How do I monetize?

February 01, 2025 • Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

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Current subscribers: 132

Welcome to the 32 subscribers since my last post earlier this week. And hello again to everyone else. Let’s get into it.

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Growth

The Meta ads are going still going well! CPAs are down to about $1.30 and seem to improve almost daily. The goal is to get subscriber acquisition costs below $1, and I'm hoping to hit that in the next week or two.

Most of my new subscribers come from one of the first ads I created. Sometimes you just get lucky, right?

The meme and text overlay video ads I experimented with the last couple of weeks? Not so much. They haven't exactly set the world on fire. But since I'm using bid caps, there's no harm in letting them run. You never know if they’ll start producing.

You’ll probably hear me talk about Bid Caps a lot. If you haven't already, I recommend utilizing them in your Meta ads.

Monetization

Okay, let's talk money. Monetization has been at the top of my mind lately.

Beehiiv's ad network has many sponsorship opportunities, but they're mostly CPC-based. With only 132 subscribers, that translates to about 2-3 clicks per send. Not bad, but not lighting my world on fire either. I'm aiming for more.

And then there's Sparkloop... So far, it's been a bit of a letdown. My revenue per subscriber is hovering around $0.40, and I need it to be closer to $1.00 to make my subscriber acquisition strategy sustainable. The goal is to get close to breakeven once my Meta ad CPAs improve.

Matt McGarry from the Newsletter Operator newsletter has a helpful guide on monetization. I recommend checking it out if you are struggling with monetization like I am.

Unfortunately, I don’t think cold outreach to marketing SaaS companies would be worth anyone’s time at this point. My audience is too small.

The best thing is probably to stick with the Beehiiv sponsorships and optimize Sparkloop however I can to improve my net CAC.

Profit/Loss

Down $333. My Profit & Loss doc contains all income and expenses to date.

Thanks again for reading. Talk soon! 💌

—SS

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