19 Great Newsletter Landing Pages You Can Learn From

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Your newsletter landing page can be one of the biggest drivers of growth for your newsletter. It’s the place where you can make the big pitch to a reader about why they should subscribe to your newsletter.

Some newsletter platforms, like Beehiiv or Substack, automatically build a landing page for you when you create an account. But many newsletter operators choose to create their own landing page to promote their newsletter. Why?

• With a custom landing page, you can choose the exact language — from headline to CTA — you want to use to convert readers.
• You can add additional elements to the page, like testimonials from readers or sample images of your newsletter.
• You can encourage readers to sign up for multiple newsletters at once.
• You can customize the landing page based on sign-up source — for instance, building out a page specifically aimed at readers who came via a podcast promotion or paid ad.

So let’s talk about some best practices for these landing pages, and then look at 19 examples of great landing pages — from both large publishers and individual operators — that you can learn and steal from.

Best practices for creating a good landing page

Start with great copy

The most important part of your landing page isn’t the design of the page — it’s the copy you use to explain the value of your newsletter.

As I wrote about in my guide to newsletter growth, so many newsletter landing pages use the exact same language: “Sign up for my newsletter.”

That’s simply not enough. You’re going to have to go a bit further to pitch your newsletter. It’s not enough to tell readers that your newsletter exists. You have to tell them why they should sign up.

Why might they sign up? The pitch for your newsletter might be built around one of these pillars: 

• Your newsletter creates value for them — Your newsletter saves them time, makes them money, or helps them do better work.
• Your newsletter impacts a reader’s life in a positive way — Your newsletter makes them smarter, helps them make decisions, solves a problem they have, connects them with a larger community, or gives them resources to improve their life.
• Your newsletter strikes an emotional chord — Your newsletter makes them happier or helps them better understand themselves.
• Your newsletter is a way for readers to engage with you and your work — Your readers like you and choose to sign up because they want to hear directly from you.

Remember to include a few key elements

Once you’ve got your pitch, then it’s up to you to build out the page. As you’ll see from some of the examples below, design can help your page stand out, but a great newsletter landing page doesn’t need to have a complicated design. The best landing pages usually have a few elements:

1. Proof that other readers find the newsletter valuable — Many great landing pages utilize “social proof” — they use the words or actions of readers to prove that their newsletter is great. Two common forms of social proof: Showcasing testimonials from readers or up-to-date numbers about the size of your email list.
2. Details about when and how often you’ll receive the newsletter — Does it show up daily? Weekly? In the morning or evening? The more specific you can be, the more a reader can go in clear-eyed about what they’re signing up for, and the faster they can start to build the habit of looking for your newsletter at specific days or times.
3. A sample of the newsletter itself — This might be a screenshot of a recent newsletter or a link to a recent newsletter. Either route is OK — though if you do link out a recent newsletter, make sure there’s a sign-up form on that page, too!
4. A limited number of fields to fill out — You’re free to ask for more information after they sign up, but try not to ask for too many details on the initial form. The more you ask for up front, the less likely a reader is to complete the form.
5. An easy-to-remember URL — This is a page you’ll want to share over and over. Make it easy to find — yoursite.com/newsletters could be a great domain to park a landing page at.
6. Some sort of verification tool built in — Spambots tend to target sign-up pages like these, so you want to keep these pages safe to maintain good deliverability. Have reCAPTCHA or an email verification tool like Kickbox built into your sign-up box so you can keep your list clean.

Keep improving your page

It’s important to remember that you can always make this page better over time. Take a look at what the team at Boulder Reporting Lab (full disclosure: they’re a client) has done with their landing page.

They published the first version of their landing page soon after their site launched. It did enough — it talked a little about what you’d get, said the newsletter would come out a few days a week, linked to a sample newsletter, and included a sign-up box with a few clear calls to action (“Join the community!” and “Sign me up!”) at the end. Was it perfect? No, but it was enough to start.

A few weeks later, the BRL team made the page a lot better. They dropped a vague statement about what you’d get (“Get really informed about, and connected to, Boulder”) in favor of a more specific description of the newsletter (“Get BRL’s in-depth, original journalism plus essential community information”). They told readers exactly when they’d get the newsletter (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7 a.m. local time). They added an image of a recent newsletter, and linked to more sample editions. They also added a new, cheerful CTA: “Start your day with BRL Today!”

And this year, they made more updates: A new CTA (“Stay in the know like never before”), Colorado-specific details (“the perfect habit to pair with your post-Flatiron-climb stretch”), a testimonial from a reader, and a new submit button CTA (“Sign me up, for free!”). 

You don’t need to have the perfect page on Day 1 — start with the essentials, and then work to improve it over time! I’ve even published a guide with questions to ask to help you improve your landing page — use this resource to make your page a little bit better.

13 Questions to Ask to Improve Your Newsletter Sign-Up Page

With all that in mind, let’s take a look at some great examples of newsletter landing pages. Over the past decade, I’ve looked at thousands of landing pages, and worked with more than 100 clients to help them build out their own landing pages. Here are some of my favorite pages — they’re ones I consistently share with clients as examples of what a great landing page can be.

Great landing page examples

Strategy Breakdowns 

Strategy Breakdowns is a twice-monthly newsletter from Tom Alder, and there’s a lot to like about this landing page:

1.) In the headline, Tom lays out a clear value proposition for the newsletter. Why sign up? Because you’ll learn the strategies that built some of the world’s greatest companies.

2.) He uses bullets, bolding, and repetition to drive home that value prop.

3.) He showcases the product to illustrate the types of companies you’ll be learning about. (On the actual landing page, he uses an animated GIF to rotate through different sample editions of the newsletter.)

4.) He offers social proof that his newsletter is valuable by sharing the list size and the types of companies where he has readers.

5) On both desktop and mobile, you don’t need to scroll to get to the sign-up module — it’s right there when you arrive on the page. (The more scrolling you have to do, the lower the conversion rate on the page. Your goal is always to reduce the friction that might keep readers from signing up!)

And he even compresses all of this — the CTA and social proof — into a single, shareable unit for LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social platforms. If you share the newsletter on social media, here’s what you’ll see:

It’s not a particularly long landing page — but Tom compresses a lot (the why, social proof, and an image of the product all into a single page.

See the full landing page here.

Boktugg

Here’s one of my favorite sign-up pages, from Boktugg, a Swedish site that covers the book industry.

Now, if you’re like me, you don’t speak a word of Swedish. But take a look at this sign-up page. Even if you don’t speak the language, you’ll easily spot a few great elements:

• They show you what the newsletter looks like.
• They offer social proof by telling you how many readers are on their list.
• They include testimonials from influencers explaining why the newsletter is great.
• They have a big, colorful button that drives you to sign up, which includes a mention of the cost of the newsletter. (Turns out I do know one word of Swedish — “gratis” means “free” in just about every language!)
• They include a GDPR-friendly box allowing you to consent to receive newsletters. (As a newsletter based in Sweden, they’re subject to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, which requires consent before sign-up.)

And what happens if you share the newsletter on social media? They’ve done this right, too — the link automatically expands to show an image of the product, a CTA in the headline, and a description of the newsletter below that.

See the full landing page here.

The Atlantic

What should you do if you have multiple newsletters under a single brand? The Atlantic offers a fantastic template to learn from. As of this writing, they offer 18 different newsletters to readers. They’ve prioritized their newsletters by level of importance — their Daily product is at the top of the page — and every newsletter listing includes details about when you’ll get it and links out to a sample edition.

When you first get to the page, there’s no sign-up box — that only appears after you select at least one newsletter. It’s a neat design trick to save space and get you more quickly to the newsletter listings.

Want to sign up for all of their newsletters at once? They’ve done another smart thing: Click a single button at the top of the page, and it automatically checks every box on the page.

See the full landing page here.

Dense Discovery

There’s so much to like about this page from Dense Discovery: There are sign-up boxes at the top and bottom of the page, so if you scroll down, you’ll quickly find another field where you can enter your email address. You can see a sample of the most recent newsletter right away, and can click out to see recent editions, too. (When you do, you’ll find a sign-up link at the top of the archive page. That way, you’re always just one step away from signing up.) There’s a clear list of stuff they curate so you can set your expectations for the newsletter right away.

But what really stands out for me are the little details: The highlighted list size (35,000 readers) to make that number stand out. The use of bolding to place emphasis on key details (“Proudly independent and algorithm-free”). The use of short testimonials. The samples of the newsletter built into the bottom sign-up box. There’s a lot of little stuff — but together, it adds up to a page that makes a clear case for why you should sign up.

See the full landing page here.

