7 Big Mistakes People Make When Selling Newsletter Ads

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Sometime in 2014, when I was leading the newsletter strategy at BuzzFeed, I remember setting up a meeting with the company’s sales team to talk about incorporating ads into their newsletters. BuzzFeed had hit a significant milestone — two million subscribers across multiple lists, segmented by topics like food or DIY. Their newsletters saw open rates anywhere from 35 percent to up to 60 percent, well above industry averages at the time. Click rates and reader feedback was excellent.

And BuzzFeed’s sales team told me: Your newsletter list is simply too small to be monetized via advertising.

The worst part: I believed them.

But what I’ve learned over the past decade is that you don’t need to have a massive list to monetize your newsletter via ads. (Though that BuzzFeed list was more than big enough for advertisers! It should have been worth millions of dollars per year to the company.) Even if your list has just a few thousand readers, you may be able to drive $10,000 or more in ad revenue per year. The larger the list is, the more revenue you can make. Many newsletters today are driving six or even seven figures in ad revenue per year.

When I talk with many newsletter operators, though, they tell me that they feel like they’re not getting enough out of their ad strategy. So for the past few months, I’ve been working with Ian Barto and Nate Heintz of Ad Astra Media — two pros in the ad space who’ve sold millions in ads for newsletters. Together, we’ve put together a massive guide, called the Newsletter Advertising Playbook, to help you make more money from your ad strategy. It’s on sale right now — you can buy it via the link below.

But I want to give you a sneak peek at the playbook. So in this article, let’s talk through some of the biggest mistakes I see newsletters make when selling ads. Fix these and you’ll be on your way to making more money from your ad strategy.

Mistake no. 1 — You’re not getting ads into the right places in your newsletter

Imagine a 30-minute comedy that airs on broadcast TV. There’s a reason that, traditionally, those types of shows have had four acts — basically, your beginning, middle, and end, often followed by a brief section during the credits. By splitting the show into four parts, the television station can then place three different blocks of ads during breaks in the show.

The same structure holds true for your newsletter. The longer the content is, the more room you have to create breaks between the content to insert ads.

We’d recommend creating three tiers of ads:

• Primary ads — This is reserved for the title or presenting sponsor of a newsletter. These are usually 150 to 250 words long, plus an image for a sponsor.
• Secondary ads — This could be a native ad or a section with smaller ads, like event listings. These ads tend to be 100-200 words long with no image.
• Tertiary ads — This is the unit towards the very bottom of the newsletter, and makes sense for a sponsored section or classified ads. These ads are much shorter — as few as 25-50 words of text.

To understand how this all fits together, imagine a newsletter that covers your neighborhood or city. That newsletter might have a main story, a section with additional news, a calendar with local events, and then a section with a crossword puzzle.

But by creating four sections, there’s suddenly a lot of space to insert ads. That newsletter’s structure might end up looking like this (we’ll put the editorial content in bold and the ads in italics):

The newsletter’s logo

Logo for the primary sponsor

Main story

Primary native ad for the featured sponsor

Additional news

Secondary native ad (or second ad for the featured sponsor, depending on what that sponsor has purchased)

Events calendar, featuring a sponsor for that section

Classifieds ads

Crossword puzzle

Just by creating the right structure, a single newsletter could have multiple spaces to run ads. More ad slots means a lot more potential revenue in the long run.

Mistake no. 2 — You’re not charging enough for your ads

Too many newsletters are underchanging their advertisers. Our recommendation is to calculate the value of your ads based on CPM, or cost per mille:

• Multiple your total list size times your average open rate to get the average number of readers opening your newsletter.
• Divide that number by 1,000.
• Multiply it by your CPM.

Let’s say you have a 50,000 person email list, a 50 percent open rate, and are charging a CPM of $40. That means you have 25,000 people, on average, opening each email, and the rate you’d want to charge for each ad is $1,000.

