How to Create a Newsletter Thank You Page (Step-by-Step)

Two of the most beautiful words in the English language are “thank you.”

Anyone who starts a newsletter will need to learn to get very familiar with those magical words. The first time you’ll likely use them in the subscriber journey is the moment they hit your subscribe button.

But, a newsletter thank you page isn’t just about showing gratitude to your readers. It’s a strategic newsletter play.

Beyond showing readers you care, the basic premise of a newsletter thank you page is simple: you don’t want to leave your subscribers hanging.

The first few hours, days, and weeks that follow a “subscribe” are the most crucial. Just because someone became a subscriber, doesn’t mean they’re in it for the long haul. You need to continuously woo your readers and win them over right from the get-go.

In this article, you’ll learn exactly how to set up a newsletter thank you page in just a few minutes. Plus, I’ll show you how you can use beehiiv to create an automated subscriber flow for your subscribers to go on a trigger-based journey on autopilot.

Step 1. Login to Your beehiiv Dashboard

First, log in to your beehiiv account. Then, click over to your beehiiv Dashboard. On the navigation sidebar, click on “Settings.”

Step 2. Go to Your Website Settings

Next, click on “Website.” Once you’re on the “Website” page, click on “Pages” along the top navigation bar.

Keep in mind: To access the custom pages feature, you need to sign up for beehiiv’s Scale plan.

Step 3. Add Internal Page

Next, it’s time to create your custom page. Under the “Pages” tab, click “Add Internal Page.”

Step 4. Create Your Thank You Page in the Editor

After you’ve clicked “Add Internal Page,” you’ll be directed to the page creation editor.

With pages, I like to first start by filling out the page details on the right.

First off, you’ll have to select how you want the page to exist on the website. You can keep it as a draft, add it to your navigation bar to be easily found, or create it as a silo. For a thank you page, you’ll want to select “Standalone Page.”

After that, you’ll add your page title and URL slug which will be visible to your readers. Then, you have the option to add in some SEO details including whether you want the page to be indexed by search engines (which means it’s searchable and could be found in Google).

However, for a subscriber thank you page, you likely won’t need to index this page or fill in the SEO details since you’ll only want to show this page to people who have just subscribed to your newsletter.

Step 5. Design Your Thank You Page

Now, it’s time to design your thank you page!

If you’ve already written some newsletters in the beehiiv email editor, then you’ll find yourself in a familiar place.

Almost anything you can do in the newsletter editor, you can do here!

You can design your own thank you page from scratch with a load of customization options. You can add images, adjust fonts, insert links, and more.

A typical thank you page should usually include three things:

1. Confirmation that the visitor subscription is live.

2. Details on what they should expect next.

3. A call to action (read the newsletter, share the newsletter, follow us on social, etc.)

Once you’re done designing your thank you page, hit “Save Changes.”

The page is now live and can be found if you head directly to the URL in your web browser’s address bar. But, we’re not done yet.

Why Listen to Me? I’ve managed two ecommerce email newsletters over the years including one with 100,000 subscribers and one with 30,000. I currently run a digital media business, Hockey Question, that gets over 50,000 visits per month.

Step 6. Publish Your Thank You Page

Now, we need to connect your thank you page to your subscription page. Head over to Website>Advanced>Subscribe Flow.

To connect your new thank you page, click “Customize” on the Home Page option.

Then, insert your thank you page URL and click “Add Redirect.”

Now, when someone subscribes, they’ll see your thank you page.

Step 7. Test Different Thank You Pages

Now that your thank you page is fully connected and will show up once someone hits “Subscribe,” your work is done. But, if you’re the type of person who’s fully focused on growth and improvement, then it’s time to optimize.

With beehiiv, you can create endless custom pages on the Grow and Scale plans. This means you can create alternate versions of your thank you page to help improve your subscriber experience and keep readers around longer.

To create a new thank you page, head over to “Website” then “Pages” and simply add a new internal page. Here you can create new versions of your thank you page you can use to test against your current versions. If you want to create something similar to your current thank you page, you can click “Edit” on the current thank you page, highlight the page, copy it, then paste it into the new internal page.

