17x in one year (35k subscribers). 

Jack Raines joined beehiiv about a year ago and has since gone from 2k to 35k subscribers.

In today’s Creator Spotlight, we will cover:

• How he’s been growing so quickly.

• Marketing strategy, attribution, and doubling down on what works.

• Monetization: advertising, selling time, and more great insights.

Young Money is an example of tremendous growth based on a clear playbook any newsletter publisher can learn from.

Want more? Read on and subscribe to Young Money here:

Note: ***Our interview was recorded in October 2022. As of March 2023, Young Money has now accumulated over 35,000 subscribers.

Let’s get into it.

Background:

Young Money by Jack Raines is a newsletter all about finance, investing, and careers targeted toward young people. Raines offers a unique spin on the finance world by writing about “nuanced stories at the intersection of money, opportunity costs, and human behavior.”

His finance newsletter offers a refreshing, humorous angle on important topics like money, business, and life. Young Money can be summed up in this line from Raines’ website, “The best finance blog you've never heard of. 10/10 stories, 5/10 art.”

When asked about what makes his newsletter different, Raines shared, “Finance blogs and financial content, in general, can be pretty boring. ‘Stocks go up.’ ‘Save more than you spend.’ Cool. That’s not what I write. I tell stories about greed and fear and human nature, but ‘finance’ just so happens to be the medium of communication. Sometimes I write about why people should travel more in their 20s, other times I muse on the absurdity of the GameStop short squeeze.”

Raines commented, “I've been writing it on beehiiv since about January [2022], and I'm sitting at close to 18,000 subscribers right now.” (Now 35,000 since the interview).

Automated Growth:

Before switching over to beehiiv, Raines wrestled with finding the right tools to supercharge his audience growth. Whether productivity tools, AI, or beehiiv, the right tools can have a massive impact.

Raines shared, “I want to have the biggest audience possible. It's one of those things where if I can give myself full editorial freedom to write whatever I want, and my audience is still growing quickly as a result of that, it means that people are very interested in what I have to say for one reason or another.”

Since our interview, Jack’s monetized by selling more than just ads (but more on that later).

Now, let’s break down exactly what Raines is doing to grow.

Recommendations:

beehiiv recommendations allow publications to share other newsletters with their subscribers easily. This is done through subscriber flows via a redirect to a recommendation page or via a recommendation block, like this one:

Young Money has earned thousands of subscribers with this method, and it’s available to all beehiiv users for free.

Referral Program:

Readers can earn rewards in exchange for successfully referring new subscribers to Young Money. After three successful referrals, his current reward is a curated list of books and commentary.

Three referrals is a very approachable number, and the list of books with his commentary cannot be acquired anywhere else.

For many publications, especially in business/finance-related niches, insight from the publisher is valuable (that’s why people signed up for it in the first place).

If you’re unsure how to start a referral program, consider offering people more of what they signed up for (but in a different format).

Interactive Rewards:

What sets this referral reward apart is that it is continuously improving.

Raines adds more books to the list over time. Every new addition makes the reward better and creates a more enjoyable experience for readers. Why? Because they see their desired behaviour reinforced with every addition, which imparts a sense that their contribution still means something (a good feeling).

With so many referral programs out there now, the innovation is to improve the reward over time. Curious about how it works? Sign up and send him three referrals here:

Marketing / Attribution:

Twitter:

First: Raines has created a solid presence on Twitter. While it’s not the only available social platform out there, it’s clear this has been a big part of Young Money’s growth.

That doesn’t mean you have to publish Twitter threads and grow on the platform, but it is a sign that “social,” can be key to grow a publication (especially if it’s deeply connected to your personal brand/identity).

Consistency:

Every successful publisher in our Creator Spotlights has mentioned consistency. Posting on a regular cadence has proven to be absolutely key, and Young Money is no exception.

Ensure you meet your schedule (maybe 1 post a week, or every 2 weeks). But, if you’re going to adjust this cadence, do it with surprise & delight by sending an unannounced, high-value post outside of the schedule.

You can see with Young Money, Raines doesn't miss.

Analytics / UTM:

Analytics:

Warning: this gets a little technical, but it’s worth understanding how it works if you want to grow.

