Why Newsletters Will Have to Transition to Web Publishing

If you spend any amount of time on X, you’ll see the constant discussion about whether or not we’re in a newsletter bubble. This is especially true with regard to the rapid growth of tools like Beehiiv, Substack, etc. How many newsletters can people possibly read before there’s just newsletter burnout?

And look, with how easy it is to launch newsletters, there are going to be many more. At the same time, though, many will also die because launching a newsletter and building a great newsletter are two, fundamentally different things. I suspect that many of the newsletters that are small and serving generic audiences will fizzle out.

But for those that remain, there is going to come a point where the business starts to reach an upper limit and they need to begin investing in things outside of the inbox. It might take years for that to come, but the way that b2b marketers are buying ads these days, newsletter sponsorships, alone, won’t cut it.

To better explain, let’s take a step back and explore the two types of 1st-party data. The first is declarative, which is the demographics information that readers give us. When people sign up for AMO, I learn about their company’s revenue size, what department they come from, their seniority, etc. This information is great because b2b marketers want to deploy as much of their spend toward the person most likely to make a decision. Promoting HubSpot’s CRM to the editorial team, for example, would provide little value to HubSpot.

The second type of 1st-party data—and less discussed—is behavioral. This is what the user is actually engaging with on your platform. This can be both things they have explicitly downloaded or watched—whites papers, webinars, even live events—and also passive consumption like reading an article. Each and every one of these activities is another piece of data. It should come as no surprise that b2b marketers like this because they want to put their message in front of people that are contextually relevant. In other words, showing intent.

In email, declarative data is unbelievably simple. When you sign up, you give it. And so, I can target messages to people based on that data. However, it is significantly harder to capture and activate behavioral data. Prior to Apple’s MPP, you could use opens as a barometer, but that’s not dependable anymore. And if your newsletter looks anything like AMO, how many potential clicks are there to prove you’re engaging? (Hint: there’s two links in this entire piece.)

That means, with a newsletter alone, you are limited with the types of behavioral data that you can provide to your advertisers. And remember, if we look at the recently announced TechTarget/Informa deal, the value is in being able to connect the right person—declarative—with high intent—behavioral. Without that second part, you are simply a lead broker to your partners. This isn’t where you want to play for the long term.

This means, the newsletter operators that do actually stick with publishing will need to make a transition where they begin publishing more content on their websites. They may still distribute it in their newsletters, but the goal will be to increasingly capture that behavioral data only accessible from their sites.

However, there are a few things that these newsletter operators turned media operators will need to do to make this powerful.

First, there will need to be a concrete effort made in tagging content with a clear taxonomy. I’d be lying if I said AMO didn’t suffer from this. But you could argue there’s inherent value in categorizing content with tags like “subscriptions,” “audience development,” “sales,” etc. Fortunately, AI can make it easier to tag all of the content.

Second, publishers will need to continue investing in their technology stacks. The specific tool required to accomplish this declarative & behavioral mashup is a customer data platform (CDP). These work by dropping a cookie on every visitor that hits your site. When that user signs up for something—a newsletter, for example—that declarative data (email address) gets connected to their behavioral information.

Third, content investment becomes about more than the number of emails you send. For a newsletter that you’re sending twice a week, you only need enough content to fill those issues. But when you’re looking to prove intent across a number of different categories, there’s a built-in need to produce more content.

The tricky part with that third point is balancing the need for more engagement on site with not investing too much and having your costs exceed revenue. This is where it is important to have a tight connection between the sales, edit, and audience teams. You should be investing editorial resources into topics that are going to engage your bulkiest audience segments where there is also sponsor demand.

This requires regular communication between the three teams. Sales should be coming to the table with topics that advertising partners care about. At the same time, audience should be coming to the table with data on what types of content users are engaging with. And finally, editorial should be coming to the table with insight into where there are a lot of stories. Sources lead to stories; stories lead to audience; audience leads to revenue. Each side should be pushing the other depending on these variables.

Ultimately, what we are trying to accomplish is growth in behavioral data. Being able to track what audiences are engaging with and connecting that to the individual subscriber is unbelievably powerful. Doing it in a way that is profitable and sustainable is the constant balance that media operators need to find. There’s no perfect answer.

Nevertheless, this is definitively the direction that media is headed. Newsletter operators will be at a disadvantage to publishers that have this on-site behavioral data. It won’t be an immediate transition, but as time goes on, b2b marketers will grow more and more demand for higher intent data. With how much will be available from a TechTarget if this deal closes, it’s never been more important to get prepared.

Thanks for reading. If you have thoughts, hit reply or join the AMO Slack to discuss this further. I hope you have a great weekend and see you next week.