Every Monday, I micro case studies and BTS from our community for newsletter operators. Detailed breakdowns on Thursdays.
Tea from my life
Last Monday, I mentioned I was feeling overwhelmed by the number of tasks I added to my to-do list. The feeling persisted for another few days. I was hopping between tasks. I couldn’t focus on one thing.
Mostly because I don’t have deadlines, and I am unable to prioritize.
I took time off completely. I wrote down only one task on my to-do and didn’t touch anything until I finished it. It could be a temporary thing, but I realised how much I am consumed by my work and that I need to meet more people, do some activities.
Anyway, I stayed away from the desk. Meditated, read books, and built LEGOs. It calmed me.
I know this is not what you signed up for, but I just wanted to share.
Analysis in 200 words
Today I want to share my mini playbook of how I run ads.
I run this newsletter called Caffeineletter with my friend. It teaches homebrewers in India to brew café-like coffee at home.
We have acquired 1200+ subscribers via Meta ads at $0.22 CPA. Our open rate is 45%, and CTR is 5%.
Some best practices we follow:
Keep the ad creatives extremely organic. We have spelling mistakes, smallcase text, and real pictures of our coffee setup to make it look as natural as any other coffee-related post on IG.
We run ads only 10-15 days a month. We acquire readers in batches, measure ad performance, review engagement data, and only then move on to the next batch. As a bootstrapped business, this helps us spend more time nurturing our existing readers plus ensure we are spending money on acquiring the right people.
Always test new ads with a small budget. It provides directional data on how successful it is relative to our baseline CPA. We do this for 3-5 days, then increase the daily budget to the usual.
Sneakpeek into the community
What is marketing even?
Marketing resources shared in the community
The most reasonable video I have watched about consistency.
I have been spending time improving my LinkedIn. I found this good beginner-friendly video.
Since we are on the topic of LinkedIn, here are some resources to grow followers. As I have mentioned a thousand times, my focus is on building a strong top-of-funnel for my newsletters.
On YouTube this week
I haven’t published anything this week (because of the overwhelming part I mentioned some time ago.)
But if you have missed out on my breakdown about the MilkRoad newsletter:
Hangouts
Last week, we had a private call in our community about what we’re doing to increase visibility (social media, video creation, etc.). Sick value from people across different backgrounds. More deets.
I adapted Alex Hormozi’s marketing principles for newsletters and I am sharing them live next week. I’d love it if you could join.
Was today's content helpful?
Have a great week!
Love,
Vikra.