Newsletter Analysis: What My Favorite Newsletters Have in Common
I read a lot of newsletters as part of my content consumption workflow, and since I have my own newsletter as well (started in 2015 before it was cool!), I’m hyper-curious about what works and what doesn’t.
More specifically, I see lots of similar tricks being used across the 20-or-so that I subscribe to. These are things like having a personal intro, a custom subject line, asking people to share, using links within the copy, running a referral program, etc.

Attribute breakdowns
So I decided to take my top 10+ newsletters, break down those tricks as features, and put them in a spreadsheet.
The main two purposes I had were:
Learn what the common tropes/memes that are spreading within top newslettersLook for things that my favorite people are doing with their newsletters that I am not…and here’s the full list of attributes I looked at:
See the raw data.

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Use of imagesA personal introA table of contentsInline linksNewsletter sizeA newsletter value propA custom title per episodeA referral programA call to shareA link to subscribeHow much humor is usedThe type of ads usedThe tech platformUse of an inspirational quoteMy takeawaysI also just wanted to play with the raw data Google Sheets and Google Data Studio.
Most Top Newsletters Have a Value Proposition: This means a short blurb at the top that reminds readers (especially new subscribers) what value the newsletter is bringing them.
To make this prescriptive, if you run a newsletter I recommend you do the following.
Unless you’re over a million subscribers, include a value propositionConsider opening with a brief, personal introUse a custom email subject that describes the episodeConsider getting a referral program to jumpstart growthMy top 4 recommendationsYou should obviously consider following every newsletter I mentioned here, but here are my must-haves:
1440—Unbiased, broad-spectrum news. Subscribe3-2-1 Thursdays—A concise, inspirational newsletter by the author of Atomic Habits. SubscribeTLDRSec—An ultra high-quality newsletter focused on application and cloud security. SubscribeUnsupervised Learning—My own newsletter that combines news, analysis, and original ideas in security, tech, and society. SubscribeThanks for reading, and I hope this helps you on your journey.
And if I missed any newsletters or attributes you think I should add, please let me know.
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