Who Sponsors Stuff

Overall: Spending Is Currently Strong

After a summer dip in June and July, spending across the universe of newsletters we track remains quite strong. Despite concerns about macroeconomic conditions, September was the strongest month we've tracked so far this year.

Crypto Advertising Has Crashed

Along with the values of BTC and ETH, crypto spending in newsletters has seen a steep drop-off. As cryptocurrency prices have crashed, so has spending advertising for coins, exchanges, wallets, etc. - with what looks like a three-month lag behind the crypto market itself. Crypto was last riding high in March; the crypto advertising boom appears to have crested in June. By September, crypto advertising on newsletters had fallen in line with reduced crypto prices.

Finance & Investing Advertising Is Booming

Despite (or perhaps because of) volatility in the markets, finance and investing advertising on newsletters looks as strong as ever so far in 2022. Driven by brokerages, financial advisors, and alternative investment products, this category remains one of the strongest in the newsletter industry.

Software & Technology Advertising Remains Strong

The Nasdaq may be getting hammered, but tech is still the lifeblood of much of the newsletter industry.

Consumer Goods Advertising Remains Steady

Consumer goods are the largest group of sponsors that we track on newsletters. Despite a summer dip, their spending remains strong.

Travel Advertising Has Come Back

While the travel industry took a major hit in 2020-21, spending on travel has come back - as well as advertising on newsletters. Travel ad spending on newsletters peaked so far this year in March and July. Another peak might be expected around Christmas and the new year, when consumers tend to book last-minute trips to escape the cold.

The Big Picture

Everyone's on edge about the possibility of a recession, and marketing budgets are likely to tighten up. So far, however, the newsletter advertising market remains robust.

With brands reevaluating money spend on increasingly inefficient channels such as Meta, and fraud-ridden channels like programmatic, direct-sold newsletter advertsiing may be in a good position to weather the storm.

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For more coverage of the email newsletter market, see Email Intelligence.

SelliNewsletter Ad Spending Trends So Far in 2022

We collect a lot of data on the newsletter ad market every month. We track 250+ newsletters, record all of the advertisements in them, and track down all of the sponsors. We also track the estimated audience sizes and ad rates of all the newsletters in our database.

This means that, month-to-month, we get an overview of what's going on in the newsletter advertising market. Is spending up? Down? Shifting from one category to another?

We ran the data for the full basket of newsletters that we track, looking at spending by month through Q3.

Here's what we found: