📈 Build a Newsletter in Public: Week 1 Results

If you missed it last time, I’m building a newsletter in public from scratch (with my wife).

And I’m sharing the behind the scenes play-by-play with you.

This is Update #2.

You can read about the why, details, goals and numbers here.

In today’s email, I’m breaking down:

• The exact ads and copy I ran + why they worked

• The overall results from Week 1

• What I’m doing next

Let’s dive in 👇️

Helpful Links 🔗 

• 📱 The iOS 18 update every newsletter operator needs to keep an eye on (link)

• ✍️ David Ogilvy’s 10 legendary tips for how to write (link)

• 👀 ICYMI: Steal These Scripts For Your Thank You Page and Welcome Email (link)

• 🛠️ Our favorite newsletter tools: beehiiv (ESP), Descript (video editing), Sparkloop (growth & monetization), Typedream (custom landing pages), ElevenLabs (AI voiceovers)*

_{*These are affiliate links}

The Experiment 🧪 

This experiment is meant to answer the question:

If I were a creator with limited time and money, how would I validate a business idea within 3 months using a newsletter?

To jog your memory, here are the details of the newsletter I launched 1 week ago:

• Niche: Pregnancy, Labor and Birth 🤰

• Timeline: ~3 months

• Budget: ~$750

• Growth: 90% paid Meta ads, 10% organic social

• Monetization:

  • beehiiv boosts

  • birth education course

  • 1:1 consulting calls with my wife

Week 1 Results 📊 

• Subscribers: 210

  • 186 from Meta Ads

  • 24 were organic. This was from 1 post my wife put on her Instagram. This is the only organic that we’ll do.

    

• Audience:

  • 56% are pregnant now for the first time

  • 16% aren’t pregnant but plan to be soon

  • 13% are pregnant now or will be (not for the first time)

    

• Welcome Email Stats:

  • I’m using my own welcome flow playbook that I talk about here

• Expenses: $433 (Meta ads), $39 (beehiiv)

• Revenue: $146 (2 course sales)

The Winning Ads 🤔 

I tested 6 ad creatives (3 images and 3 videos) in 2 ad sets.

I used a $25/day budget for each ad set.

Targeting was pretty straightforward:

• Women aged 23-37

• Interest based with Advantage+ audiences: Newlyweds (married within the last 12 months)

Here were the overall results for week 1:

Note: Both winning ads were below $2 CPAs by the end of the week.

Here were the two winning ads:

1/ The Image 🖼️ 

This is an ad we’ve seen perform well across some of our client accounts.

It took 30 seconds to create in Canva and requires zero design skills.

Here’s the simple structure:

• 🪝 Hook: Call out exactly who you want to read the rest of the ad (and sign up)

• 🫰 Value Prop: “what you need to know about birth (that nobody ever taught you)”

• 🏃‍♂️ CTA: Sign up below

2/ The Video

This took 12 minutes to make:

• 2 min: write the script into ElevenLabs and download audio file

• 10 min: upload audio file to Descript, choose a stock video background, add captions, and format

It follows the same Hook, Value Prop, CTA format as the image ad.

Click here to watch the final product.

Here’s the exact copy I used in the caption:

My Overall Thoughts On Week 1 🤔 

Overall, I’m happy with the start:

• Got brand new ad account/pixel to 50 conversions, found 2 winning ads and got the CPA below $2.

• Open and click rates are in a good place.

• Getting the first 2 course sales is great.

  • That said, they were both from the organic 24 subscribers. They bought once they got the welcome email. Still need to see if cold traffic will convert into buyers.

The plan moving forward:

• I turned off meta ads for cohort 1 (the first 200 subscribers)

  • I want them to get ~6 weeks into the automation to see how the sales sequence performs before making changes

• Then, I’ll turn ads back on to bring in ~100 more subscribers for cohort 2 to test changes to the sales sequence

• Pricing:

  • 👉 Course price will increase by $20-$40 every 2 weeks they stay subscribed to the newsletter until $199.

  • 👉 The sales sequence will start between weeks 3-4 for a big push to sell the course.

The Tools 🛠️ 

• 🐝 Beehiiv for the newsletter (free available, $39/mo to use surveys + automations)

• 🌐 Typedream for the course landing page (free available, $20/month for custom URL)

• 📹️ Payhip to host the course (free available, $5/month if you host the course on their platform)

• 🎨 Canva to create Meta ads (free)

• ✂️ Descript to edit video ads (free)

There you have it. 🫡 

In future updates, I’ll share:

• The exact details of the welcome flow

• The strategy behind the sales sequence

• The course landing page

• Pricing strategy

• And more..

And if you want to start a newsletter and join me in building from scratch for the next 3 months, start a free account on beehiiv and let me know you’re in.

The more the merrier,

Isaac + Kieran

P.S. When you’re ready to grow your newsletter…

Let us do it for you. Our agency helps businesses grow their newsletters so they can drive more revenue.

Like how we’ve added over 6,500 high quality subscribers to this newsletter last 4 weeks 👇️

Or how we’re scaling this newsletter with the highest quality subscribers they have 👇️

If you want us to grow your newsletter for you and are ready to invest at least $2k/month on ads, book a call with us here.