In case you didn’t know, I love sending out my mini newsletter. I’ve written about it several times on here.
The latest news is I’m 99% sure I’m moving it from ConvertKit to Substack.
I wanted to go through some of them and show you ones that get 100+ clicks.
It might spark some ideas for your newsletter, articles, or Substacks.
(Of course, it depends on your audience, but I’m hoping you’ll still get something out of this even if your audience is different. If nothing else, I hope it helps you dig into your own stats to see what’s working.)
I’m also going to show you a few of the duds. You can learn a lot from the losers!
As a reminder (or in case you have no idea who I am), I send out a mini (atomic) newsletter every weekday curated with a few links.
Here’s an example of what it looks like:
It’s super short and has just a few links to interesting things I come across to help me (and my readers) make more money online.
The first link is usually to something I write, but not always.
The p.s. is almost always a promotion or affiliate link.
Now that you have an idea of what it looks like, let me tell you about some of the emails that got 100+ clicks. (That’s a good result for my list of about 700…)
100+ click emails
Let’s look at a set of emails that went out:
I’ve highlighted all the ones that got 100+ clicks.
I’m actually surprised that two on the 100+ clicks list weren’t directly related to making money:
find your calling
following your passion is…
But…let’s dig into them and see which links people specifically clicked on.
First, “find your calling”.
Ah ha!
As I thought, the most clicked article was about 10x-ing your money. My article was the 2nd in this list.
That’s definitely not surprising!
Now let’s look at “following your passion is…”
The top-clicked article here was about writing. This is also not surprising for my list especially since the majority of my subscribers come from Medium.
Here’s another one with 146 clicks:
This one is focused on writing again.
Here’s one with 158 clicks:
This one is about Medium, which is an interesting subject for my subscribers.
Here’s one with 131 clicks:
My subscribers also like Substack, apparently!
And here’s one more with 220 clicks:
Starting an email list is also highly desirable for my subscribers. It’s also a hot topic for me on Medium, and I talk about that a little bit in this article.
Looking at these stats reminds me to stay focused on:
making money online
anything to do with writing
anything to do with newsletters
Medium and Substack-related stories
Now let’s take a look at some topics that do not do well for me.
A few duds
I’ll be honest with you. I don’t like looking at my newsletter stats. I always see the glaring unsubscribes and the less-than-stellar click-through rates on the duds.
I know it’s all a part of the process, but those things stick out like a sore thumb compared to the winning newsletters.
However, it’s good to look into the things that aren’t working so you can avoid those topics and focus on the winners instead. (This is what I’m telling myself anyway.)
Here’s one with just 79 clicks:
I understand! The subject line is so vague.
I need to spend more time on my email subject lines. I rush through them.
Here’s one with 72 clicks:
This one is a little surprising because it talks about Medium and articles that make money, but I can see it’s a little too focused on “me” instead of how this helps my subscribers.
Although…
Now that I’m looking at it a little closer, a 15.2% open rate is very low. There may have been some deliverability issues with this one.
Here’s one more with 85 clicks:
This one is self-serving, so it makes sense why it didn’t do as well. (But hey, a girl’s gotta promote sometimes!)
Final Thoughts
I hope you enjoyed this look through some of my newsletter clicks. I highly encourage you to look through your own stats because your list may be totally different.
If you don’t have an email list (why not?), then you can easily peek at your Substack or Medium stats. They hold a lot of clues!
In fact, if you don’t have a newsletter yet, looking at your Substack & Medium stats to see what people are interested in can help you think about what topics to focus on in your newsletter when you’re ready to set it up.
Just for fun
Eh, who needs another foot anyway? You can just wear one shoe on top of the other.
Did you know I also share short lists of links to everything I learn about making money online in this newsletter? → intellectualists.com
It’s definitely valuable to get a sense of what’s working and what’s not. I sometimes get that feeling of dread when it comes to diving into the analysis, but I’ve come to realize it’s a crucial step in evolving, growing, and refining my strategy. It’s all part of the journey to continuously improve and connect better with our audience. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the peek into your analytics. I'll be doing this in a few months when I feel I have enough data.