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Why Newsletter Advertising is More Effective Than Social Media Ads
How to Choose the Right Newsletter for Your Brand Sponsorship
Jake Schonberger & Linda Hwang
October 4th, 2024
When someone reads a newsletter, they've invited that writer into their inbox.
They're actively seeking out content, spending time with it, and reading in a very deliberate way.
This creates the perfect opportunity for an advertiser to present their brand in a relevant way to an engaged customer.
Modern marketers should, therefore, leverage the power of newsletter advertising.
Newsletters provide the ability to establish a direct line of communication with subscribers who have opted to receive the content, which makes for a targeted, engaged audience.
One of many ongoing problems a lot of modern marketers have is wrestling with engagement.
One of beehiiv’s well-known content creators, Samir Mezrahi, said, “I’ve been in social media for over ten years, and social platforms are scary. They’re always changing the algorithms and decreasing your reach, and it’s always a constant chase.”
Mezrahi runs the popular Instagram (IG) account and newsletter, Zillow Gone Wild. He added, “But with the newsletter space, you can connect with your audience, and it feels more safe.”
Ready to dive deep into the world of newsletter advertising and learn how it can change your newsletter strategy?
This article will break down the main benefits and strategies of newsletter advertising and why it is fast becoming a game changer in the marketing world.
Table of Contents
Newsletters have so many pros to them, but my favorite is simple: an owned audience.
That’s what it feels like when you have an email list… it’s an audience YOU own.
Many creators are quick to invest in social media strategies, which, yes, can be extremely valuable for specific niches, but with their algorithms changing constantly, staying on top of the best strategies can be challenging.
Even if you manage to be relevant, at any point, the algorithm can change and tank your distribution, or your posts can get removed and accounts blocked. This leaves your business vulnerable.
With a newsletter, you will have stability and control you aren’t going to get elsewhere.
That’s why, many creators have been hopping onto the newsletter train!
Popularity Surge
There are over 4.5 billion email users worldwide in 2024, and this number is projected to grow to over 4.8 billion by 2027.
beehiiv alone sends over 1 billion emails each month, reaching 85 million unique readers.
These statistics show one key denominator—a lot of email users.
With so many email users, newsletters have seen a surge in popularity recently.
As social media becomes oversaturated, algorithms are constantly changing, and accounts are being reduced in searches or deleted, making it difficult to navigate.
The desire for curated information is still growing, leading more and more users to newsletters—a viable source of information and entertainment one can count on.
Let’s see some more mind blowing 🤯 stats about emails:
361 billion emails are sent each day, and this is expected to reach 408 billion in 2027.
Newsletters are becoming more versatile when it comes to brand awareness, garnering loyalty, and providing updates.
With many email users owning smartphones, 88% of email users check their inboxes multiple times a day—with 39% checking 3-5 times a day.
A stat I can jump on as a B2B marketer: 50% of us say email marketing is the most impactful channel in our multichannel marketing strategy.
Trust and Engagement
Newsletters foster a sense of trust and high engagement among readers.
To build a stronger bond with your subscribers, you have to stand out—think surveys or polls that spark conversations, landing pages that invite action, and some irresistible content charm.
You should build your newsletter to your niche audience using your unique style and voice.
You want an “owned” audience, a readership that trusts the information you provide in your newsletter, website, or blog.
So, how do you set about doing this?
Rather than writing for a broad audience, concentrate on content to serve a specific segment within your broad audience.
For example, Jon Finkel tailors his Books & Biceps newsletter to an audience of fitness enthusiasts and book lovers.
“The newsletter is like if your meathead best friend, who’s also an author, took the time every week to share cool books you’d actually read and challenging workouts you’d really try,” Jon commented during a call with us.
Once you have the content down for your niche audience, the next step is engaging that audience with your brand image and voice.
Your tone and voice are the foundation of your brand—it’s what sets you apart from others.
Saturate your newsletter with your personality, wit, and thoughts.
Finkel had years of experience building up his brand. For an author, building a brand means creating a unique identity that resonates with the readers.
This includes:
Developing a distinctive writing style
Creating a solid author platform
Establishing a loyal fan base
Authors can increase their visibility and reach, leading to excellent newsletter monetization opportunities.
“If you’re going to start your own brand as an author, unless you’re John Grisham or unless you’re one of these guys who just automatically is getting a six-figure or seven-figure advance for everything you pump out, you might as well get paid for the middle part, and share what you’re doing along the way with your readers.”
See why newsletters are powerful for engaging your readership?
Unlike social media platforms, where content is often scrolled past quickly, newsletter subscribers actively choose to open and read the content, creating a more focused and attentive audience.
Social media platforms are “rented” audiences, less attentive and less engaged with your content.
When you compare key metrics between social media and email marketing, there’s a considerably large difference in readership and engagement between the two.
Email open rates can be anywhere from 15-25%, and organic social media open rates are a measly 2-4%.
Email marketing remains a reliable tool that continues to deliver impressive results. Email marketing is vital for a few reasons:
It’s a direct line of communication to your audience: You don’t need to worry about ad-blockers or rapidly changing social media content rules.
It drives traffic and conversion: When you can directly speak to your audience, you build a strong relationship with people who are invested in your content.
It provides valuable data and insights: Data points like click-through rates and open rates tell you what your audience is interested in and what they aren’t so you can adjust your content marketing strategy.
Targeted Reach
Demographic Targeting
The primary use of email segmentation is to make content more personalized for subscribers. By segmenting an email list, you’re ensuring that your subscribers receive the most relevant emails to them and, therefore, improve the chances of those subscribers engaging.
By partnering with newsletters that cater to particular demographics or interests, advertisers can ensure their message reaches the right people.
Demographic targeting can include segmenting by:
Age
Sex
Nationality
Occupation
78% of marketers say that segmentation is the most effective strategy they use for email marketing campaigns.
Niche Markets
Who doesn’t want to shine online?
In order to do that, you have to “find your spot.”
With the right niche, your newsletter can go from hidden gem to trending news.
One of the most powerful aspects of newsletter advertising is its effectiveness in reaching niche audiences.
Newsletters are in every industry—real estate, fitness, investing, you name it; newsletters are there.
Whether you're targeting tech enthusiasts, fitness buffs, or finance professionals, there's likely a newsletter that speaks directly to your ideal customer base.
Depending on your product or service, finding a newsletter that closely aligns with your niche audience is better.
A great advice for advertisers is to design your ad to match the style and tone of the newsletter so it blends in seamlessly with the content.
Strategy: Frequency & Creative Matters
Remember the “slow and steady wins the race” life lesson from childhood? It applies to newsletter advertising as well.
While social media often feels like a frantic sprint to grab attention, newsletter advertising allows for a more measured approach that can yield impressive results over time.
Take it from one of our marketing gurus, Marketing Max, who commented, “The problem with social ads like Facebook and Instagram is that you are interrupting people's experience when they are trying to look at cat videos and breakfast posts from influencers.”
He added, “Search ads are great but have a limited audience size. Not to mention, both social and search ads give you limited targeting options compared to newsletter ads.”
Marketing Max is the founder of Growth Daily on beehiiv. A daily marketing newsletter all about optimizing your marketing growth. Who else would be better to discuss newsletter advertising strategy with than Marketing Max?
Newsletter advertising has similar components to social media and other platforms, and A/B testing and learning from your mistakes is the best course.
Marketing Max provided a valuable tip for brands, “Brand should be approaching their intro into newsletter advertising [by running multiple ads over multiple weeks]. You can think about it like any other performance advertising platform!”
Frequency
Just like Goldilocks searching for the perfect porridge, finding the right frequency for your newsletter ads is crucial. If you seek too little, you risk being forgotten. If you bombard, you may end up annoying your audience into hitting the dreaded unsubscribe button.
A great rule of thumb is to start with a consistent weekly or bi-weekly schedule. This allows you to maintain a presence without overwhelming your readers.
Per Marketing Max, “One thing I think a lot of brands get wrong the first time they run an ad in a newsletter is that they only run one ad. If you were getting started with Facebook ads, you wouldn't run an ad for one day.”
“You would run multiple ads over multiple weeks to see what's working and what's not working before doubling down on something that can scale,” added Marketing Max.
