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Join us live from Kit's Craft + Commerce conference in Boise Idaho. Ezoic share's insights on how creators can better monetize their newsletter audience with web ads. Don't miss it!
https://www.ezoic.com/blog/how-newsletter-creators-can-unlock-new-revenue-craft-commerce-2025
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hey guys we are live from Boise Idaho in
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the Kit Studios here just finished up
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the Craft and Commerce Conference
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sponsored by Kit my name is Gavin i'm
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with ISOIC
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charlie also with ISOIC yeah so we just
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wrapped up this awesome event we met a
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lot of really cool creators monetizing
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amazing businesses building amazing
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businesses and there was a keynote
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yesterday and one of the the people
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presenting the keynote he talked about
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how do you explain your business or what
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you do in six words or less not an
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elevator pitch okay it's it's what you
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do and how you help people um so I wrote
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a few of them down and I shot thought I
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would share them so people can get an
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idea what Ioic does absolutely yeah
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starting off with we help newsletters
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monetize websites with ads using
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firstparty data we help creators
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monetize the web
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we turn subscribers into website revenue
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and in its simplest form we help you
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build your income exactly pretty cool um
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but yeah we're we're primarily a web
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first company so I think some folks here
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might be wondering what we're doing at a
1:13
at a newsletter conference um what the
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heck are we doing here i don't know i'm
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kidding
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um we found that these these newsletter
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creators are in an incredibly unique
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position because they have this owned
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audience that they can do what they want
1:28
with it they can sell a course they can
1:31
give you free content they can give you
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exclusive paid content um they can give
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you they can drive you to your website
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where you can do those same things maybe
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you can push videos u maybe you can push
1:41
merch um you can kind of do anything
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with that so the connection between the
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newsletter and email is is up to each
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creator individually is that something
1:51
you want to sell do you want to get
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eyeballs somewhere um and in many cases
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some people use their website to drive
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email subscriptions to the newsletter um
1:59
but we kind of specialty our
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specialization is kind of the transition
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from the newsletter um going to the
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website um so we can talk about that a
2:08
bit um and then we also want to talk
2:09
about briefly you know why you guys are
2:12
in such a position when I say you guys I
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mean any single person with a newsletter
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um regardless of your size you're in a
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very good position to earn topdoll web
2:22
revenue income um with your subscriber
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list yeah I think you bring up a good
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point with the different monetization
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models because a lot of what I typically
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see at least here at Craft & Commerce is
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people are selling a course a service um
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they're doing direct ad sponsorships in
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their newsletter um so media um
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affiliates lots of different avenues to
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make revenue from a newsletter um
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but a website is also a great way to do
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that one it's a great way to showcase
2:53
your business u but two when you push
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traffic from a newsletter to a website
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uh you're getting an opportunity to
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monetize that audience with programmatic
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ads and programmatic is completely
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passive you set it up once you kind of
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forget it and you're making more money
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as your traffic grows um really quickly
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what is programmatic yeah programmatic
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is in its simplest form um there's a
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bunch of exchanges that are out there
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bidding on your audience to display an
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ad um and those ads are either
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we call it contextual so relevant to
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your your content or retargeted ads um
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so if I'm shopping for something like
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Nike which I'm sure will come up again
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in this this episode here um next
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website I go on what do you know nike
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pops up and and I see them again um so
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that's kind of how it works and and
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advertisers
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are really interested in that because
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they're they're getting a user that's
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already interested in their product um
3:53
but beyond advertising I think
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newsletters are really cool because they
3:57
provide a a consistent source of traffic
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for a website mhm um what we've seen in
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our space is is a lot of websites and
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and niche creators if you will their
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traffic has been decimated by AI by
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shifts in and you know the the Google
4:15
algorithm um so if you're not owning
4:17
your audience a newsletter is a great
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way to do that absolutely yeah so that's
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number one that people got to think
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about owning their audience and then the
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the second component of that is
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newsletters come with really rich
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subscriber data we call it firstparty
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data um and I don't know if people know
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what that is or how they can leverage it
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but what are your thoughts on on
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firstparty data as the expert so I think
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the 10-second historical context is that
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if a premium advertiser wants to target
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a certain audience through a website
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they would have to make an educated
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guess on who that is based on maybe
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their location u maybe the type of
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device they're using or maybe what
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traffic source they're coming from so
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there's a guessing game to that um with
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the availability of first-party data
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you're taking the guessing out of the
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equation mhm uh if Gavin clicks on my
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newsletter for example Gavin goes
5:08
directly from my newsletter where I know
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I've captured his email to my website
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there's a way with the Zoic you can pass
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that data um with everything privacy
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privacy policy related um is kind of
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confirmed or I don't know what the word
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I'm looking for but um you can basically
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utilize that information to then sell it
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to the advertisers um so that way you're
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getting a higher bid mhm um when I say
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sell it to the advertisers those
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advertisers are not gaining access to
5:33
your subscriber list but if there's a
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situation where you know let's say I
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click on your website I click on your
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newsletter go to your website your
5:41
newsletter knows that I'm Charlie you
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can share that information with the
5:44
real-time bidding that happens on your
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page and essentially if if Nike knows
5:49
who I am they can basically create like
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a matching mechanism on the back end so
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it's not you sharing your information
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with whoever wants to look at it it's
5:57
the fact that if someone else has your
5:59
information as well there's a back-end
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encrypted hashing um matching mechanism
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um that will basically say "Hey now if
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I'm a premium advertiser and Gavin is
6:08
supplying that first party information I
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can spend a lot of money on that traffic
6:13
to make sure that my advertising and my
6:16
campaigns get in front of the audience
6:17
that I want." Okay so basically what it
6:21
sounds like to me you're saying is if I
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have a subscriber list I have a lot of
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valuable first-party data from from
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those emails the most valuable yeah and
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if if I then go on to write my
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newsletter I include some links that go
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directly to my website that is bringing
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a much more valuable ad on my website
6:43
allowing me to to make more um so how
6:45
much more are we talking here i mean we
6:48
can be talking about 200 to 300% per
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thousand visitors
6:53
pretty nice it's a lot you know we have
6:55
a lot of customers that went going from
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earning 7 to $10,000 in a month to
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$30,000 um I think $100 is is enough
7:03
money for people to do something but if
7:05
we're talking about 3xing your monthly
7:07
revenue to a 30,000
7:10
ads alone there's no selling that you
7:12
have to do on your end it's a
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plugandplay with the Zoic the real-time
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auctions happen and the money comes in
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that's pretty wild to me um because you
7:20
know we mentioned some of those other
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monetization models that creators
7:23
typically use they're selling a course
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service you name it um and those are
7:29
really valuable and people should
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absolutely continue to do those things
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um but ads are interesting because they
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give you another way to to monetize your
7:39
audience and yes I was someone said this
7:43
the other day that that 95% of people
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that that subscribe to your newsletter
7:47
or visit your website they don't even
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buy anything um so what you're really
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doing your funnel is catering towards
7:54
that 5% which is valuable but but 95% of
7:58
those users are basically freeloaders
8:00
right for lack of a better term right um
8:03
so this is a great way to monetize them
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and monetize them at a really high rate
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so
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if I'm trying to get people out of my
8:13
inbox and onto my website because I can
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make
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these huge sums of money how do I do
8:19
that well I think it's good to think
8:21
about the the psychological aspect of
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this whole scenario um when someone
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subscribes to your newsletter you know
8:28
they're invested in what you're either
8:29
preaching inspiring them or selling them
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um so that person kind of relates to you
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or associates
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with you so there is that type of
