As third-party cookies are set to be a thing of the past, advertisers are looking for innovative ways like newsletter advertising to target their customers and generate revenue.
With that in mind, many are turning to a robust marketing channel that continues to stand the test of time: email.
The number of individuals using email to communicate with their preferred contacts, publications, and businesses has surpassed 4 billion, and this figure is projected to increase to 4.6 billion by 2025.
In fact, customers prefer to receive brand emails about deals and promotions, shipment updates, and account alerts. And studies show that, for every dollar spent on email marketing, brands can drive $42 in return. That’s an ROI of over 4000%.
Want to see those numbers for yourself?
Here’s what brands need to know about newsletter advertising.
What is newsletter advertising?
Newsletter advertising is the process of creating and distribution ads in email newsletters, often those sent by publishers to their email lists. A tech advertiser, for example, might buy ad space in a tech publisher’s email newsletter, thereby reaching a target audience of engaged readers.
Newsletter advertising is not the same as newsletter marketing or email marketing, which is the process of sending your own email content to audiences. A fitness blog, for example, might send a weekly email newsletter about helpful workout routines. That’s newsletter marketing. Within that email, however, the publisher might sell ad inventory to sports retail brands, monetizing its content and driving revenue. That’s a form of newsletter advertising.
Newsletter ads are commonly sold according to certain metrics, such as cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM), cost-per-click (CPC), and cost-per-acquisition (CPA).
It’s up to the brand and publisher to decide on the best sales metric for their needs and budgets.
What are the benefits of advertising in newsletters?
There are many benefits to launching newsletter ads, including:
- Driving engagement and revenue. As Campaign Monitor reported, email drives the highest ROI for marketers, beating out affiliate, search, social, and display advertising. In fact, email drives 40X higher customer acquisition results compared to social channels.
- Reaching consumers directly. Since email is an opt-in, one-to-one channel, it provides advertisers with an opportunity to grab the attention of a highly-engaged audience. They’re also tapping into a ready-made pool of customers gathered by the publisher, so they know they’re reaching vetted, high-quality leads.
- Activating first-party data. Since third-party cookies are about to be disabled on Chrome browsers, advertisers will need to focus on using first-party data, like email addresses and subscriptions. Investing in newsletter advertising can help them work with publishers to make the most of this first-party data and prepare to thrive in a world without cookies.
What are different types of advertising in newsletters?
Another major benefit of email is that it supports a range of ad types and formats, so advertisers and publishers can collaborate on the right placement for driving engagement and revenue.
Common types of email advertising include:
- Display ads. These banner ads can sit at the top, middle, or bottom of an email, linking to a landing page or product page.
- Native ads. These ads match their surrounding content. An email newsletter, for example, might provide a roundup of articles. Within that roundup might be a native ad for a sponsored article from a brand.
- Text ads. These ads are presented as hyperlinked copy that readers can click on to visit a landing page.
Email newsletter ads don’t have to conform to ad sizes set by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), either. Jeeng, for instance, supports standard display ad sizes like 970×250 and 300×250, along with custom ad sizes that fit publishers’ unique email templates.
Examples of newsletter advertising
If you’re just getting started with newsletter advertising — or looking to revamp an existing strategy — there are plenty of examples you can use for guidance and inspiration.
Take eBay, which sends frequent email newsletters highlighting top-selling products, recommended finds, and special deals. Within those emails, businesses can buy ad space to promote their products and services, as with this banner ad for a coupon from Champion and Hanes clothing brands:
Outside of display ads, advertisers can also sponsor newsletter content, providing a more native and seamless experience for readers. They just have to be sure to include callouts like “Sponsored By” or “Paid for By” to indicate that the content is an advertisement. Conga, for instance, paid to sponsor Bloomberg’s technology newsletter, with a clear disclaimer at the top:
Another form of native newsletter advertising involves adding sponsored links or articles within a newsletter, as long as they match the form and function of their surrounding content. This way, the ad doesn’t interrupt the flow of the email. Just look at this newsletter from Houzz. It features articles from the Houzz blog interspersed with sponsored articles from brands like Safavieh:
How can you launch newsletter advertising?
See the benefits of newsletter advertising for yourself by partnering with publishers and launching campaigns. Just be sure to consider these key steps:
- Decide on KPIs. Choose your goal, such as brand awareness, clicks, pageviews, leads, or purchases.
- Segment audiences. Use first-party data to decide which readers you want to target based on their interests, behaviors, and demographic characteristics.
- Build creative assets. Pick your newsletter ad format and sizes. Be sure to keep your visuals and copy eye-catching to grab people’s attention in their inbox.
- Automate distribution and targeting. Partner with an automated email marketing platform to distribute your ads across premium, brand-safe, and hyper-targeted newsletters.
- Generate results and optimize. Continue testing and optimizing your newsletter advertising to drive revenue through one of the most powerful engagement channels.
There’s money waiting to be grabbed in the inbox, and Jeeng AdMarket can help you get it. Our platform helps advertisers reach opt-in subscribers across newsletter audiences with personalized content. Enjoy flexible ad sizing, native and display formats, and cross-channel distribution — all automated and fully managed.
Ready to harness the power of newsletter advertising? Contact us today to book a demo.
