Best Newsletter Ads Examples: How To Create Engaging & Effective Ads

Trying to grow your revenue or audience?

In 2025, placing newsletter ads is one of the best opportunities, especially if you want to get a better return on your ad spend.

With over 4 billion active email users, newsletters have been on the rise in recent years. 

And… only the smartest advertisers are cashing in on the benefits, which means ad spend is low. As a brand looking to grow your audience and revenue, that means you can get in on it now to capitalize on the growing marketing channel.

But, how do you know what makes a great newsletter ad? And how do you even get started?

In this guide, we’ll break down some of the best newsletter ad examples, show you a few case studies of successful newsletter advertisers, and walk you through how to create high-performing newsletter ads to grow your business.

Ready?

Let’s begin.

What Are Newsletter Ads?

Before we get into the meat and potatoes…

Let’s cover a few of the basics.

What exactly is a newsletter advertisement?

Simply put, it’s an advertisement placed inside another brand’s email newsletter content.

Many brands advertise in other people’s newsletters as a way to reach new audiences, grow their own audience, and generate revenue.

Why Listen to Me? I’ve generated over $1 million with email and written over 1,000 blog posts. In my daily newsletter, Storey Time, I show 3,000+ subscribers how to escape their 9 to 5 with freelance copywriting. Feel free to reach out to me on X anytime!

The Benefits of Newsletter Ads

So, why would people want to run newsletter ads?

And why would newsletter operators want to show their audience ads from other brands?

For Advertisers

The main benefit for advertisers is that they get to reach new audiences, generate leads, and grow their revenue through a reliable channel.

Email marketing has been a steady medium that continues to deliver effective results, making it a great place to advertise.

The best part is you can easily track your ad performance - click rates, leads, revenue, and more.

For Newsletter Operators

So, what’s the benefit of placing third-party ads for creators who have their own newsletter?

Simply put, they can make steady streams of revenue without having to worry about fulfillment. They can simply promote other people’s products and services and get paid.

That way, they can just focus on creating high-quality content for their audiences and get paid automatically.

Creators Can Generate Revenue From Day One With the Ad Network

The beehiiv Ad Network is an advertising marketplace built natively into beehiiv that connects publishers and brands under a single platform.

With the Ad Network, newsletter operators get:

• Inbound opportunities

• Premium Advertisers

• A seamless process

• Routine payouts

Want to monetize your newsletter?

Check out the beehiiv Ad Network today.

Why Newsletter Ads Are So Effective

In 2024, there were over 4.5 billion email users worldwide. And, by 2027, this number is projected to grow to over 4.8 billion.

Plus, over 1 billion emails are sent on beehiiv alone, reaching 85 million unique readers.

Here’s what makes advertising in newsletters so effective:

• Email is a direct line of communication to your audience: Email, as a communication platform, doesn’t have any algorithms or paywalls in the way. It’s easy to get through to your audience.

• It has the highest ROI of any marketing channel at 36:1: No other marketing channel can compete with the returns you get with email.

• Niche audiences convert better: Newsletters are typically quite niche which means when you reach those audiences, they’ll convert better than broad audiences. 

• You’re tapping into warm leads driven by relationships: Placing Facebook ads is cold advertising. But, placing ads in newsletters lets you tap into the warm audiences of niche operators where they’ve established themselves as trustworthy.

• Email advertising has clear data points to measure its effectiveness: You get to see immediate metrics on your ad performance like click rates, revenue, leads, etc.

Newsletter ads work so well because they let you tap into highly engaged audiences, which often means getting a better return on your advertising budget than other channels.

Enjoying this beehiiv guide? Learn how Growth Daily decreased CAC by 30% with the beehiiv Ad Network.

4 Great Newsletter Ad Examples

Okay, now that you know what a newsletter ad is, and why it can be such a powerful growth and monetization tool, you’re probably wondering what a good ad looks like.

So, let’s dive into a few great examples of newsletter ads so you can start crafting your own effective campaigns.

Value Investor Daily

First up on our newsletter ad examples is an ad promoting—you guessed it—another newsletter!

What’s most powerful about this ad is the fact that it leads with a big, bold promise.

If you want your ad to be effective, you need to ensure your reader understands exactly what you’re going to do for them.

“Steal our best value stock ideas.” clearly communicates exactly what Value Investor Daily does. When you subscribe, you’re not subscribing to a newsletter. You’re getting fresh stock ideas every day to maximize your investments.

The second line on the graphic is great – since it goes straight into the call to action “Join with 1 click.”