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connection that is already built in and
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so you can kind of leverage that into
8:41
getting that type of engagement back to
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your website so one way we commonly see
8:46
people do it is you know within your
8:48
niche you can create something like a
8:50
quiz or a poll that will basically
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create like an identity within that
8:53
niche and that's valuable for the reader
8:55
because they're subscribing to you they
8:57
like your content they're interested
8:59
okay let's take it a step further well
9:01
how do you kind of identify within that
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space so one way people commonly do it
9:05
is they'll create a poll or a quiz
9:07
within their newsletter um that is that
9:09
is not fully there but they can click on
9:12
it go to the website take the full poll
9:14
maybe get results of their personality
9:16
type um and kind of get all the
9:18
information there so that's one pretty
9:21
common avenue that we see a lot of
9:23
creators use effectively um and it and
9:26
it works really well and I think the
9:28
reason why I like to talk about that one
9:29
because I like to take on the
9:30
perspective of the user you know we
9:32
don't want to be pushing some sequence
9:34
or funnel that isn't valuable or isn't
9:36
interesting you know that's that's no
9:38
effective way to kind of control your
9:39
audience so that is one way that I would
9:42
definitely advocate for many to try um
9:44
if you were to try something first
9:47
this sounds really cool um so I actually
9:49
have a newsletter and and I'll think
9:51
about using some of these strategies but
9:53
the other thing that I think people
9:54
should know is there's kind of two
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components to this mhm number one is yes
9:58
you want to drive newsletter traffic to
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your website more consistent traffic
10:03
you're going to make more money with
10:04
that first party data um but just having
10:07
people click a link in your newsletter
10:09
and land on your website is not enough
10:11
in itself that's that's kind of the
10:13
creator's job and you can do that but
10:15
the second part of that that I think is
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really challenging is getting your
10:21
subscriber data paired up with
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advertisers so you can get that that
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really valuable ad returned on your own
10:28
website um so one of one of the things
10:32
that we're really excited to share is we
10:33
just released a an integration with Kit
10:37
um and basically it's a one-click
10:38
integration and after you do that any
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user that clicks out of your newsletter
10:44
and lands on your website you're going
10:45
to get these really valuable ads from
10:47
firstparty data that we just talked
10:49
about um so we're excited about that um
10:52
but what else should people know about
10:53
this this future
10:56
well I think it's really exciting for
10:58
anyone that has a newsletter i I talked
10:59
about it this a bit before but it's you
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know you can create a website or you can
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utilize a website you've already created
11:05
and be steps ahead of basically you know
11:08
80% of the open web so people that have
11:10
been in this industry building Google
11:13
SEO traffic and kind of building up all
11:15
this high quality content you can
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basically walk in here with a subscriber
11:19
list create a website drive traffic and
11:22
include that first party data and be
11:24
earning more than those who have been
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doing it for 10 years so it's kind of
11:27
like a golden egg opportunity and on top
11:30
of that advertisers like I said before
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want to spend on this first party data
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because I can say you know with 100%
11:36
confidence I know this is Gavin because
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he clicked through my newsletter to my
11:40
website so with that confidence those
11:43
CPMs and you know the revenue per
11:46
impression skyrockets because
11:48
advertisers are saying "Great Gavin made
11:51
my life so much easier i don't have to
11:52
guess who this user is i know who this
11:54
user is so I can save money and I can
11:56
also make Gavin more money because I can
11:58
serve less impressions for a higher cost
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more effectively um so not only is it a
12:03
win for the user because they're getting
12:04
better ads not only is it good for the
12:06
creator because you're getting a higher
12:08
CPMs um but it's it's just great for the
12:10
whole environment everyone's is just
12:12
seeing a more effective ROI yeah well
12:15
Charlie said it first golden opportunity
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it is a gold i think that's what people
12:19
should walk away from here is if you
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have an owned audience particularly from
12:24
a newsletter you're sitting on a gold
12:26
mine and you should consciously think
12:29
about driving those visitors to your
12:32
website pairing that up with first party
12:34
data and you'll be surprised at how much
12:37
you can earn and for those of you that
12:38
are newsletter first well you're you're
12:41
one step ahead of the game you can
12:43
immediately start getting high traffic
12:46
to your website from a big email list um
12:49
so yeah that's kind of the the lowdown
12:53
on on why we're here at at Crafting
12:55
Commerce anything else people should
12:57
know i think people sleep on the
12:59
programmatic world yeah um we say "Oh
13:02
this is a golden egg opportunity you
13:04
know this is super valuable." And people
13:05
say "Okay well like how big could that
13:07
even be?" The programmatic market is
13:09
bigger than the film and music industry
13:11
combined and when we see the shift of
13:14
all these advertisers spending that
13:16
budget to first party data that doesn't
13:19
exist someone with a newsletter can walk
13:22
in and start taking a lot of that spend
13:24
and advertisers will be happy to do that
13:26
so I I'm I can't harp on it enough this
13:28
is a a massive opportunity for anyone
13:31
with the newsletter yeah to jump into
13:33
that space and Well you know what i'm
13:35
I'm happy to open both my my inbox and
13:38
my wallet to get some of that get some
13:40
of that money from advertisers i don't
13:42
know who wouldn't truthfully yep awesome
13:45
well we want to give a special thanks
13:48
once again to everyone at Kit this is a
13:51
beautiful studio here in Boise special
13:54
thanks to to the CEO of Kit Nathan Barry
13:58
special thanks to to Haley who put on
14:00
this event and everyone else at Kit
14:02
couldn't have done done it without them
14:04
come check out Boise awesome city right
14:06
boise is really cool caught me off guard
14:08
truthfully it's definitely an outdoorsy
14:10
town definitely a newly built town um
14:13
these studios are insane i mean we have
14:15
six cameras on us a teleprompter a
14:18
display screen an audio recorder two
14:20
microphones um and the fact that if you
14:23
use kit you know at a certain tier you
14:25
can get access to all these materials so
14:27
you might need to invest in studio time
14:29
at home and spend a ton a ton of money
14:32
or you can probably spend less money
14:34
with less than a three-hour flight to
14:35
one of their three locations one future
14:38
location um and get this incredible
14:40
experience not only that you can also
14:42
meet up with the creators within the
14:44
community in the area so I think it's a
14:45
really good opportunity to leverage both
14:47
the studio get some travel in meet some
14:50
creators it's a win-winwin across the
14:52
board yeah yeah if we don't look good I
14:54
guess we're just not handsome
14:57
but check us out eoic.com
14:59
check out kitkit.com
15:02
or convertkit and if you enjoyed the
15:05
banter today maybe we'll bring this
15:07
podcast or video cast back i loved it i
15:11
could run my mouth for hours yeah let us
15:13
know if you enjoyed it and hopefully see
15:15
you on air again thank you everyone take
15:18
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