Matt Paulson argues newsletter operators obsess over cost-per-subscriber, a vanity metric that masks low-quality leads. Instead, compare total acquisition spend per cohort to revenue generated from it. This reveals which audiences actually make money.
I think everyone that runs paid ads needs to listen to that again because so many people look at just like the cost per subscriber and that is not the end all be all. It's like, that's just going to raise up your vanity metric more and make you have a less profitable business.
Yeah, I think that's like the biggest mistake newsletter operators make these days is like, you're optimizing for cheap leads, but then you end up getting very low quality leads. My reporting cost per lead is not a metric at all. It's really what did I spend on that cohort versus what did I make?
Yeah, I like that reframe.
And like, interesting. Yeah, obviously if I'm paying $30 a lead, it's never gonna work. But like, I have leads I'm paying $15 a lead for and it's profitable.