Growth in Reverse

I love the simplicity of the page that Chenell Basilio has created for her newsletter. The value of the product is laid out so clearly on this page: This is a newsletter that helps you learn how to grow your newsletter and saves you lots of time in the process. The subtle use of social proof offers visitors an additional reason to trust her newsletter and sign up.

But what I really love is how Chenell asks for additional information after the sign-up. She uses a tactic known as progressive profiling to collect more information about a reader as soon as they hit the “Get started” button. She asks: Do you have a newsletter already? What topic do you write about? What’s your biggest pain point? This is all useful information to gather — but instead of asking for it all on the initial form, where it might be a barrier to subscription, she’s asking for it afterwards. And by explaining that it’ll take less than a minute to answer a few final questions, she’s trying to eliminate an excuse (it’ll take too much time!) and make readers likelier to finish the subscription process.

See the full landing page here.

The Wolf of Franchises

Here’s one more landing page that uses progressive profiling in a really smart way. The Wolf of Franchises, a Workweek newsletter, covers the world of franchise businesses, and readers are likely to be people who are currently investors in (or are thinking about investing in) a franchise. They collect an email address first — but then ask additional questions about the reader, which allows them to do more specific targeting down the road. (Want to email readers who are actively interested in buying a franchise in the food & beverage space and are based in Atlanta? They can do that because they collect the data after a reader signs up.)

But again, the secret here isn’t to overwhelm readers on the landing page. The most important thing is to collect an email address — do that first, and then ask additional questions once you’ve got their email.

See the full landing page here.

The Athletic’s The Pulse

The Pulse, the daily newsletter from The Athletic, does a few great things with this page: There’s an image of the product, and details about when you’ll get the newsletter. But the best feature of this page is that readers can sign up multiple ways. If a reader would like to sign up via email address, a social login, or their New York Times account, they can. 

They’ve used oAuth — a reader can choose their preferred login option, register without typing in their email address, and then The Athletic will get their email via the oAuth integration. It’s a great option for readers on a mobile device — it simplifies the login process and eliminates the chance that a reader leaves a typo in their email address. (No more readers accidentally typing in @gnail.com!)

See the full landing page here.

The Hustle

There’s lots I think others can learn from The Hustle’s landing page. They’ve got:

• A clear explanation of the value of the newsletter (“Get smarter on business and tech”).
• Social proof that the newsletter is valuable, by mentioning list size and showing testimonials.
• A few samples of the newsletter alongside the subject lines for the newsletter, which helps a reader understand what to look for when their first edition arrives.
• An explanation of exactly what you’ll get in your inbox — readers are automatically added to both a daily product and a Sunday edition, so it helps to set expectations there up front.
• Sign up boxes at the top and bottom of the page — if you scroll down to learn more about the newsletter, you don’t have to scroll back up to subscribe.

See the full landing page here.

The Trace

The Trace covers gun violence in America. They do offer a five-day-a-week newsletter option — but they also realize that a daily newsletter product covering gun violence is probably too much for most readers.

So they’ve prioritized their Weekly Briefing instead, and pre-selected that flagship newsletter when you arrive on the page. If you want to select other newsletters, you can with just a few extra clicks, but they use this form to guide you to the newsletter they think you’ll be most likely to want.

One more thing I like: They show a screenshot of their newsletter on the desktop version of the page, but to keep things as simple as possible for users on a cell phone, the mobile version is slimmed down and removes the image.

See the full landing page here.

Semafor

What would it look like to take that same tactic — pre-selecting a flagship newsletter for readers — but applying it to a publisher with multiple newsletters? Semafor offers a great template. When you land on their newsletter page, they’ve already selected their two flagship newsletters: One about global news, one about U.S. politics. They’ve also prioritized those newsletters by showing them at the top of the page and in a larger font.

Want to sign up for all of their politics emails? You can scroll down to that section, check the box next to “Semafor Politics & Policy,” and sign up for all of those newsletters at once.

Since Semafor has several notable writers on their staff, they also mention who is behind each of the products — seeing a notable byline might convince a reader to register for an additional newsletter.

See the full landing page here.

Please Advise

Let’s talk about some landing pages that don’t look quite like anything else on the web. Here’s one from Please Advise, a daily newsletter with marketing inspiration and tips.

Right away, a few things stand out. There’s the unusual color scheme: Black, red, and white, which really pops out at you. There’s the sign-up form built on top of a crumpled up piece of paper. There’s the super clear description of the three things you get in every email — and as a longtime subscriber to Please Advise, I can tell you that they actually do all three of those things every day. (Not every newsletter delivers on the promise they make on their landing page!)

But what I especially love is their pitch for why this newsletter belongs in your inbox.

“Look, we get it. Everyone and their mom has an email newsletter these days, but most of them are long and boring. Consider this your daily call to action that you can legit read in one swipe.”

Great newsletter landing pages refute any possible objections you might have to signing up. Afraid of signing up because other newsletters are too long? Have too many newsletters in your inbox already? The Please Advise team makes the pitch for why their newsletters are different — and worth making space for in your inbox.

See the full landing page here.

Brief.me

Here’s one that most English speakers haven’t seen: Brief.me is a paid daily newsletter briefing. The design of the page is exceptional — it happens to be one of the prettier landing pages I’ve ever seen — but what I really like is how, like the Please Advise example, this page is designed to answer all your big questions as you scroll. Why choose this newsletter? What does a subscription include? Who’s the team behind this newsletter? They go through each question and answer it for readers.

One more thing I love: On mobile, you don’t have to scroll at all to enter your email address. You get the quick pitch at the top (“Every evening, the news explained in 7 minutes”), and then there’s a sign-up box right there. The less scrolling a reader needs to do, the more likely they are to convert on the page.

See the full landing page here.

Jonathan Stark’s newsletter

Jonathan Stark’s newsletter helps independent professionals, like consultants, figure out how to price their services. It comes out seven days a week, and he never misses a day. So a big part on his landing page is trying to prove to you, the future reader, that a daily newsletter is actually worth your time.

How does he do that? There’s a little bit of voice at the top: “Yes, it’s actually daily. And yes, people actually stay subscribed.” He shared some of his analytics — opens, clicks, and unsubscribes — to prove that readers actually like this thing. And then he includes several dozen testimonials below from readers to illustrate that others find this newsletter valuable.

All of this reinforces to a reader: Yes, this email comes out daily, but it might be good enough to justify a spot in your inbox.

See the full landing page here.

Robin Sloan

Robin Sloan, an author, has one of the hardest-to-explain newsletters I’ve ever come across. (“This email is going to like one of the CSA boxes we’ve been getting this summer: full of good stuff, even if you’re not always sure what to do with it,” is how Robin described it to readers back in a 2014 edition.) The newsletter changes pretty much every year, both in terms of format and content. So how do you pitch a newsletter that’s always changing? To me, the secret of this page is in two things:

• First, Robin tells you about his unusual range of projects — he’s an author, musician, and co-owner of an olive oil company. That tells you right away that the newsletter might be a bit more wide-ranging than most.
• Then, he gives you an unusual hook: “My main newsletter goes out once every 29 ½ days.” What kind of newsletter goes out exactly once every twenty-nine-and-a-half days? That might pique your curiosity. 

See the full landing page here.

Tangle

Isaac Saul does a really clever thing with the landing page for Tangle: Since it’s a non-partisan newsletter about U.S. politics, the background of the page is half red and half blue — with his sign-up box sitting right in the middle. It’s a subliminal reminder that the newsletter doesn’t lean towards either side of the political aisle.

Three other things I love about this page:

• Issac’s managed to summarize the value of his newsletter is just two sentences.
• He doesn’t just tell you the overall list size — he lists how many people signed up this week. That offers proof that the newsletter isn’t just widely read — it’s also popular right now.
• He includes a mix of testimonials from both everyday readers and notable members of the media.

See the full landing page here.

Why We Buy 

What really stands out to me about this landing page from Katelyn Bourgoin’s newsletter, What We Buy, is the use of a super clear pitch (it’s basically just two words: “Market smarter”), and the use of bold colors and imagery to drive visitors to the sign-up box. Purple and yellow wouldn’t be a great choice of colors for most websites, but here, it really stands out, and when you get to the sign up box — plain black text on a white background — it actually makes the box pop out.

Plus, there’s some creative art here of Katelyn alongside her newsletter. The newsletter is supposed to be fun, so it makes sense that the art is a bit quirky to match.