It’s not just about how often you show up but how valuable each appearance is to your audience. You can create a content calendar that balances promotional content with non-sales material. This approach helps build trust and keeps readers looking forward to your newsletter.
Creative
While newsletter advertising might seem more straightforward than the visual-heavy world of social media, don’t underestimate the power of creative testing.
Just as you’d A/B test your Facebook and Instagram ads, apply the same thought process to your newsletter content.
Elements to experiment with:
Call-to-action placement and wording
Image usage and placement
Long-form vs short-form content
The beauty of newsletter advertising is the ability to segment your audience and tailor your creative approach accordingly.
Even Marketing Max agrees, “With newsletter ads, I get my product or service in front of hundreds of thousands of people who I know are interested in exactly what I'm selling.”
He added, “I know with more certainty than search or social ads that my [newsletter] ad is being seen because data shows people spend more time reading newsletters than consuming search and social ads.”
Why Trust Us
Linda Hwang has extensive experience in B2B marketing and previously worked at a renowned international facilities management company. There, she played a crucial role in creating effective content and social media marketing plans. Now, Linda is a marketing consultant who helps small businesses create compelling brand stories.
High Engagement Rates
Open rates
Newsletter advertising often boasts impressive engagement rates compared to other forms of digital advertising.
Open rates for newsletters tend to be higher, as subscribers have actively opted in to receive the content.
The formula for calculating the open rate is simple:
Open Rate = (Number of Emails Opened / Number of Emails Delivered) x 100
With beehiiv, the average open rate is 39%—super high compared to average social media open rates, meaning advertisers have a higher probability of getting engaged by placing an ad in a beehiiv newsletter!
Click-Through Rates
The focused nature of newsletter readership often leads to higher click-through rates for advertisements.
When an ad is seamlessly integrated into valuable content, readers are more likely to engage with it.
To calculate email CTR, divide the total number of emails you sent by the number of people who clicked on them. Then, multiply your answer by 100 to turn it into a percentage.
Statistics have shown that across the week, click-through rates (CTRs) don’t fluctuate dramatically, often hovering around 1.5-1.7%, signifying steady audience engagement with the content of the emails regardless of the day.
Cost-Effectiveness
Lower Costs
Compared to other advertising channels, newsletter advertising can be surprisingly cost-effective.
With lower entry costs and potentially higher ROI, it's an attractive option for businesses of all sizes.
Heard of cost per mille or CPM?
‘Mille’ is a Latin word meaning thousand—cost per thousand impressions or views in marketing.
So, in other words, CPM is the price an advertiser pays for their ads to be shown 1,000 times as people engage with online content.
For example, if you land a sponsorship for $8 CPM and you have an audience of 100,000 subscribers, the cost of the sponsorship is $800.
CPM is a fairly common pricing structure across digital channels. CPM rates vary across industries, platforms, locations, target audiences, and more.
Generally speaking, an average CPM lies between $3-10 USD.
By channel, the average CPMs in 2024 were:
Meta (Facebook and Instagram): $7.94
TikTok: $3.74
Twitter/X: $3.11
YouTube: $4.39
ROI
Like any kind of marketing, getting a good return on investment (ROI) is crucial for success.
But what does a good ROI for a sponsor look like?
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all industry answer.
In email marketing, an often sourced number is 3600% ROI—which means for every dollar you spend, you receive a return of $36. These stats are brand-to-subscriber communications and not newsletter sponsorship.
Ultimately, you will have to figure out the ROI you can offer potential advertisers.
Consider the newsletter open rate and ad click-through rate in addition to total subscribers.
A Trusted Voice Goes a Long Way
Newsletter advertising benefits from the trust readers have in the newsletter's voice.
When an ad is presented with content from a trusted source, it gains credibility by association.
Ads That Deliver
As a sponsor, there are a few effective types of ads you can use in email newsletters to generate engagement:
Native ads: You should blend aspects of the newsletter into your ads, like the type of content and style. This will make the ads less intrusive and improve performance as they don’t disturb the reading experience.
Dedicated emails: You can add emails that focus on the sponsor’s offerings, allowing for in-depth promotion.