For a native ad, particularly one where the sponsor gets their logo at the top of the newsletter and then has a native ad lower down in the newsletter, Ian, Nate, and I typically see CPMs in these ranges (all rates are in U.S. dollars): 

Type	CPM Range
Large media publications covering a wide range of topics	$5-$25
Local media publications	$20-$50
General “need to know” across select news categories (like business)	$25-$60
Niche industry newsletters (like finance or travel)	$25-$60
B2B or career-focused newsletters (like marketing)	$50-100+
Independent newsletters, creators, or influencers	$20-$60
Hobby-centric newsletters	$20-$30

The more niche your newsletter and audience are, the more you can typically charge. In the ad world, a niche audience is more “targeted” — they’re harder for the advertiser to reach — which is why you can justify a higher price for each ad.

Our recommendation: When in doubt, start with a higher CPM. Oftentimes, newsletters that are just starting out will price their ads far too low. Even a 10,000 subscriber newsletter should charge at least $500 for a native ad in their newsletter when they start selling ads. It’s a low enough price that advertisers are able to come up with the budget to test out an ad or two in your newsletter. 

Mistake no. 3 — You’re not aligned with sponsors on the metrics that matter

Some newsletters are still trying to sell an advertiser based on total list size, even if a huge percentage of your list hasn’t opened or clicked in a long time. We’ve seen cases where someone says that the newsletter reaches more than 500,000 readers, but fewer than 20% of the list has actually opened or clicked in the past 90 days. That means the active list size isn’t 500,000 readers — it’s actually just 100,000 readers.

Another common mistake is that newsletters — sometimes on purpose, but often by accident — mislead advertisers in media kits. 

Some newsletters put their overall newsletter click-to-open rate (CTOR) in the media kit instead of ad CTOR. The clicks on a story in your newsletter are probably going to be a lot higher than clicks on your ads, and if an advertiser books an ad expecting that higher rate, you can expect that they’ll be pretty upset after the ad runs and they see a much-lower-than-expected click rate.

But most importantly: Each sponsor has a different goal for the campaign. Some are sponsoring your newsletter to try to build awareness around their brand; some sponsor because they want to sell products or get your readers to sign up to learn more about their services. Make sure you’re on the same page about what success looks like — that way, you have the best chance to nail the conversation after the ad runs and convince the sponsor to come back and sponsor your newsletter again.

Mistake no. 4 — You’re not explaining why your newsletter audience is so special

A decade ago, advertisers weren’t quite as savvy about buying newsletters. If you could prove that you had a big, engaged list, that might be enough to close the deal. But now, advertisers expect more. They don’t just want to know list size and open rates. They want to know that you have the exact readers they’re looking to reach — and that means you’re going to need to collect quite a bit of data about your audience. That means asking them questions like:

• What is your age?
• What is your gender?
• Where do you live?
• What is your job title or role? (i.e. CEO, VP, manager, etc.)
• What industry do you work in?
• How much money do you make per year? 
• What are your hobbies or interests?

What you’re looking for varies based on the type of newsletter. Take location, for instance. If you’re a local newsletter, you might want to ask readers for their zip code — an advertiser may want that level of detail about your audience. If you’re a topic-based newsletter, asking for city or even country might be more than enough.

How do you collect all this information? Some things you’ll get from your email platform. You might be able to gather a bit from your click data — for instance, seeing which topics readers tend to click on and using that to understand what most readers care about. Many email platforms can also help you identify readers in certain cities, though that data isn’t always accurate.

There are also third-party tools that can plug into many email platforms to help you understand the makeup of your audience. A tool like Megahit, for instance, can scan your list, matching the email address with ones on LinkedIn, and then put together a report with data about job titles, company, and location. (Megahit tends to work best for B2B newsletter.)

But the best way to collect the data is simply to ask your readers directly. Run a survey of your newsletter audience — promote it in your newsletter, on the thank you page after someone signs up, and in your welcome series. The more data you can collect, the better you can explain why your audience is so unique.

I’ve got more advice here with best practices around running a successful survey.

Mistake no. 5 — You haven’t figured out your sales process

Sales used to feel like a foreign language to me. But over time, I’ve learned that anyone can learn to sell. The key is showing up with a clear game plan.

