Most likely, when you think about paid advertising, your mind is filled with images of banners, promoted social media posts, and TV commercials. But did you know that you can also buy and sell advertising space in your email newsletters? There are even newsletter advertising platforms that make the process easier than you can imagine. In this article, we're going to get you up to speed on everything you need to know about newsletter advertising, what it is, how to do it effectively (whether buying or selling ad space), and provide details on a few newsletter advertising platforms to get you started.
Newsletter Advertising Platforms: Buying and Selling Space in Email Newsletters:
What Is Email Newsletter Advertising?
Email newsletter advertising is paid advertisements included inside email marketing campaigns. Businesses that send out email newsletters can sell space in their newsletters to generate extra income or a reciprocal agreement in which ads are swapped between businesses (each placing an ad for the other business in their email newsletter for free).
How Much Does Email Newsletter Advertising Cost?
Newsletter advertising is typically priced on a cost per mille (CPM), or the cost per 1,000 subscribers on the list. Advertisers might pay up to $30 CPM, anything over that is probably not worth it. For a list of 10,000 subscribers, the total cost to advertise would be $300.
Some advertisers might want to consider the expected cost-per-click (CPC) in addition to CPM when looking for email newsletters to place their ads. To figure out the expected CPC, you'll need to know not only the number of subscribers on the list but also the click rate. Once you have that information, multiply the number of subscribers by the click rate to get the estimated number of clicks. Then, divide that number by the CPM. Let's look at a quick example.
Number of Subscribers: 30,000
CPM: $20
Click Rate: 2.62% (average across industries)
CPC: ((30,000/1,000) * $20) / (30,000 * 0.0262)) = $0.76
You might also find pricing based on cost per lead (CPL). If that's the case, advertisers will only pay when they get a lead from their ad. Often, pricing by lead costs more than CPM since it's not an estimated situation—those offering ad placement in their email newsletters know exactly how many leads an ad has generated.
Benefits of Email Newsletter Advertising
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels with an average ROI of 4200%. This means that for every $1 spent on email marketing, it generates a potential return of $42. One of the main reasons that email marketing has such a great return is that it's personal and direct, landing you squarely in the recipient's email inbox. This differs from other marketing tactics like social media and SEO in that those tactics involve algorithms that "pull" attention to your content whereas email marketing "pushes" your content to interested parties.
It's also incredibly effective for driving purchases. According to the email marketing platform Constant Contact, 60% of consumers say they’ve made a purchase as the result of a marketing email they received. When you compare that to the 12.5% of consumers who say they'd consider making a purchase from a shoppable social media post, it's clear that email marketing is a big winner.
In addition to the benefits of email marketing as a whole, newsletter advertising also has several benefits to consider:
- Cost. For ad buyers, the cost of newsletter advertising is typically going to be cheaper than designing, printing, and mailing ads. It can also be cheaper than placing Google ads or ads on social media. For sellers, if you're already sending an email newsletter, why not offer up unused space in your email template to earn some extra cash and minimize the cost of your email marketing service?
- Reputation Management. Newsletter advertising can be helpful to ad buyers in terms of not only increasing brand awareness but improving reputation. When you advertise in an email newsletter, you're sending a signal to the subscribers of that newsletter that your brand is trusted enough by the sender to be included. This goes a long way toward making your brand seem more reputable.
- Targeting. Email marketing lists tend to be fairly niche so it's a safe bet that they're reaching an already targeted market. When you place ads with businesses that have an audience that overlaps with yours, you can leverage their targeting with your own ads—without having to do the segmentation and audience creation yourself.
- Added Value. If you're selling ad space in your email newsletters, take the time to decide which advertisers will most benefit your email list. Whenever possible, choose to place ads that your audience will be interested in and that you can feel good about showing to them.
8 Newsletter Advertising Platforms
If you do decide to buy or sell ads, there are several newsletter advertising platforms that can help you find partners, collect and send payments, manage your ad placements, and monetize your newsletter. Most of the time, this is going to be a lot easier than sourcing your own partners but if you do know of any businesses that you'd be interested in partnering with (either on the buying or selling side of things), you should pitch them on the idea of newsletter advertising. If you need help finding partners, though, these newsletter advertising platforms can make it happen.
1. LiveIntent
LiveIntent is one of the more well-known newsletter advertising platforms. It’s a programmatic advertising platform that offers retargeting in addition to several other features all geared toward email advertising. LiveIntent partners with GetResponse, so if that’s your email marketing service of choice, you’ll be ready to serve newsletter advertising the moment you’re accepted as a publisher.
Features:
- Access to ad inventory from more than 2,000 carefully vetted publishers
- More than 200 million unique readers
- Real-time ad serving
- Multiple ad sizes, from standard IAB banners to custom native ad experiences
- Connected through first-party data
Pricing:
Contact LiveIntent for pricing.
2. BuySellAds
BuySellAds is a programmatic advertising network that also offers complete planning and tracking. With this newsletter advertising platform, you can access hundreds of publishers instantly across verticals like cryptocurrency, design, development, and more. You can pick ad placements based on your advertising goals and even get around ad blocking software with whitelisted ads.
