This week’s newsletter is presented by Who Sponsors Stuff. Their Sales Pro product can supercharge your ad sales operation — set up time with them to learn more about how they can help your newsletter!

It’s the very last newsletter of the year, and I wanted to take a moment to say thank you.

This was a big year for Inbox Collective. We published 51 original stories this year, and drove more than 108,000 visitors to the website. (Average time on site: 3:13.) Claire Zulkey joined the team to help edit stories and contribute to the site, and she’s made the content you read on the site so much better. (Thanks, Claire!) I transitioned away from the Google Doc and to a weekly format, and so many of you stuck with me. (The newsletter list is above 10,000 subscribers for the first time.)

I wanted to say thank you, again, to Beehiiv, Litmus, and Who Sponsors Stuff for their support of the newsletter and site in 2023. Their support allowed me to invest in creating great content this year.

And of course, a thank you to everyone who read and shared our stories. I’m proud of what we’ve done this year — and I promise I’ll try to keep raising the bar in 2024!

—Dan (say 👋 via email or LinkedIn)

Open Rates Aren’t Reliable Anymore. Can You Still Trust Your Click Rates?

Here’s an open secret in the email space: The clicks in your newsletter don’t all come from real readers.

Many come from bots.

Omeda, whose clients send over eight billion emails per year through their platform, told Inbox Collective that 63% of all clicks they see in emails come from bots. (Not every ESP sees numbers that high. AWeber, one of the longest-running email service providers, shared their internal data: Only about 5% of clicks on their platform come from bots.)

But who’s behind these bots? Can you actually trust the click data you see in your email service provider’s reports? And what does this mean for anyone with a newsletter ad strategy built around driving clicks?

Let’s dive in and take a closer look at what’s happening with these bots. Here’s why bots are clicking →

All of the stories we publish this fall are presented thanks to Who Sponsors Stuff, which gives you and your team the tools to quickly find and reach out to relevant sponsors for your newsletter. I’ve recommended Sales Pro to dozens of friends and clients — it’s a product that can help you quickly scale your newsletter ad business. Find out how their Sales Pro product can supercharge your newsletter’s ad sales operation.

In case you missed it...

There are a lot of email platforms to choose from. Here are six options that are actually worth a closer look.

A well-built landing page can help you grow your newsletter faster. Here are landing page best practices to utilize and 19 great examples to borrow from.

We’ve found that there are five types of indie newsletter business models. So let’s look at each of these five models: What they are, how newsletters in that category grow, and how they make money.

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📬 Want to work with Inbox Collective? Here’s how I can help you.

🎯 Want to reach an audience of 10,000+ people in the email space? Here’s how to become an advertising partner.

✍️ Looking to hire or be hired? Join the Inbox Collective talent collective.

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Inbox Collective LLC

400 E 55th St

New York, NY 10022-5156

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📬 No. 15 | Can You Still Trust Click Rates?

Open Rates Aren’t Reliable Anymore. Can You Still Trust Your Click Rates?

In case you missed it...

Older messages

📬 No. 14 | Picking the right platform for your newsletter

📬 No. 13 | What I Wish I’d Known

📬 No. 12 | The Hustle + Morning Brew alums shaping the future of newsletters

📬 No. 11 | Landing pages to learn from

📬 No. 10 | Making Emails More Accessible

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