What I Learned About Newsletters in 2025

Prefer to listen to this story?

One of my favorite things about my job is that I’m always learning. Last year, I worked directly with nearly 100 different businesses and newsletters, from publishers with international audiences down to local newsrooms covering small communities. That work’s given me insight into significant changes across the email landscape.

What I see now is a continued shift in the inbox. AI has been a big part of that, but the rules around growth and revenue have changed, too, as have the ways readers interact with newsletters.

So as we move into 2026, I want to share what I’ve learned over the past year. If the inbox is going to keep changing, you need to be ready to adjust to stay relevant and get the most from your email strategy.

You don’t own your audience

When I worked at BuzzFeed, we often talked about the idea of “owned and operated” channels. If you were on a platform where you controlled what readers would see and when they’d see it, you were building an audience in a relatively safe place. Sure, you could build a large audience on a channel like YouTube, but what if YouTube changed the rules? What if Facebook stopped sharing your content, even if you had millions of followers? What if a platform like Twitter were purchased by a billionaire who could ban you from the platform? (Or — *gasp* — could decide that it wouldn’t even be called Twitter anymore!)

Back then, we considered email to be one of those “owned and operated” channels. If we wanted to send an email to readers, we could do so and know that it would reach inboxes. If we wanted to migrate to a new email platform, we could.

But the inbox continues to change. Some email platforms encourage readers to follow a newsletter rather than subscribe to it, and you can’t take those followers with you if you change to a new email sender. Other platforms set up paid subscriptions in a way that isn’t portable to another platform: If you leave, you may have to start over from $0. All of this makes the inbox a lot less friendly to anyone building a newsletter strategy.

The idea of “ownership” needs to change. At the end of the day, you don’t own the inbox — the reader does. They decide who they let in and who they keep out. As platforms like Gmail make it easier for readers to unsubscribe, you may find that readers will happily do so. Remember: It’s their inbox, not yours. They may let you in at first, but you’ll need to earn your spot in the inbox long term.

It’s OK to adjust your strategy

Anyone can set up a newsletter and start sending. You don’t need a background in tech; you don’t need to hire help. You can pick a newsletter name, set up an account, and begin.

I think this is a wonderful thing.

But it also means there are a lot of newsletters out there, many of which may compete with your newsletter and some of which may even be better than it. (Not your newsletter, of course. Yours is perfect — I read it every time it shows up in my inbox! But other folks might need the advice I’m about to share.)

Take Inbox Collective’s newsletter, for instance. When I launched the first version of my newsletter in January 2019, there weren’t many other newsletters focused on the newsletter space. For a while, I had this lane almost entirely to myself.

And now, in January 2026? There are a lot of newsletters about newsletters, and many are excellent.

That’s why I continually adjust my content and sending strategy. In 2023, I shut down my original monthly briefing, Not a Newsletter, in favor of a weekly-ish strategy. Other newsletters were going out on a weekly basis, so the idea of a monthly curation product didn’t seem valuable anymore.

This past fall, I took a closer look at what was working best in my newsletter — deep dives, case studies, stories about tools, among other topics — and realized that to produce that kind of content, I needed to shift to an every-other-week cadence. In 2026, if you’re on the Inbox Collective newsletter (sign up today!), you’ll get two-ish emails from me per month. 

The lesson: Just because you’ve been doing things a certain way doesn’t mean you need to keep doing things that way. Adjust when your audience — or your own constraints — require you to do so.

You can still go deeper

It’s OK to reframe what your newsletter focuses on. I’ll use my newsletter again as an example. Let’s say my topic (“sending better newsletters”) still feels too broad, and I’m not seeing the engagement or the revenue that I expect. In that case, I’d want to go a level deeper.

What does that mean? When I launched my newsletter in 2019, I saw plenty of newsletters on email marketing, but none that I liked for editorially-focused email strategies for publishers or nonprofits. Focusing on newsletters was my way of taking a broad topic (“email marketing”) and going more niche.

But now? If I was launching today, I’d probably go even deeper: Newsletters + _________.

I could go Newsletters + Local, to serve readers who build newsletters for local communities.

I could go with Newsletters + Daily to build something aimed at people who create daily newsletters.

I could try Newsletters + Paid Products, to show readers how to convert your audience into paying supporters.

You get the idea: By reaching even more niche audiences, I could create something that feels hyper-specific to certain readers.

Are there risks with that? Absolutely. For one thing, I’d be reaching a much smaller audience.

