Hello and Happy 4th! 🇺🇸
Welcome back to this week’s edition of Growth Levers, where you get:
3 things happening in the newsletter world
2 winning newsletter ads and breakdowns of why they worked
1 pro tip to improve your ads and thus improve your CPA
Let’s get into today’s edition and see if you can find a lever to pull before the burgers and dogs hit the grill:
3 Things You Should Know
🎥 Riverside, the podcasting platform, has entered the newsletter space. Tag this one as “things I didn't see coming.” Certainly an interesting play. I don't have a take yet as to whether you should be on it or not, but it’s certainly there!
💰 Rescripted is the leading media platform for women's health, reaching up to 20M women monthly and operating a handful of newsletters in the category. They are on the hunt for an Account Executive with some media sales experience and a genuine interest in women's health. Job brief is here for anyone who may know someone.
📰 Are newsletters going mainstream? Seriously, this was a great article from The Washington Post on creator newsletter businesses and how they’re growing. Great to see the industry get recognition like this!
2 Winning Ads
Ad 1: AI Voiceover
Newsletter: Buying Sandlot.
What You Need To Know:
If the hook fails, the whole ad fails. This one nails it because the script gives just enough context and hits the right value props to keep you watching through to the CTA. Voiceover can be generated through ElevenLabs, but you need a good editor to match it cleanly to the subtitles.
Video selection is doing the heavy lifting. A slow, boring background video won't put anyone in a trance. This ad uses a higher speed, scenic video that pairs with the voiceover in a way that almost forces you to keep watching.
Music matters but won't make or break it unless it completely clashes with the content.
Ad 2: Tweet Overlay Ad
Newsletter: Buying Sandlot.
What You Need To Know:
Quick hack and a super easy edit for anyone who can use CapCut or what we use internally, Kapwing. I've talked about doctored X post ads before, and this takes an X ad you've already seen work (with real data behind it) and doubles down on it in a new format.
Simply find a background video, overlay the X post, attach some music, and run it. We see this work for over 50% of the operators we run newsletter growth for, so I wouldn't steer you wrong here.
1 Meta Ads Pro Tip
Audit your landing page load speed. It is a silent CPA killer.
There is a friction point that happens before anyone even sees your copy: load time. Meta is sending you mobile traffic on 4G and 5G connections, often mid-scroll on Instagram.
If your page takes 4 to 5 seconds to load because of a huge hero image or a bloated page builder, you are losing clicks before they read a single word.
Run your page through Google's PageSpeed Insights (free) and look at the mobile score.
Common fixes: compress hero images, kill unnecessary scripts and pixels stacked on the page, and if you are on beehiiv, use their native landing page builder rather than embedding a heavier third-party page. It loads faster by default.
This is a "set it once" fix. Takes a few minutes and compounds across every dollar you run through that page from here on out.
Before you go, here’s how I can help:
If you’re a newsletter operator running ads already and need a full hour to chat with me through the struggles, questions, or possible optimizations. I’ve opened 3 paid slots per month (1 has already been snagged). You can book the call here and have me live for an hour to run through anything you think will make an impact in your newsletter ads.
My agency runs the newsletter growth process from A-Z for newsletters like Mark Manson, The Daily Upside, James Clear, Tangle News, and many more. If you want to have engaged subscribers flowing into your list without lifting a finger, you can apply here to work with us!
That's all for today. I'll see you back here next week!