From there, you can adjust as you see fit.

Above is an alternate version of the thank you page I created. But, instead of adding a button with a call to action to share the newsletter at the bottom, I added an embedded YouTube video.

In this version, I’m trying to get users engaged with different content types as a way to add value immediately rather than asking them to share the newsletter with a friend.

If you decide you want your new thank you page to go live, remember to head over to Website>Advanced>Subscribe Flows and adjust the redirect URL to your new thank you page.

Step 8. Create an External Thank You Page (Optional)

Another option for a thank you page is creating an external page hosted on your site. With beehiiv, you can redirect to any external page on your site after someone has subscribed to your newsletter.

The way you set up your external thank you page in beehiiv is the exact same way you set up your internal thank you page.

Simply head over to your Website settings and click Advanced. Click “Customize” and you’ll be able to enter in your external URL. Once someone subscribes, they’ll be redirected to whatever link you put in there.

An external thank you page could be a good option for you if you want to do some advanced custom coding or you have extensive plugins integrated into your page.

One great example of this is ProductLed’s newsletter thank you page. As soon as someone signs up, they’re directed to a unique thank you page with a short quiz to help the reader find highly relevant resources they can consume right away.

This is a great way to provide value to your subscribers immediately to help them stay the course.

Another great example of an external thank you page is on Tim Ferriss’ website. Upon subscribing to his 5-Bullet Friday newsletter, the subscriber is directed to a thank you page that is primarily focused on his podcast, “The Tim Ferriss Show.” Your thank you page is a perfect opportunity to introduce any other content formats to your audience. Since they’ve subscribed to one content format — a newsletter — chances are, they’d also be interested in a podcast, or video content.

Step 9. Set Up a beehiiv Subscribe Flow

Once you’ve got your thank you page set up, you can also look at some of the other awesome subscriber automations beehiiv has to offer for your new subscribers.

In beehiiv, click on “Website” and “Advanced.” At the top, there’s a section called “Subscribe Flow.” This is a series of options available to you that you can add to your new subscriber’s journey.

We’ve covered the custom thank you page so far which can be adjusted under the fourth option, “Home Page.” But now, let’s take a look at the other three options above:

1. Subscribe Survey

This is a customizable survey you can send new subscribers to gain more information on them like their name, age, interests, and more. You can customize the survey how you want it to which can help break your subscribers down into segments.

Here’s an example from the Exec Sum newsletter, built on beehiiv.

2. Recommendations Page

This is a new feature beehiiv has to offer that allows you to recommend different newsletters to your new subscribers. It also works the other way around — you can get recommendations from other newsletter creators which can help fuel your subscriber growth. Even more recently, we introduced Boosts, which is a paid version of recommendations to further fuel growth.

3. Upgrade Page

If you offer a paid newsletter as well, the third option is an upsell call to action for new subscribers to upgrade to your premium publication.

The subscribe flow is set up so new readers will go through each step you toggle on starting with Subscribe Survey and ending with your custom Thank You Page (URL chosen for “Home Page”).

You can pick and choose exactly which steps you want your new subscribers to take the moment they sign up for your newsletter.

As a bonus, you can further automate the journey your new subscribers take by sending them a welcome email after they finish this subscribe flow. And, beyond a welcome email, you can create even more automated, trigger-based journeys with beehiiv automations.

Get Started With beehiiv Today!

Your thank you page is one of many ways you can leverage beehiiv’s custom pages to expand your newsletter brand.

With our custom web pages feature, you have complete control over your website, customize it, and optimize it, to grow your newsletter to its full potential.

beehiiv was created by the same team that built and grew the Morning Brew newsletter to millions of subscribers. Our focus is simple: to make it easier than ever for everyday creators to build and grow their digital presence.

If you’re ready to launch your own newsletter, or you’re looking to switch to a newsletter platform made for creators, then get started with beehiiv today!

Note: beehiiv’s custom pages feature is only available on the Scale plan. To learn more about our paid plans and/or upgrade, visit here.