📈 Profitable Growth: The Exact Playbook We're Using to Get Paid to Grow Our Newsletter Audience

Last time, I covered our process (how we’re selling newsletter sponsorships).

Today, I’ll show you what we’re selling.

It’s what has allowed us to:

• Grow Malachi Daily profitably from the moment we acquire a subscriber

• Sell $50k+ deals with long-term partners

The best part?

Even small audiences can do this.

Read: If we had 0 subscribers today, this is exactly what we’d be doing to fund our growth.

Buckle up.

Someone will make $100k+ from implementing what you’re about to read.

Helpful Links 🔗 

• 🛠️ Our favorite newsletter tools: beehiiv (ESP), Youform (forms), Descript (video editing), Sparkloop (growth & monetization), ElevenLabs (AI voiceovers), Sponsy (managing sponsorship operations)*

_{*All of these are products we use and love. Some are affiliate links.}

Our (metaphorical) baby

Malachi Daily has always been our playground.

In fact, it’s the only reason BetterLetter exists (story for another day).

We’ve been bootstrapping it for 2 years (started as an SMS service, but it’s been an email newsletter for ~1 ½ years).

Here’s how we’re growing profitably 👇️

WHAT We’re Selling

We sell 2 ad products:

1. Normal in-newsletter placements (CPM)

2. Performance-based lead generation campaigns (CPL)

1. In-Newsletter Placements (CPM)

I won’t spend much time here.

This is the most common way to sell newsletter sponsorships.

Quick Example:

• 50,000 subscribers

• 50% open rate

• 25,000 impressions per send

• $20 CPM (cost per 1000 impressions)

25 batches of 1000 impressions x $20 CPM = $500 per ad placement

If you send your newsletter:

• 12 times per month (3x per week)

• Have one sponsor per email

..the ceiling for sponsorship revenue using this model is 12 x $500 = $6000/month.

We currently only sell 1 sponsorship per email (scarcity + heavily focused on selling the second product).

But you can increase your revenue ceiling by increasing your ad inventory.

The two main ways to do this are to:

1. Send more emails

2. Add new sponsorship slots in your emails (e.g., secondary sponsorship slots)

Large newsletters like Morning Brew, 1440, The Pour Over and The Flyover all sell multiple sponsorships products per email.

2. Performance-Based Lead Generation (CPL)

Here’s where things get interesting.

Most newsletters (especially with consumer audiences) face the chicken or egg problem with the impression-based in-newsletter sponsorship model (aka what I just covered in #1).

The problem

In order to sell sponsorships, you need a large enough audience.

In order to acquire a large enough audience, you need money (or time) to grow.

This dynamic makes bootstrapping a newsletter with a sponsorship-driven revenue model incredibly hard today.

Note: This is why new newsletter operators should use a tool like this to project sponsorship revenue by playing around with different audience milestones, CPMs and # of sponsorship slots. Getting a reality check now is better than getting one later.

The solution (especially for small newsletters)

Don’t sell impressions. Sell a result.

Result = clicks, leads, customers

What we’re doing

In our case, we primarily sell leads:

• Email leads ($2-4) 📧 

• Full address leads ($5-10) 🏡 

• Paying customers ($200-$300) 🎟️ 

For those without a large audience, the question becomes:

How do I generate leads for someone when I don’t have an audience (yet)?

The answer: Generate leads via your newsletter’s signup flow.

Why it works

First, some context on why this works.

The moment someone subscribes to your newsletter is often their moment of greatest intent.

They are in a decision-making mindset.

When someone signs up for Malachi Daily, they’re making a decision to grow in their faith — which means they’re in a mindset where they are more likely to take other actions aligned with that goal.

The point? Conversion rates during this moment are sky high compared to any other time we put an offer in front of them.

This is why eCommerce stores recommend you products that pair well with what you already added to your cart (aka sock recommendations when you buy shoes).

So here’s how it works 👇️ 

How it works

First, we run ads to a simple page built in Youform.

As soon as they press subscribe, they move seamlessly to the next page where we ask 2-3 questions that:

1. Qualify them for an offer

   

2. Bring awareness to a pain point that our advertising partner solves

   

3. Based on their answers, we present the offer, which could be:

• A) A lead magnet (email lead already collected in flow)

  

• B) A free physical product (full address lead collected in flow)

  

• C) Send them to a custom landing page to convert them into a customer.

In the above example, new subscribers would redirect to a landing page hosted by our partner.

So within a few seconds of someone seeing our newsletter ad, they are:

• Subscribed to our newsletter

• Qualified for an offer

• Warmed up to the offer

• Shown the offer (either within the flow or on a landing page)

And remember, these subscribers:

• Are still in a moment of high intent

• Are aware of their problem

• And now, are aware of a solution

All within ~30 seconds of signing up for our newsletter.

The Results?

Very high conversion rates.

Depending on the offer, between 40-80% of new subscribers opt in to:

• Sign up to another email list or receive a lead magnet ($2-4 per email)

• Sign up to receive a free physical good ($5-10 per lead)

• Learn more about our partner’s paid offer ($200-$300 per conversion)

A few weeks ago, we launched our best performing campaign that’s converting a whopping 84% into leads.

That’s the power of moment of intent + strong offer-audience alignment.

At the Newsletter Marketing Summit in February, Andy Mackensen broke down how The Assist recoups ad spend within 7 days of acquiring a new subscriber.

Their flow looks like:

New subscriber signs up → fun quiz (qualify them) → customized “offer wall” which you can see here (which features their owned products + affiliate offers)

They’re leveraging this exact principle.

By doing this, you tie your biggest cost center (paid growth) directly to revenue.

Which means you can fund your growth without needing to wait a 3-6 month payback period.

When this works

This model is predicated on the underlying principle behind many businesses: arbitrage

• Retail: Buy goods from wholesalers → sell to consumers at a markup

• Geographic arbitrage: Source from a low-cost country → sell in a high-cost one

In short, this model works when you can acquire a lead for cheaper than an advertising partner is willing to pay for that lead.

And the better offer-audience fit, the better this will work.

The Math

If you can..

• Acquire a subscriber for $1 (very doable for consumer niches - we have clients in healthcare and sports niches acquiring quality subscribers at <$0.80 per subscriber right now)

• Convert 50% into leads at the point of subscription

• Find an advertising partner willing to pay $2+ for that lead

OR

• Acquire a subscriber for $1.50

• 3% of leads convert into leads/customers

• Find an advertising partner willing to pay $50+ per lead/customer

OR

• Acquire a subscriber for $2

• 2% of leads convert into leads/customers

• Find an advertising partner willing to pay $100+ per lead/customer

..you can break even (or profit) immediately upon acquiring a new subscriber.

If you do that, you’re essentially “growing for free.” And any revenue you drive from those subscribers after the fact is profit.

Deal structure

Here’s the typical flow of a deal we do:

• Outreach inviting a potential advertising partner to a sales call

• $5,000 - $10,000 performance-based test over 30 days (they only pay for leads they receive)

• If successful, we sell a 6+ month deal at $5,000-$25,000/month

• For the right fit, we include in-newsletter sponsorship placements in the deal (partnerships > transactions)

CPL Deal Calculator

When evaluating whether or not a partner has long-term potential to work with us in this way, I use a simple calculator.

If the math doesn’t work, the deal won’t work.

Click below → Click File → Make a Copy → Edit it with your own numbers

How you can do this

As a consumer newsletter, we’re doing this with:

• Faith-based nonprofits (need new donors)

• Other newsletters + email lists (need newsletter subscribers)

• Businesses targeting a Christian audience

But here are a few variations of this CPL structure:

B2B:

• Generate leads for your own business

  • Example: Vendry.io

    • Newsletter for CMOs → Marketing agency matchmaking service

• Generate leads for someone else’s business

Consumer:

• Generate full address leads for a non-profit to mail their magazine or fundraising materials

• Generate leads for a business serving a broad audience that isn’t tied to geography (e.g., financial advisors, estate planners)

Local Newsletters:

• Generate leads for local service businesses (roofing, driveway sealing, financial advising, gutter cleaning, real estate agents, etc.)

In fact, we launched ads for a new client two weeks ago in a professional consumer niche:

• Subscriber count: 400 → 2,000+

• CPA: $0.75 per subscriber (verified target market with first party data via onboarding flow)

  

• They just started reaching out to potential advertising partners and already have someone interested. Again, you don’t need a large audience to do these deals.

What we’d do if we were starting from scratch

If we had 0 subscribers today, I would run this exact playbook 👇️ 

1. Identify good-fit advertisers already sponsoring other newsletters in your niche.

2. Run your numbers using this calculator to know what CPL and conversion rate you would need to see for a deal to work.

3. Then, make the initial pitch a low barrier to entry:

   • Reach out to good-fit advertising partner to get them on a sales call

   • Build an example flow featuring their offer in Youform

   • Walk them visually through how it would work

   • Offer a 1-month test at a controlled cost per lead

   • Guarantee performance to take risk off the table for the advertising partner

   • Optional: Throw in an in-newsletter placement as a bonus to sweeten the deal if you have open inventory

4. Ask for payment up front

5. Use that payment to fund paid ads

6. Run ads to grow your newsletter (or hire us to do it)

Why we love this strategy

We’re a consumer newsletter bootstrapping in a niche that’s difficult to monetize without scale.

And this has allowed us to generate significant revenue relative to our size..

WHILE funding our growth..

WHILE building ongoing relationships with advertising partners.

With the right performance-based CPL deals, everybody wins:

• Our audience receives free resources or discounted products/services

• We generate revenue immediately upon acquiring a subscriber

• Our partner only pays when they acquire a lead

The best part?

You don’t need a current audience to do this.

We started selling these deals with less than 50k subscribers but in hindsight, we would have started doing this since day 1.

The CPL deals we’re doing now could be done the exact same way if we had 0 subscribers.

CPL partners don’t care about how big our audience is.

They care about whether or not we can send them quality leads.

Advertisers care about reaching their goals.

If you can present a great option to do that, you’ll be able to sell deals.

And if you can consistently deliver? You'll get renewals and win long-term partnerships.

If you want help growing your newsletter and building this out, book a call with us here.

Otherwise, get to work 🫡 

Cheers,

Isaac + Kieran 📈