Happy Trends Tuesday!

Today’s first story is brought to you by an old friend — former Trends editor, Kristin Kenzy.

We've missed her. She's missed us. So we're all a little emotional.

Kristin's been busy bringing embarrassing work stories out of the dark shadows of the pub — and into the daylight of your inbox — with her value-packed newsletter, Drunk Business Advice. 

You Trendsters can subscribe to it totally free. (We know you’re loyal, but you have our permission to step out from time to time. 😉)

Get to it. 

In today's email…

• A trendy yet controversial newsletter growth hack
• The weird twin of work-life balance — work-life remix
• What we’re surfin’, from trademarking cereal milk to a million-dollar book empire

 Let's dive in!

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WTF is up with all these emails?

So you’re cruising along on Insta, and see an ad for a newsletter that grabs your attention.

You give it a click, and enter your email to subscribe. 

That publisher has aced everything up until that point with:

• An enticing message on their ad
• Placed in front of you on the right platform
• A landing page that got you to convert

But after you click “subscribe”, something a little different happens…

SparkLoop’s co-registration widget. Tricky dicky.

This publisher is subscribing you to other newsletters, and unless you read very carefully, you’re likely to hit the big pink box at the bottom of the screen and move on with your life.

But let’s look at the newsletters that were recommended:

• An AI healthcare newsletter 💊
• A travel deals newsletter ✈️
• A newsletter about the Greek real estate market 🇬🇷
• A newsletter for entrepreneurs 📈
• And a sports newsletter 🏈

Um. Wat.

Moments later, your inbox looks like this. 👇

This, ladies and gentlemen, is “audience arbitrage”.

And it’s either the best or the worst trend to ever grab the newsletter industry, depending on who you talk to…

Arbitrage is what now?

In the case of securities (where arbitrage is a formidable strategy) it means simultaneously buying a security and selling it at a higher price.

But this concept extends to other commodities as well. For instance, Ebay and Amazon have made retail arbitrage incredibly popular over the last decade. 

Now, thanks to co-registration tools like SparkLoop and Beehiiv’s newsletter recommendation widgets, the same thing is happening with newsletters.

And audiences are the commodity. 

Here’s how it looks. 👇 

Does this really work?

Arthur Freydin, an e-comm growth expert and owner of Newsletter Blueprint, set out to do this with a totally automated newsletter — Today’s Workout.

Arthur uses a number of platforms, but his recipe boils down to: 

1. Acquisition: Meta Ads
2. Monetization: SparkLoop (a newsletter referral platform) 
3. Automation: Make.com (a no-code workflow platform) 

After clicking on one of Arthur’s Meta ads, subscribers are:

👉 Funneled to a Wordpress landing page.

👉 Monetized immediately upon signup with SparkLoop’s co-registration widget.

👉 And for good measure, they’re monetized three more times with offers by Uptick, ClickBank, and Amazon.

But the true magic lies in how Arthur is able to send out an automated newsletter every day without touching a thing.

All of this happens automatically at 5am every morning. 👇

Holy shitballs, mate. Well crafted. 👏

This entire thing took Arthur about a week to set up. He’s netting ~$1.2k per month (~70% margin) — and he reckons if he took some more time to hone it, he could 3x his earnings.

So what’s the catch?

While audience arbitrage is definitely the newsletter strategy du jour, it comes with substantial risks. 

Risk #1: Your Brand 

Risk #2: Your Sender Health

Risk #3: Opaque Engagement Reporting 

Keep reading to see the detailed breakdown of these risks (+ comments from two newsletter experts), and understand why audience arbitrage might not have what it takes to survive. 

👽 OUR LATEST OBSESSIONS

Work-life balance? More like “work-life remix” 

It feels like every day there’s a headline about Gen Z turning workplace culture on its head. 

From quiet quitting, quiet vacationing, to bringing their parents to job interviews (seriously), Gen Z workers – and some Millennials – have given themselves quite a polarizing reputation.

But Gen Z prioritizing work-life balance is old news. 

What intrigues me more is an emerging trend of “work life remix,” or the convergence of two phenomena: 

The gamification of work, and the workification of life. 

Gamifying work

Work can be draining, so people find ways to have more fun with it. 

For instance, young Chinese professionals are buying lottery tickets to feel better about their hamster wheels. 

No, not in the “If I win I’ll quit my job” way — they’re buying and personalizing instant lottery scratch-off cards as a simple ritual to: 

• Replace the dreaded clock-in and keep themselves motivated
• Celebrate the (usually late) end of workday

Office workers share their new workday ritual. Source: Xiaohongshu

Even winning a measly 50 yuan ($7) can offer an extra kick of positivity to start the day. Getting a surprise $30 just before clocking off? Even better.

It’s gotten so popular that the country’s running out of supply for the instant lottery cards.

Instant gratification is priceless. There are tons of opportunities to tap into the "little joys" market and make products that brighten up office worker's (or even remote workers') everyday routines. 

Workifying life

“Can I book an hour of your time this weekend to go over interior design ideas for the house?” 

“I’ll need to check my calendar.” 

This was a real conversation between me and my partner recently. Before you mock – we’re not the only ones. 

Whether to manage household chores or to spice up a game night, Gen Z and Millennials are bringing workplace tools and habits into their daily life. 

🥳 Powerpoint parties: There are 48m+ posts on TikTok under “Powerpoint Night,” offering creative ideas on how to have fun with the old-school presentation tool. The trend gained steam during COVID, but persisted because of how versatile this medium is. One guy even used it to come out to his family.

✅ Productive couples: Some couples are using workplace communications apps like Slack to nurture their relationships, or productivity tools like Notion to manage household activities. The Internet hates it, but if it works, it works. 

📜 Date-me docs: We’ve written about how dating apps are falling out of favor with young singles. As a result, those who work in tech are ditching their Tinder profiles for Google Docs and databases (Folks, Canva’s where it’s at!). 

I could see opportunities to build SaaS tools that both resemble workplace productivity, and also encourages the spontaneity that makes life, well, life. 

🗂️ OPEN TABS

🪄 Mischief managed: How these quirky tastemakers runs an efficient biz

🤑 From X: The playbook that the top 0.01% of Internet businesses use to become profit machines

📚 Grit: How Navy SEAL Jack Carr built a million-dollar empire with books

🍟 Branded: Go ahead, trademark cereal milk... but leave chile crunch alone.