Agent

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“You can’t fight change,” says Thomas R. Evans, CEO of Bankrate Inc. (NYSE: RATE). “You’ve got to find a way to embrace it.”

MEREDITH JENKS

Bankrate CEO Tom Evans

For Evans, 56, those words are something of a mantra. In 1998, after 20 years in print publishing that included serving as president and publisher of U.S. News & World Report, Fast Company and The Atlantic, he became CEO of GeoCities, a pioneer in popularizing personal Websites. (Evans eventually brought the company public in 1998, and a year later Yahoo! Inc. purchased it.)

Evans was surprised by how much he could apply the fundamentals of print journalism to the Web. He says the skills needed to create content, present it to an audience and match it to an advertiser are just as relevant online as they are in the print world — despite what he calls a bias in digital circles against traditional media veterans: “The attitude in the online world is ‘Don’t let any of the old guys in because they’ll ruin it.’” Instead, “I found the new business environment more similar than different — the basics still apply,” he says.

When Evans joined Bankrate in 2004, the brand had roots going back 35 years. The company had built a reputation for delivering reliable, objective mortgage and lending rates through national weekly newsletters and licensing of its content to outside users, such as broadcast and print news outlets. In a shrinking print publishing market with ever-increasing paper costs and declining ad revenues, Evans recognized that the company could reach a much bigger market online. Another advantage? “The delivery cost is almost zero.”

JUST THE FACTS

Headquarters
North Palm Beach, Fla.

Revenue
$300 million
(2010 pro forma)

Market cap*
$1.7 billion

Employees
360

Listed since
June 17, 2011

*As of 10/17/2011

But to really make the push into the online world, Evans believed, Bankrate needed to become more consumer focused — without abandoning its core competency. Today, Bankrate’s roughly 360 employees reach 150 million unique visitors per year by amalgamating up-to-the-minute lending and mortgage information from 4,800 financial institutions in 575 markets in 50 states. Furthermore, Bankrate has added information on CD rates, savings accounts, credit cards, insurance, car loans and many other financial topics through a network of sites. To this raw data, the advertising-supported Bankrate adds tools such as glossaries and calculators for refinancing. “We cover 300 different products in 600 different markets and offer 125 different calculators,” Evans says.

The diversification has apparently worked, according to the company’s 2011 Q2 SEC filing: The $197.5 million total revenues that the company reported for the six months ended June 30 is 172 percent higher than its total during the same period last year. Bankrate’s June IPO raised $300 million. To further Bankrate’s online expansion, Evans says, he deploys these tactics:

Diversify through acquisitions. Bankrate reports recent strategic purchases of $145 million for CreditCards.com Inc., which lets consumers shop for, compare and apply for credit cards online, and $205 million for NetQuote Inc., which provides information on insurance. The company also bought Nationwide Card Services Inc., which helps financial services firms market credit cards online to consumers and small businesses.

Don’t just aggregate information — verify and customize it. “Information has to be credible,” Evans stresses. Bankrate independently vets the interest rates and other pricing data that banks and other financial institutions advertise to confirm the rates’ availability. Today’s well-informed consumer would quickly become disillusioned if Bankrate’s information proved faulty, Evans says. The ability to customize information to suit a particular visitor’s needs is a big advantage offered by the digital realm, he adds, noting that “everything is inherently local.” A consumer needs to see the best 30-year fixed rates in his area from local lenders.

Follow digital trends selectively. Bankrate offers smartphone and tablet applications but has kept them simple for now, says Evans, knowing how and where consumers tend to access certain information and recognizing their privacy concerns. “If you’re getting a mortgage, you probably don’t want to do that walking down the street,” Evans explains. And while the company notifies consumers about new interest rates via its Facebook page, it has not invested in functionality that would, for instance, allow users to share their progress in meeting personal goals, the way a fitness site might. “People are relatively private about their finances,” he says.