📧 Is Your List Secure?

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👋 Hey!

This week's issue is packed with moves that'll reshape how you reach inboxes and monetize your audience. Substack is dealing with a data breach that went undetected for months. Also, we’re presenting you with a deal to make your newsletter earn more from your sponsored ads. Plus, we're breaking down how a financial newsletter scaled to mid-eight figures using a channel most creators completely ignore.

Ready to level up? Let's dive in! 👇

In partnership with ConvertingLeadMagnets.com

Your cost per subscriber is probably too high

Most newsletter operators keep running the same ads and wondering why CPL won't budge. DTC Daily was stuck at $4.18 per subscriber. Two months later? $2.51. Same budget, same traffic source, 37% lower cost.

The difference was one strategic shift: a lead magnet built around a trending topic their audience actually wanted. The full case study breaks down the research process, the ad creative strategy, and the real before/after numbers. No theory, just a documented playbook you can steal.

Substack confirms data breach affecting user emails and phone numbers. The breach happened in October 2025 but wasn't detected until early February. If you're on Substack, check your security settings and consider enabling two-factor authentication immediately. Your subscriber list is your most valuable asset — treat it accordingly.

Guardian claims Substack profits from newsletters promoting Nazi ideology. This creates brand safety concerns for mainstream creators sharing the platform, something to monitor as advertisers pay closer attention to where their dollars go.

Ghost launches a dedicated comment moderation dashboard. Filter, search, and manage every comment across your publication from one place; finally, real tools to handle a growing community without the chaos.

Buttondown adds public descriptions to subscriber-editable tags. Your subscribers can now see what each tag actually means before toggling it on; better context means smarter self-segmentation and fewer confused readers.

Bloomberg Media surpasses 700,000 subscribers with 6% revenue growth. The publisher's success comes from a triple threat: subscriptions, advertising, and live events. For newsletter creators, this is the playbook: Don't rely on a single revenue stream when you can stack multiple.

HubSpot outlines critical criteria for email automation platforms in 2026. AI-powered content optimization, predictive analytics, and unified CRM integration are now table stakes. If your current platform can't handle these, you're leaving growth on the table.

Get Your Brand Logo Into Every Major Inbox

Most newsletters show up as a generic gray icon in subscribers’ inboxes. That's costing you opens. Here's how to fix it across Gmail, Yahoo, and Apple Mail.

How:

Why: Visual recognition in crowded inboxes drives opens. When subscribers see your familiar logo instead of a gray placeholder, they're more likely to trust and engage with your email.

Expected Result: Publishers implementing inbox logos report 10-20% higher open rates from improved brand recognition. The technical setup takes 2-3 hours but pays dividends on every send.

Pro Tip: You'll need a custom sending domain; this doesn't work with default ESP subdomains. If you're still sending from @beehiiv or @substack, prioritize domain setup first.

Read the full breakdown.

AdApt: Transform generic sponsor copy into your newsletter voice

What the deal is: An AI tool that rewrites advertiser copy to match your exact tone and style. In 3 clicks, you get sponsor content that sounds like you wrote it. Generic ads feel off-brand and tank CTR. AdApt fixes that by analyzing your past issues and adapting sponsor copy to your voice. We built this for our own newsletters and saw up to 50% more clicks on sponsored placements. Get 50% off your first payment. Go yearly and get 6 months free. Limited to the first 50 customers.

Who should take the deal: Newsletter operators running sponsored content who want higher CTR without spending hours rewriting every ad. If your readers can spot an ad from the first sentence, this solves that.

Use code FIRST50 at checkout.

Spotlight: MarketBeat

Matt Paulson built a financial media empire that most newsletter creators don't even know exists. His recent Growth in Reverse interview reveals a monetization strategy that flips conventional wisdom on its head.

What Works:

Creator Quote: "Phone numbers are worth five to ten times more than email addresses. Most creators are leaving massive revenue on the table by ignoring SMS entirely." — Matt Paulson

Your Takeaway: If you're only collecting emails, you're capturing a fraction of your audience's potential value. Start building an SMS list alongside your newsletter: even a small text subscriber base can meaningfully diversify your revenue.

Read the full interview.

Paved

Why You'll Love It: Paved connects advertisers with newsletter publishers through a searchable marketplace, and it's completely free for advertisers to use. You can browse creators by niche, view performance metrics, and book placements without a monthly subscription fee. For publishers, it's a hands-off way to fill your sponsorship inventory.

Best For: Newsletter creators with 50,000+ subscribers who want passive sponsorship income without cold outreach. Also valuable for advertisers looking to test newsletter ads across multiple publications before committing to direct deals. Note: Publishers pay a 30% commission on bookings, so factor that into your rate card.

Test: AI-assisted vs. human-only email subject lines

Result: Inbox Collective's guide on AI usage revealed an interesting split: AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT excel at generating subject line variations, with creators reporting 15-25% improvements in open rates when using AI brainstorming. However, the best performers were hybrid, AI-generated options refined by human judgment.

Takeaway: Use AI to generate 10-15 subject line options, then pick and polish the best 2-3 for testing. The machine gives you volume and variation; your editorial instinct picks the winner. This applies to A/B testing headlines, CTAs, and preview text too.

Newsletter Application: Build a pre-send workflow where you paste your draft into Claude with the prompt: "Generate 10 subject line variations for this newsletter, optimizing for curiosity and open rates." Test your top picks against each other over the next month to find your audience's preferences.

Don't keep us a secret: Share HeyNews with a fellow newsletter nerd.

Thanks for reading,

Eren Daskesen

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