Come to the meeting with at least three to five ideas for different messages for the advertiser that you think will resonate with your audience. You can even mock up a few examples of ads, featuring their brand, so they can see exactly what they’re buying from you. Go full “Mad Men” here. Don Draper wouldn’t show up to the meeting without a pitch for a brand, and neither should you.

Make sure you tell them about the results from other advertisers. Nothing inspires confidence that their money will be well spent like seeing positive results from similar brands. Bring up metrics like your renewal rate — the percentage of advertisers who come back and book another ad after running the first one in your newsletter. If lots of advertisers are coming back again and again, that’s a sign you’re doing something right.

Think about next steps, too. Whenever possible, the goal should be to avoid multiple meetings with a potential ad partner. You don’t always need multiple calls when booking the ads, especially when someone is familiar with the newsletter space. If they’re ready to buy the ad slot from the initial sales call, go ahead and book it right then and there.

Of course, many advertisers do need time to consider their options before they close the deal. When that happens, here’s a rookie mistake we see people make: At the end of the call, they’ll say, “I’ll follow up via email to schedule time to chat.” Here’s the problem: It’s easy to ignore those follow-up emails. You worked so hard to get the advertiser on the call, but the sales process stalls there. Pros in the sales space always schedule the next call before they end the current one. Why? Once they’ve committed to meeting with you, it’s a lot harder to back out. Saying “no” to someone over email is easy; saying “no” to someone’s face is a lot harder. Set up the next meeting on the call and you’ve got a better chance to close the deal.

Mistake no. 6 — Your ad copy needs work

Think about the ads you see on TV. They’re usually slickly produced, with catchy taglines or actors sharing talking points that have been honed in focus groups.

The ads that work best in newsletters are usually nothing like that.

What we’ve found is that newsletter ads perform well when you recommend the advertiser the same way you would if you were talking about their product or services to a friend. Tell readers why you like this brand — the more personal the approach, the better.

For instance, let’s say this advertiser’s solved a problem for you. Build the ad copy around that. Start by introducing the problem, then sharing how this advertiser helped you solve it. That approach will perform better than generic marketing copy nearly every time, in our experience.

But that’s not all. Think about the images you might run alongside the ad copy. We’ve found that sponsors often need help picking the right images for your ads. A boring image screams to a reader, “Keep scrolling — nothing to see here!” Let’s say your sponsor is a credit card company. Stock footage of the card itself isn’t going to get readers to pause. But what if you use an image of a family on vacation in a beautiful place, and pair it with ad copy explaining how you can accrue frequent flier miles to go on that dream vacation? That might do the trick.

Make sure there’s a strong call to action at the end of the ad, too. You can do better than “Click here” or “Learn more.” If your advertiser is in the financial space, for instance, try a phrase like, “Invest now” or “Start planning for your retirement.” The goal is to use a phrase that describes the action readers should take or the result they’ll get from the sponsor.

Mistake no. 7 — You’re not showing sponsors the true value of your ads

In our experience, advertisers typically evaluate the success or failure of an ad based on three metrics:

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) — This is the cost for a sponsor to acquire one new customer. (Not all sponsors have customers — some might be looking to bring in clients or supporters, but almost all still refer to this metric as CAC.)
• Cost per click (CPC) — This is what they paid per click back to their website. 
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) — This is how much money they made for every dollar they spent on advertising in your newsletter.

When you follow up with the sponsor — over email, on Zoom, or face-to-face — walk them through the numbers, and then ask them how the ad performed on their end. In particular, it’s worth digging into ROAS. Some businesses have a high lifetime value per new subscriber. Let’s say you’re a local newsletter that partners with a dry cleaner in your neighborhood. Most people aren’t constantly switching dry cleaners — if you find one you like, you stick with them for years. A new customer could be worth hundreds of dollars per year to that dry cleaner. Try to position the success of their ad around that number. Maybe that dry cleaner only got three new customers from the ad, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but if the lifetime value of a new customer is $500, the ad drove an estimated $1,500 in value for them, and they probably paid a lot less for that advertisement.

What you’re helping them see is the investment. $1 invested in your newsletter led to $3 of value. (Your results, of course, will vary.)

Show them that value and you’ll get many more advertisers to come back and sponsor your newsletter again.