1) The 3 overlooked metrics that matter
Adam Ryan of Workweek tracks these 3 metrics religiously:
1. Total opens / Unique opens ratio
This shows how many people are re-reading your newsletter.
Example: You send a newsletter to 1000 readers
• 200 subscribers open it once
• 50 of those subscribers open it twice
• 20 of those subscribers open it thrice
→ Unique Opens = 200
→ Total Opens = 270
→ Ratio = 270/200 = 1.35
The best newsletters Adam sees get as high as 1.9-2.0 here.
2. Sponsor CTR
How many readers click on ads?
Benchmarks:
• B2B: 0.75%+
• Consumer: 1.5%+
I know successful newsletters slightly below these benchmarks. The key? Building sticky audience relationships that drive engagement.
3. Cohort Retention
Healthy unsubscribe rates for Workweek:
Month 1: 15%
Month 2: 8%
Month 3: 5%
Month 4+: ~4% and stable
2) First-party data is your MOAT
Sean Griffey built Industry Dive into a $100M+ business by collecting data to deeply understand their readers and delivering valuable sponsor content (webinars, whitepapers, etc.).
Sean's data evolution:
• Basic email + industry/title collection
• Email enrichment (Company email → build out full profile)
• Track behavior (the content/topics you like)
• Inferred intent modeling (taking #3 and inferring strong-fit sponsor content)
Pro tip: Ask for 1P data at signup—opt-in rates are 70%+ vs. 2–3% if you ask later.
3) Using AI to write personalized content
• Every's team uses AI to repurpose long-form content and create personalized CTAs (+25% conversion)
• Justin Welsh used onboarding survey responses to segment subscribers by revenue and pain point, then personalized landing pages + launch emails.
The result? $1M → $1.6M revenue.
4) Build your media mullet
Front: Ad-supported free content to grow your subs
Back: Premium products + services to monetize them
Real examples:
• The Ankler: $5–10M from ads, events, paid subs
• A Media Operator: $620K from just 9K subs (sponsorships, webinars, events)
• Every: $3M+ from subscriptions + AI consulting (training, custom tools, implementation)
5) AI-proof your newsletter
Adam asked: Will AI kill your newsletter?
His point: AI-powered inboxes might soon filter, summarize, or even hide your emails based on readers’ past reading patterns, like social feeds throttle content today.
So even if you "own your list," you might not own attention.
Will AI eat your distribution? I think it doesn’t matter…
The 'so what' is the same: You need to build high-LTV products, services, communities, etc. behind your newsletter to have an interesting business these days.
Adam sees it as the only defense for our industry. I see it as the biggest offensive opportunity.
Whether you're more personally motivated by the carrot or the stick is up to you.
The newsletter isn't the endgame—it's your springboard to something bigger.
This post was originally shared by on Linkedin.