But by targeting a specific audience, it also might be easier to monetize that audience. The Newsletter + Daily angle would lend itself to a really good conference. The Newsletter + Paid Products angle would be great if I wanted to offer a paid membership with tutorials and resources around sales.

If you’re not seeing success with your current newsletter, see if you can go deeper to find your core audience.

Pick a second channel (but maybe not a third!)

The team at Project C coined a wonderful phrase this year: “Poly-platform.” That might mean using newsletters as a core tool for distribution — but not your only tool. You might be active on an algorithmic channel (LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube), engage with readers through a community (Discord, Reddit, Slack), or reach your audience directly (podcast, print, WhatsApp, SMS).

As they wrote:

Journalists working in the creator space are doing it native to the platform(s) that we all spend our time on. They’re writing in formats to fit our inbox and appearing on our social feeds with the arresting aesthetics that make us want to linger between swipes. And they’re not just doing one specific thing.

Nearly every creator journalist on this list uses at least three to four platforms strategically. This multi-platform dependency isn’t just about reach — it’s about survival in an algorithm-driven media landscape where platform changes can devastate single-platform creators.

I think it’s a smart strategy. You can operate with a newsletter-first mentality while still trying to reach readers elsewhere. 

But here’s one thing I learned this year: Just because you can be on multiple platforms doesn’t mean you need to be on every platform.

When I talk with clients, they constantly ask about new platforms. Should we invest in SMS, Dan? What about Bluesky? What about podcasts?

My answer: You don’t need to be everywhere — and trying to do so may keep you from focusing on the stuff (particularly your newsletter) that actually drives results. Before you invest your time in an additional platform, ask yourself:

• Am I going to publish original content on this platform? 
• Are there unique features on this platform (i.e. streaming live video, selling a paid subscription, etc.) that I plan to use?
• If the platform makes it possible, will I engage or collaborate with others?

And if the answer is yes to all of those questions, then add another platform to your list.

But for most teams, being in just a handful of places — email plus a single social media platform, for instance — is more than enough.

AI is coming for the inbox — but not in the way you think

When it comes to AI and newsletters, I’m not worried about what AI will do to newsletters. I’m not very concerned about AI deciding where your email lands within the inbox. (Inboxes like Gmail have been doing versions of this for years.) I’m also not concerned about AI-created summaries of newsletters. (If your newsletter can be summarized in three sentences without the reader missing anything, you need to be writing a better newsletter.)

But I am keeping a close eye on how AI will change the way we use our inboxes.

Right now, AI is getting good at certain things, from coding to creating images. It can be a decent writing partner when you give it the right prompts. It can manage a lot of tasks on its own.

But interestingly, one thing it really isn’t great at is managing your inbox.

There are lots of folks — heck, I’m one — who would be happy to turn over control of their inbox to AI, let it sort through everything, and reply on your behalf to key messages. Once every few hours, you’d get a ping from your AI assistant letting you know what’s been done and if there’s anything you need to manually handle. You’d barely need to check your inbox at all!

Some power users already do this with their inboxes. Soon, I expect these tools will be accessible to everyone, not just those who know how to build AI agents.

That’s where things start to affect newsletters like yours or mine.

Part of the appeal of newsletters is that your readers constantly check their inboxes. The rise of cell phones only made checking email more of a regular habit. Instead of only checking it when you’re at your computer, now you can check email anywhere — on your commute, while waiting in line to pick up your kid, on a cross-country flight.

So imagine the scenario where you’re not constantly checking your inbox. Would this also mean you’re spending less time reading newsletters?

The cynic in me believes the answer is “yes.” And less time spent in the inbox means your newsletters will be seen far less often.

The optimist in me believes there’s another possibility: Without all the clutter of the inbox, checking email could be a lot more enjoyable. Think about the experience of logging into your favorite podcast app. Do you dread opening that up? Of course not — there aren’t bills or emails from your boss waiting for you there. The same could be true of the inbox. With those unwanted emails dealt with, AI could optimize the inbox to show you the newsletters you most want to read. You’d see just the good stuff, and none of the rest.

What will happen? Based on how email platforms like Gmail are changing and how fast AI tools are evolving, I believe these changes are coming to inboxes sooner than you’d expect. 

Maybe even this year.

Diversify your growth and revenue streams

I have a few clients who depend almost entirely on ads. They make money running ads in their newsletter. They grow by advertising in other newsletters or through Meta.