Then the creative on the right side, a mockup of their newsletter on a smartphone, helps you visualize what it’ll be like to read the newsletter. Helping your prospect visualize the product in motion is key to selling anything, so this paints a picture of what it’ll be like to subscribe.

The body copy below the graphic continues on wonderfully.

The ad introduces an authoritative source that anyone interested in investing knows — Warren Buffet. Then they show you how quick the newsletter will be to read, in “5 minutes a day.”

Then, they touch on a few more benefits, followed by a final call to action to join for free.

Overall, this ad does great since it follows a core copywriting formula, AIDA: attention, interest, desire, action. It touches on all the core elements necessary to capture attention, build interest, and desire, and invoke action in the reader.

Olly Richards

Next up, we have a newsletter ad by Olly Richards placed in The Saturday Solopreneur newsletter by Justin Welsh.

This newsletter ad is much shorter than the first example above.

And in some cases, short and sweet is the way to go.

The newsletter ad starts with a curiosity-driven headline, “How Does a $10M Education Business ACTUALLY Work?”

This headline is powerful since it taps into the conversation already in the reader’s head.

Olly’s targeting Justin Welsh’s audience here. And a large segment of Welsh’s audience is in coaching, consulting, and course creation. They’re interested in building an education business, and the vast majority wouldn’t be anywhere close to $10M in course sales.

So, the headline is going to have a great audience match. 

Then, the next line reads, “Want to see behind the scenes of a $10M online course business? Olly Richards has written a 118-page case study about how he did it.”

Again, these next two sentences are going to attract most people interested in building a profitable education or info product business. Here, nobody may know who Olly Richards is, but they do know Justin Welsh. So, with this ad, Richards gets to pull on Welsh’s authority and relationship with his audience.

Finally, the ad closes out with a call to action, “Download it FREE.”

Anytime you can mention the word “free” in your ad, you should. People love free things. The word “free” captures attention wonderfully.

Intercom

In the previous example, remember how I mentioned you should use the word “free” in your ads whenever you can?

Well, Intercom understands the power of “free” too.

Look at the headline, “Did somebody say, “free customer service for your portfolio companies? 👀.”

This is another solid headline that takes a unique angle. Rather than just tell your reader, “Get free customer service for your portfolio companies,” this ad takes a more conversational approach. Kind of like the casual feel of a social media interaction.

It’s a solid hook. Then, the line below goes into a subheadline, “Become an Intercom startup partner. Your startups get 100% off Intercom”

This is where they clearly explain the promise of Intercom in plain language, which is necessary to make sense of the main conversational headline.

Then, we have the first call to action, “Apply to be a partner.”

After this, the ad goes into a few benefits, shows you clearly, step-by-step how this works, and then has a final call to action.

The reason they reiterate exactly how this works is because they’re handling an objection. 

While their reader is viewing this ad, they’re likely thinking, “This offer sounds too good to be true. There must be a catch. How does this work?”

So those lines of copy clear up that initial confusion, which keeps curiosity and intrigue high to force the click.

KwaKwa

Finally, let’s break down this ad by KwaKwa, a course creation tool for social media creators and influencers.

The headline reads, “SHORT MOBILE COURSES Designed for Social Creators.”

I like the headline because it is straight to the point. There’s a clear callout for who they’re targeting: “social creators.”

And they tell them what this is all about: “Short mobile courses.”

Then, KwaKwa explains more of the details, “the ultimate course creation tool for creators who thrive on social media.”

KwaKwa does a great job of positioning itself against other course creation tools by mentioning how it offers a “familiar, social-like experience with vertical videos, interactive stories, and outstanding engagement elements…”

A common objection these social media creators will have is that creating a course must be difficult, so the final line before the call to action reads, “making it easy to create courses and teach like a pro.”

And you’ll notice KwaKwa uses that magic word again, “free” in their call to action. The CTA reads, “Start For Free” eliminating any risk on the reader’s end to get started.

What I like most about this ad is the creative. The graphic they use includes mockups of five female creators and their courses. It shows their faces and the title of their courses in a social media format, showcasing what the experience will look like.

Showing off these five creators also taps into social proof, showing the reader real creators just like them who are using the software.

Best Practices for Creating Newsletter Ads

Now that you have your creative juices flowing from those four newsletter ad examples, it’s almost time to start designing your newsletter ads.

But, before you venture off and find newsletters to place your ads in, let’s cover a few best practices to help you craft high-converting newsletter ads:

It All Starts With Great Copywriting

Every great ad begins with great copy, including newsletter ads.