One more interesting tactic: She uses Upscribe, a tool from SparkLoop, to recommend other newsletters readers can subscribe to. The recommendations only appear after you’ve signed up for her newsletter. Some of these newsletters are actually paying What We Buy to promote their newsletter — for every new sign-up, Katelyn might get anywhere from $1 to $5. Any newsletter operator should be smart about which newsletters they recommend — promoting a competitor’s product might not be a great idea — but there’s an opportunity for additional monetization right there through the landing page.

See the full landing page here.

Last Week in AWS 

Last Week in AWS is a newsletter that covers the world of Amazon Web Services, the cloud platform that’s behind some of the biggest players in tech, like Netflix and Snapchat. There aren’t a lot of other newsletters that cover AWS, so the pitch here is fairly simple: “Stay up to date on AWS changes and news.” A super-simple pitch might not work for a newsletter in a more competitive market, but here, it works just fine.

I also love that there’s an archive of newsletters listed below — you can find both recent editions or search for key phrases. Here’s betting that any reader who finds what they’re looking for in the archive is likely to become a newsletter subscriber, too.

See the full landing page here.

Nik Sharma

There’s a lot of interesting stuff to unpack on this page from Nik Sharma, who writes about the direct-to-consumer world. The top of the page is simple: You can sign up for his newsletter without scrolling. But as you scroll, Nik continues to make the pitch for why you should subscribe. There’s a list of recent features in the newsletter. There’s the overall list size, and a list of companies represented on his newsletter list.

And here’s a unique feature of this landing page: Nik lists off some of his clients (Priyanka Chopra, Pitbull, Hint Water) as proof that he knows what he’s talking about. For an expert-driven newsletter, that’s a smart tactic to help differentiate his newsletter.

See the full landing page here.

Takeaways for building your landing page

We’ve just looked through a lot of great landing page examples. As you think about applying some of these tactics to your landing page, make sure you keep a few basic things in mind:

• Set expectations for the newsletter up front — Make sure you tell readers when (i.e., on Fridays, at 7 a.m., in the afternoon, etc.) and how frequently they’ll receive the newsletter. 
• Show readers your newsletter — Create a sample image you can showcase on the page. I recommend that over linking out to sample newsletters because readers may click out but not sign up if they leave this page. (Ideally, readers should really only have two choices on this page: Sign up, or exit the page.)
• Add social proof that readers love your newsletter — This could include testimonials from readers to showcase why readers love the product, or stats around list size or engagement to prove that your newsletter is worth reading. Several of the newsletters above are using a tool called Senja to collect and display testimonials on their page.
• Give this page an easy-to-remember URL — Park this page at yoursite.com/newsletters or yoursite.com/subscribe — something that will be easy to remember and share when, for instance, you appear on a podcast or at an event.
• Ask for their email once, and only once — If you have multiple newsletters, make sure that readers don’t have to enter their email addresses multiple times to sign up for multiple newsletters. It’s a frustrating user experience — especially on mobile — that will cost you sign-ups in the long run.
• It’s OK to create multiple versions of this page — Maybe you’re giving a talk at a conference and want to create a special version of the landing page so you can track conversions from the talk — go for it! Or maybe you want to create different versions with different headlines or copy aimed at reaching people who are searching for specific phrases. That’s also fine — there’s no rule that says you can have just one landing page.
• Lean into progressive profiling — Don’t ask for too much information upfront. If you want to ask for a first or last name, that’s OK — but ask after they sign up. Tools like RightMessage or Typeform can help you collect the data and sync it with your email service provider.
• Protect your page — Have reCAPTCHA or an email verification tool like Kickbox built into your sign-up box. Spambots tend to target sign-up pages like these, so you want to keep these pages safe to maintain good deliverability.
• Test out different versions of the page to see which performs best — Don’t just assume that the first version of the page will convert well. Consider using tools like CrazyEgg or Optimizely to A/B test multiple versions of the page and see which drives the most sign-ups. Even a small bump in conversion rate might lead to significantly more newsletter subscriptions in the long run.

And if you’re looking for even more landing page ideas, here are 13 questions to ask to help you improve your page.

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The stories you’re reading on inboxcollective.com are made possible thanks to the generous support of our fall sponsor, Who Sponsors Stuff, which gives you and your team the tools to quickly find and reach out to relevant sponsors for your newsletter. They track 350+ newsletters, have direct contact information for 6,000+ sponsors, and keep you on the cutting edge of who’s spending money in the email advertising space. Find out how their Sales Pro product can supercharge your ad sales operation today.