I’ve spent much of the last year begging these teams to diversify. It’s so hard to build a stable business without diversification.

Some of my top-performing local newsletter clients, for instance, are monetizing in several key ways:

• Advertising
• Reader revenue (paid subscriptions, membership, or donations)
• Low-cost products (think: A coupon book where, for $25, you get discounts at local businesses)
• Events
• Merchandise
• Offering services (think: Owning an agency where they help other local businesses with marketing)

Some of those revenue streams are far bigger than others. But having multiple revenue streams means that if something underperforms, their business will remain solid. (And if something overperforms, the business will have an unexpectedly great year.)

It’s not that five revenue streams is some sort of magic number. And I’m not saying you should get out of the ad business. (There’s a reason I launched the Newsletter Ad Playbook a few weeks ago — there’s a real opportunity there for many newsletters!) But if you want to grow a business around your newsletter, you need to keep trying new ways to make money.

Also: Think about how you can monetize up front. Maybe that means sending people to a sales page right after they sign up for your newsletter. Maybe that means asking them to answer a few questions and then showing them a special offer based on the results. Maybe it means selling low-cost products, like an ebook, or showing paid recommendations in your welcome series. The teams I see growing the fastest are the ones who can monetize readers in the first few days (or even, sometimes, hours!), and then reinvest some of that revenue back into growth.

I do think that paid ads still need to be a key part of the growth strategy for most newsletters. For some, paid growth might even be the most important growth tactic. But I’d also encourage you to think about growing in other ways: Partnering with other newsletters, converting readers from social media to your newsletter, or optimizing your website for growth.

There are plenty of ideas to try. The important thing is that you continue to try new things, because the rules around growth will continue to change.

The Rules for Newsletter Growth Have Changed. Here’s What Works Right Now.

Do the basics

Even in 2026, I still have to remind people to do the basic stuff.

Yes, you need to build out a welcome series for your newsletter.

Yes, you need to remove disengaged readers from your list.

Yes, you need to authenticate your newsletters.

Yes, you should think about how to get your logo into the inbox.

If you don’t, you miss out on the chance to get more readers to open your newsletters.

Bots are getting smarter and weirder

A decade ago, if you didn’t protect your sign-up forms, bad bots would slip onto your email list, affecting deliverability and costing you thousands of dollars per year.

In the past few years, if you didn’t filter out bot clicks, good bots might artificially drive up your click rate.

And in the past year or so, you might have noticed a weird new type of bot activity. Bots can sometimes get past CAPTCHA, click on links, and even reply to your newsletter with odd messages. If you’ve gotten a handful of random Gmail addresses replying with the same formal-yet-nonsense phrases (“This email will be highly useful for my upcoming business strategy!”), you’ve seen this firsthand.

There’s a lot we don’t know about why these new bots exist or what they’re doing. But as more AI tools roll out, I expect to see more of this bot behavior in the year ahead.

Time will tell if it’s good or bad —or will just stay weird.

Never stop learning about your audience

If you’re trying to convince an advertiser to work with you or another newsletter to partner with you, they’re going to ask you what makes your newsletter special. And I promise: The answer isn’t your list size or open rate — it’s your readers. You need to be the evangelist for your newsletter. Tell them why your audience is so special.

The smartest newsletter operators are the ones who really understand their audience: Who they are, what they care about, what they need. You can collect that data in so many different ways:

• Ask them to reply to your newsletter. 
• Use progressive profiling to collect information over time.
• Run surveys or incorporate polls into your newsletter. 
• Try focus groups or 1-1 conversations.

The more you learn about readers, the better you can create content for them, find the right advertisers for them, and build events or products to serve them.

Do your own damn thing

I think too many newsletters are in a rush to copy what they see elsewhere. So many newsletters look the same. So many newsletters monetize or grow in the exact same way.

I believe that newsletters shouldn’t be a paint-by-numbers kind of operation.

Write daily, write weekly, write whenever you feel like it. It’s up to you.

Sell ads, sell subscriptions, sell products, sell nothing. Do what makes sense for you.

Make your newsletter short or long, heavily designed or plain text. It’s your call.

The best newsletters I’ve seen over the past year don’t follow some sort of template. They’re trying stuff that others don’t. 

I’m betting that holds true in 2026, too.

Trust yourself and do what seems right to you. If you haven’t seen someone else try it, that might not be a bad thing.

In fact, it might mean you’re way ahead of the curve.