Copywriting is simply the words you write to convince someone to take action. It’s persuasive writing businesses use to drive clicks, grow audiences, and generate revenue.

If your copy is subpar, your ad will fall flat.

If you’re not sure how to write great copy for your ads, here’s a little tip:

Use the AIDA formula.

AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire, action:

1. First, open your ad with an attention-grabbing headline. 

2. Then build interest with intriguing facts, numbers, or stats about the product or your industry.

3. Next, create desire by focusing on the core benefits of your product. This is the outcome your reader will get out of your product or service.

4. Finally, insert a call to action (CTA). This is where you intentionally ask your reader to do something. This could be to sign up for a newsletter, click a link, purchase a product, or sign up for a free workshop. Remember, if you don’t ask your reader to do something (or you make it confusing to take the next step), they won’t do anything.

If you look back on all four newsletter ad examples above, they almost all follow the AIDA formula exactly.

Consider Lead Magnets vs. Product Pitches

What do you notice about the four ads above? How many of them made a pitch for a paid product?

Zero.

All four ads focused on something free: a free email newsletter, a free case study, a free year of software, and a free trial of their tool — lead magnets.

While you can run ads that directly promote a paid product, it’s best to start with lead generation ads: ads intended to capture leads into your funnel.

Making a monetary ask is a great way to drive revenue. But, remember to focus on how you can add value to your ad. How can you educate while you sell instead of just selling? 

Design Visually Appealing Ads

Next up, focus on your ad creative.

This is the image or graphic you use in your newsletter ad.

An ad can rely strictly on copywriting to capture attention. But, incorporating a bit of design can be an even more powerful way to get your reader’s attention and hook them into the ad.

And, in many cases, relying on powerful visuals can help demonstrate your product in action or incorporate social proof like a few of the examples above do.

Ads should be visually attractive and consistent with the overall design of the newsletter.

Integrate Ads Seamlessly with Content

An ad should capture attention and hook your reader in.

But…

You don’t want your ad to disrupt the flow of the newsletter you’re placing it in. There’s a fine line between a great hook and an aggressive pattern interrupt.

You want your ad to complement the flow of the newsletter you’re placing it in.

With beehiiv’s Ad Network, you can easily place your ads within the design format of your target newsletter so it’s a smooth transition between their content.

For example, take a look at this ad opportunity I received in beehiiv’s Ad Network from Morning Brew (for my newsletter, Storey Time).

Notice how the background has a kind of taupe color?

That’s not the natural background color of the ad. 

That’s beehiiv’s Ad Network formatting Morning Brew’s ad for my newsletter.

The fonts, styling, and the rest of the design also match my newsletter design.

To show you what I mean, take a look at my beehiiv newsletter below:

So beehiiv can help you, as an advertiser, ensure your ad fits like a glove within the content of your target newsletter. All with just the click of a button.

Optimize Through A/B Tests & Analytics

One of the most important aspects of succeeding with newsletter ads is optimization.

If you don’t track your results, how will you know if they’re effective or not?

And, if you don’t track your results, how can you improve your ads?

You should make sure you track your main metrics for your ads: clicks, customer acquisition cost (CAC), leads, and revenue.

And, when you do run newsletter ads, make sure you conduct A/B tests.

That way, you can start to optimize your ads for the highest effectiveness from the start.

With beehiiv’s Ad Network, you can test out different versions of your ads with your newsletter placements to see which converts the best.

If you’re not sure where to start with A/B tests, begin with the headline.

Then, experiment with the call to action (CTA) and other copy elements.

After that, experiment with creative which is primarily your image usage.

Then, test out long vs. short ads.

Case Studies of Successful Newsletter Advertisers

Now that you’ve seen some newsletter ad examples and you understand how to craft newsletter ads, what kind of results can you expect from the ads you place?

Here are a few successful newsletter advertisers on beehiiv:

Artisan AI

Artisan AI is an innovative startup led by 23-year-old founder Jaspar Carmichael-Jack.

Artisan AI offers a virtual AI assistant, Ava, that personalizes outreach for sales teams by integrating data insights and advanced personalization techniques. 

With the beehiiv Ad Network, Carmichael-Jack achieved impressive revenue growth, generating $68,000 in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).

In the full beehiiv case study, Carmichael-Jack emphasized the value of the Ad Network, stating, “As an early-stage startup, gaining insights into effective channels and messaging is crucial.” The platform enabled him to scale his marketing efforts fast.

