How I Booked a Paid Ad For My Newsletter (with less than 700 subscribers)

I know what you’re thinking:

you need thousands upon thousands of subscribers to start earning money with your newsletter.

Having a stadium full of subscribers definitely helps. But it’s not a requirement for monetization.

Here’s a quick story about how I got a paid ad for my newsletter — with only about 650 subscribers and a free Substack account.

Could I Actually Make Money?

I started my Substack account in January 2021.

It wasn’t long before I saw fellow newsletters with “#Ad” or “Sponsored by…” sections in their newsletters. And not just the big ones like The Hustle or Morning Brew — but “smaller” newsletters too. It got me thinking maybe I could do the same. Only one problem: I only had around 650 subscribers.

“Who’d pay to advertise to a list that size?”

How I Found An Advertising Brand

So I did some digging and found Swapstack.co: a newsletter advertising marketplace that connects brands with newsletters.

Newsletter writers can pitch brands, and brands can reach out to newsletters.

“THIS is where I’ll start.”

A great feature of Swapstack: brands indicate the required minimum # of newsletter subscribers to advertise.

“Perfect — I won’t waste my time pitching to a brand looking for 10k subs.”

After only a week on the platform, I found my first newsletter advertiser: a sports news newsletter. Didn’t quite fit my demographic but more on that later.

I Got Paid

We exchanged some emails and the brand paid agreed to pay me the $25 advertising fee. Not quite enough to retire on. (Yet.)

They sent me their logo and ad copy and we were off!

FYI: Swapstack charges a small percentage to the brand, so I received the entire $25 (before Stripe took their cut).

The point is, I got paid— with only 650 subscribers. And of course the small amount of money didn’t matter.