Banner ads: One of the most popular ways to deliver an engaging ad. These are highly visible but try to match the design to the newsletter’s aesthetics.
Call-to-Action (CTA): Include a well-placed and clear call-to-action in your ad.
Case Studies and Success Stories
At beehiiv, we have numerous case studies and success stories that demonstrate how advertising in newsletters leads to outstanding engagement for sponsors.
AdQuick
AdQuick is a prominent MarTech platform. Adam Singer, Head of Marketing at AdQuick, understands the importance of a diversified marketing strategy that covers the entire funnel.
Singer 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.”
Some important points from AdQuick’s case study:
Newsletter advertising is effective for both brand awareness and performance marketing in B2B.
Email marketing helps establish credibility, create awareness, and generate direct leads and Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs).
beehiiv Ad Network allows advertisers to scale their newsletter advertising efforts efficiently, reaching millions of readers through a single platform.
Newsletter advertising through beehiiv provides better economics and return on investment compared to social media ads.
Growth Daily
Growth Daily is a daily marketing newsletter all about optimizing your marketing growth.
You’ll learn the latest growth marketing news, resources, tools, and techniques to fuel your marketing and grow your business.
Here’s a great tip from Marketing Max about newsletter advertising, “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.”
He added, “We do this to give us the flexibility to test copy, landing page, and ad placement... “
What a brilliant and creative approach to newsletter advertising, right?
That’s why over 85,000 CEOs and marketers read Growth Daily!
In Growth Daily’s case study, we learned a few essential factors like:
Newsletter advertising can significantly reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC). Growth Daily decreased their CAC by 30% using the beehiiv Ad Network.
The beehiiv Ad Network allows advertisers to scale ad buys across multiple newsletters efficiently, making it easier to reach a wider audience.
Newsletter advertising through networks like beehiiv can become a major part of a company's marketing budget. Growth Daily increased their spending on the beehiiv Ad Network from 10% to 40% of their monthly marketing budget.
Newsletter advertising can be one of the top acquisition channels for businesses. For Growth Daily, it became their second-best channel out of 15+ acquisition channels.
Xembly
Xembly is an artificial intelligence (AI) productivity platform for enterprises—helping businesses boost workforce capacity by 20% without hiring more bodies.
Andrew Mounier, Head of User Acquisition & Growth Marketing at Xembly, said, “The beehiiv ad networks save us about 40 hours a month of work to run newsletter campaigns at scale.”
In this case study, there are some great pointers for newsletter advertising:
The beehiiv Ad Network allows advertisers to scale their campaigns effectively across multiple newsletters without individual negotiations.
Targeted newsletter advertising can generate qualified leads and drive unique site visitors. Xembly gained 109 qualified leads and 6,134 unique visitors through their campaign.
Newsletter advertising through networks like beehiiv can maintain cost-effectiveness. Xembly kept their Cost Per Lead (CPL) within the agreed-upon range.
The Publisher's Perspective
When you own your audience through your subscribers, you can use your newsletter as a potential revenue stream as well as an audience engagement tool.
Publishers strive to balance advertiser needs with reader experience, ensuring that ads are relevant and non-disruptive.
If you’re interested in selling ads in your newsletter, start by gathering the following information:
Your total number of subscribers
Your open rate
Your click rate
In the past, getting your newsletter to a point when it was ready to be monetized via ads required a team of sales, data, writing, tracking, etc.
But with a tool like beehiiv, all you need to do is send newsletters!
beehiiv will then handle the following:
Sales: Presenting you opportunities from premium brands
Writing: Ready-made ad spots
Reports: Automatic tracking, attribution and results
Improving: Continuous testing and improvements
Payments: Automated payments that are directly deposited into your wallet
Conclusion
When it comes to monetizing your newsletter, advertising is one of the best options available.
Newsletter advertising has proven to be a powerful tool in the modern marketer's arsenal.
Its ability to reach engaged, niche audiences in a cost-effective manner makes it an attractive option for businesses looking to maximize their advertising impact.
Are you ready to advertise in your newsletter?
Join the beehiiv Ad Network today and tap into a treasure trove of the most engaged readers across thousands of top newsletters!
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