With the Ad Network, Carmichael-Jack was able to get:

• 176 sales meetings booked

• 4 closed deals

• $68,000 in annual recurring revenue (ARR)

Key takeaways from the case study:

• The beehiiv Ad Network enabled Artisan to A/B test his ads within newsletters at scale, identify top-performing channels, and optimize his copy for their target audience, resulting in plenty of leads

• He generated $68,000 in ARR in the B2B space in a short time period

Read the full Artisan AI Case Study here.

Intercom

Intercom is an AI-driven customer service platform.

They partnered with the beehiiv Ad Network in their campaign to reach startups.

Their newsletter ads drove significant traffic to their landing pages, with over 2 million impressions in total.

Since they were able to match with premium advertisers with niche audiences, they were able to easily target startups with less than $1 million in funding and only 1 to 5 employees so they could target exactly who they needed to reach.

In the full case study, John Roche, the head of the startup program, emphasized that beehiiv’s Ad Network played a major role in their ability to scale.

He shared, “The beehiiv Ad Network has given us an easy and scalable way to reach startup founders and key decision-makers.”

Key insights from this case study include:

• The beehiiv Ad Network helped Roche and Intercome achieve over 2 million impressions and 7,000 landing page visits, including niche startup newsletters Confluence VC, Failory, Search Ventures, and more

• Niche newsletters outperformed generalist publications by a long shot

• Intercom achieved click-through-rates (CTRs) of 1-2.4% on these niche newsletters

Read the full Intercom Case Study here.

AdQuick

AdQuick is a robust MarTech platform. 

Adam Singer, Head of Marketing at AdQuick, wanted to implement a diversified marketing strategy to maximize his marketing funnel.

He mentioned, “We market in a mix of online and offline channels, including Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising and email marketing through beehiiv, our largest email channel.”

Key insights from this case study include:

• Newsletter ads are more effective than other channels for B2B when it comes to brand awareness and performance marketing

• Email marketing helped Singer and AdQuick establish credibility and get more marketing-qualified leads (MQLs)

Read the full AdQuick Case Study here.

Growth Daily

Growth Daily is a daily marketing newsletter that helps brands optimize their growth marketing.

Founder, Marketing Max found great success in reducing his customer acquisition cost (CAC) by placing ads via the beehiiv Ad Network.

In addition to the intuitive brand-newsletter matching, Max shared, “We go above and beyond for advertisers in a few unique ways. First, we gave all of our new sponsors 2X their investment into ads with us during their first campaign. We do this to give us the flexibility to test copy, landing page, and ad placement... “

Key insights from this case study include:

• Newsletter ads can dramatically reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC) since you’re targeting highly niched audiences at a low cost

• Growth Daily decreased their CAC by 30% using the beehiiv Ad Network

• The beehiiv Ad Network enables advertisers to scale their ad buys across multiple newsletters efficiently helping you reach a wide audience (that’s still niched and segmented)

Read the full Growth Daily Case Study here.

Reach Millions of Engaged Readers in Minutes With The beehiiv Ad Network

If you’re trying to get the most out of your ad spend, then you need to find the right vehicle in 2025.

Right now, newsletter ads are one of the best opportunities since they let you:

• Target niche audiences

• Tap into pre-established trust

• Reach new audiences at low costs

If you follow this guide, you’ll be well on your way to crafting high-converting newsletter ads.

But, the biggest problem with running newsletter ads isn’t figuring out how to create the ads.

It’s everything else: finding highly engaged newsletters, setting up partnerships, and coordinating campaigns.

This takes a ton of time and is the biggest headache of relying on newsletter ads.

Thankfully, there’s a way to have your cake and eat it too.

The beehiiv Ad Network is a highly targeted advertising channel that enables brands to sponsor thousands of premium newsletters.

Built by the founding team that built Morning Brew's internal ad tools, the Ad Network is the easiest way to acquire new customers by leveraging the power of thousands of highly engaged audiences.

Leveraged by top brands like Netflix, BetterHelp, HubSpot, Babbel, Brooklinen, and more, the beehiiv Ad Network is a simple way to generate more revenue, drive conversions, and double down on your growth.

By leveraging beehiiv’s Ad Network, you get to tap into:

• Over 1 billion monthly impressions

• Nearly 85 million unique readers

• 20,000+ top newsletters in the world

• Average open rate of 39%

• Average click-through rate of 4.3%

• Average ad click-through rate of 1%+

Plus, with the Ad Network, you get access to transparent first-party data and reporting to ensure that you know you’re getting your money’s worth.

Ready to tap into highly-targeted niche audiences so you can grow your audience, attract new leads, and generate more revenue?

Check out the beehiiv Ad Network today.