Features:
- Native and custom ad placements
- Sponsored content opportunities
- Self-serve ad platform
- Ad-block recovery
- Private marketplace
Pricing:
Contact BuySellAds for pricing.
3. Letterwell
Letterwell is a newsletter advertising platform that provides a secure, vetted marketplace to connect advertisers and newsletter owners. Users can browse, contact, and list email newsletters entirely for free.
Features:
- Stringent quality checks to verify newsletters
- Browse, contact, and list email newsletters completely for free
Pricing:
Free to use the service. Pricing for placing ads is determined by the newsletter owner.
4. Criteo
Criteo is a global leader in commerce marketing that helps you align your ads with the latest consumer trends. It offers a suite of advertising solutions right for brands, retailers, and publishers of all sizes. Criteo is built on machine-learning technology and provides data and performance at scale, as well as measurable ROI for clients.
Features:
- Create audiences from the world’s largest open commerce data set
- Create similar audiences using AI to target the right people
- Use hyper-relevant retargeting ads
- Access more than 20,500 global advertisers
Pricing:
Contact Criteo for pricing.
Admailr is a newsletter advertising platform with a user-friendly interface. Just set your campaign type, targeting parameters, and budget and Admailr gets to work. You can track and manage your advertising campaigns right on the platform. Admailr reviews publisher newsletters to ensure quality and matches advertisers with newsletter audiences algorithmically.
Features:
- Advertisers are charged for ad clicks, not ad views
- Precise ad targeting
- Tracking and reporting to track performance
Pricing:
Contact Admailr for pricing.
5. Admailr
Admailr is a newsletter advertising platform with a user-friendly interface. Just set your campaign type, targeting parameters, and budget and Admailr gets to work. You can track and manage your advertising campaigns right on the platform. Admailr reviews publisher newsletters to ensure quality and matches advertisers with newsletter audiences algorithmically.
Features:
- Advertisers are charged for ad clicks, not ad views
- Precise ad targeting
- Tracking and reporting to track performance
Pricing:
Contact Admailr for pricing.
6. Gold Lasso
Gold Lasso is an industry-leading in newsletter advertising, helping media companies build and monetize subscriber engagement with native advertising and email automation.
Features:
- Full email automation and monetization services
- Automate email newsletters
- Monetize email newsletters with native ad units
- Programmatic or direct ad inventory
Pricing:
Contact Gold Lasso for pricing.
7. PowerInbox
PowerInbox is a newsletter advertising platform that makes email monetization, real-time personalization, and dynamic subscriber engagement easy. They deliver native and display ads through a simple ad program management service that maximizes revenue and ROI.
Features:
- AI algorithm and automated platform to deliver the right content to the right people
- Email-based targeting
- Connect and engage your audience on every channel from a single platform
Pricing:
Contact PowerInbox for pricing.
8. Ampjar
Ampjar makes it easy for brands to find their perfect customers through a vibrant, engaged community. The community communicates through a closed-loop, peer-to-peer platform and then shout each other out to drive connections with new customers. Sharing happens wherever it works best for the brands.
Features:
- Get matched to the best brands based on your own interests and brand personality
- Find high-quality content to share with your own audience
- Earn credits by sharing other brands’ content
Pricing:
Free for a limited time as long as you do three shoutouts per week. Memberships are usually $22/month.
Notably absent from this list: Google AdSense
You'll notice that Google AdSense isn't on our list of newsletter advertising platforms. There's a good (and simple) reason for that: putting AdSense ads in email newsletters is against the AdSense Terms of Service. Get caught doing it and you might find your account banned.
Creating a Powerful Email Newsletter Advertising Campaign
With email ad space, views aren't guaranteed. Before you place an ad in an email newsletter, do some research to find out how engaged the subscribers to the list really are. A smaller list with an audience that's more likely to click is much more beneficial—and a smarter way to spend your advertising dollars—than a larger list with a less engaged audience.
Once you've found the right email newsletter to place your ad, it's time to consider your ad design. Make sure that your ad hits the mark with these email newsletter advertising design best practices:
- Focus on the copy. While it might seem counterintuitive, when you're creating ads for email newsletters, it's more important for your ad to blend in and feel like part of the email than it is for your ad to include attention-grabbing fonts and animations.
- Include keywords. Whenever possible, match your ad to the topic or subject line of the email.
- Use ads sparingly. Ads shouldn't make up the bulk of your email. Use them instead to balance content.
- Keep ads relevant. Readers are going to lose trust in you fast if you start including ads that don't matter to them.
- Be transparent. Make sure that your ad looks a little different from the rest of your content so readers know it's an ad.
- Size it appropriately. Emails don't have a ton of open space. Consider your overall email design and size ads so they fit nicely.
- Placement matters. Ads at the top of an email should be smaller and less obtrusive while ads lower in your email can get a little bigger and more obvious.
Earn More Buying or Selling Email Newsletter Advertising
Buying or selling email advertising isn't the right choice for all marketers. However, if you're looking for a way to monetize your list or you're looking for a way to get your products or services in front of a larger audience, newsletter advertising can make a difference. With the newsletter advertising platforms we've included here, you don't need to go it alone. Check out each of the platforms, sign up, and start raking in the money!