Raines shared, “They've [beehiiv] basically rebuilt Google Analytics within beehiiv to be able to see very detailed audience acquisition information. I’m seeing the source of ‘Did they find my blog through Twitter? Did they find it from another newsletter?’ A girl who writes for Morning Brew has shared my stuff and I can see it all.”

Here’s an example of what many publications may see:

• Twitter = 500 subscribers this month.

• LinkedIn = 100 subscribers this month.

Some might say: “I should double down on Twitter next month, because I have more subscribers from there.” That’s true, but there’s more to the story:

• Twitter = 500 subscribers from 10,000 hits (5%).

• LinkedIn = 100 subscribers from 500 hits (20%).

Here, LinkedIn is actually 4x as good. So when it’s time to double down, perhaps LinkedIn might be the better option. You only know that by seeing the data.

If you want to get really advanced, also consider the open rates from each source. Maybe Twitter’s 5% of subscribers have triple the open rates. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your segments.

This is a big part of how Young Money has prioritized its efforts to hit over 35k subscribers in just over one year.

But how can you see exactly who subscribed and from which source (or if they’re even a good subscriber, to begin with)?

Urchin Tracking Module (UTM):

UTM parameters are the most widely accepted methodology for tracking online attribution.

Raines shared, “I can make my own UTM trackers…you don't have to go through a third-party website, and you don't have to pay anything extra [if you don’t want to].”

Here’s what he means with a few examples. First, here is how UTM can be broken down:

• Campaign

• Medium

• Source (this is the important one for this example).

The “?” in any URL marks when tracking starts. For example:

• www.youngmoney.co/subscribe?utm_source=creatorspotlight 

His site’s analytics (and beehiiv subscription), would show the “source” was “creatorspotlight.”

If you were to subscribe through that link, your subscription would be attributed to this post (just like every other link in this post)

When leveraging Google Analytics and other tools (including beehiiv), the parameters appended to a URL is what’s used to understand where that web visitor is coming from. But manually creating URLs with the correct UTMs can be a total pain.

beehiiv allows for UTMs (and just launched a simple way to add them to posts within beehiiv). You can do it all from beehiiv and it should make tracking attribution much easier. This tactic works for Young Money and could work for you too.

Monetization:

Advertisements:

Monetization was always a part of the plan when he started his newsletter. He shared how he’s currently monetizing his newsletter with sponsored advertisements.

Raines explained, “I'm monetized with sponsored advertisements. How it works (for anybody listening who isn't familiar with my stuff) I write long-form blog posts that are around 2000-ish words.”

He continued, “At the very beginning, I'll have, ‘Today's Young Money Is Sponsored by…’ I don't know, the Daily Upside—it's a newsletter that's done some paid ads on mine before—and then I'll have a graphic linking back to their page, about 150-200 words of copy about them linking back to their page. And they'll pay x amount of dollars.”

Raines shared, “To put a dollar sign on it, I'm charging around $800-$850 per ad right now, and that's at 18,000 readers.”

Course:

This is where things get more interesting. As per the quote above, Young Money was (and remains ad-supported, but with more revenue channels on top of that now.

The course is (un-ironically) about building and growing a newsletter. This may seem counterintuitive (why would a finance publication make a course on newsletter growth?)

Because that’s one thing he’s known for, and there’s a market for it. Why not?

It shows that when your publication and personal brand are connected, there’s a better way to offer paid products (that may or may not be connected to your original niche).

Selling His Time

It goes on from there, people willing to pay for the course may also be willing to book a private session, which is also for sale.

And it makes the business model clear:

• Publish a great newsletter.

• Be active and engaged on social.

• Have automated growth channels running in the background.

• Use analytics and attribution to help prioritize and grow faster.

• Sell advertisements in that newsletter (monetize impressions, clicks, etc).

• Create a course on how to build a newsletter and sell advertisements on it (all the steps until now).

• Offer private sessions doing the same, but personalized (rather than a pre-recorded course).

Easy, right?

Absolutely not. It takes a lot of time, dedication, and focus to make this happen. It’s generous of Jack to offer the playbook, but this is where the real work begins.

We hope you enjoyed this Creator Spotlight. Special thanks to Jack Raines and Young Money for sharing their playbook.

Again, if you’d like to learn more, subscribe to Young Money here:

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend!