Case Study: Growing A Newsletter From 0 To 1,437 Subscribers In 2 Weeks Using Facebook Ads

A few weeks ago, I decided to launch a new newsletter in the spirituality niche.

I spent a lot of time studying spiritual development and figured… Why not create a newsletter to write about what I’m learning anyways?

Within 2 weeks, I went from 0 to 1,437 new subscribers using a simple Facebook paid ads strategy. The cost per subscriber is currently $0.70 – $0.80. 

If you’re looking for a fast way to grow your newsletter or email list through paid ads, then keep reading…

The Strategy

The strategy is straightforward: Launch ads on social media going to an opt-in page for the newsletter. 

The tricky part is optimizing the ad and landing page so you can get leads at a low fee. 

At the moment, I’m getting leads for about $0.80 on Facebook, and below are the steps I took to get there.

Create A Simple Opt-In Page

I used Unbounce to create a landing page to gather emails. The landing page format I used was:

• Headline — call out audience + main benefit 

• Description — describe your newsletter in 1-2 sentences 

• Subscribe box — where they enter their email 

• Bullets with benefits — what they can expect from your newsletter

• About you — your background and qualifications 

You don’t need to overthink it at the beginning. Just get something good enough that you can send traffic to. Later, we’re going to split-test different headlines to increase the amount of people who opt-in.

Create A Thank You Page

The thank you page is where people get redirected to after they opt-in. 

The structure I used is: 

• Headline — Thank you for subscribing 

• Subheadline — Remind them to confirm their email (if you’re using double opt-in)

• Video from me — not necessary but I like videos for a personal touch and telling people what to expect

• Benefits — again, reminding them of the benefits of joining 

• Call to action — this can direct them to somewhere they can read past issues 

If you have a low-ticket product, you can also put that on your thank you page or a link to it. This allows you to offset some of your lead acquisition fees. 

Test Headlines

My approach to paid ads is to systematically test individual elements to create optimized ads. It requires more work than just throwing up some ads… 

But you’ll end up with higher-converting ads that save you money in the long run. 

So first, I wrote 8 headlines and tested each as individual creatives. Each creative had the headline as text on it. 

I ran the ads on Facebook using “traffic” as the campaign goal. 

This is crucial because we’re looking for budget friendly. We want to see which ad (headline) will get the highest click-through rate.  

Then, we will use that headline on our ad and landing page. 

I tried headlines with direct benefits such as… 

• Elevate your energy

• Awaken your inner power

• Raise your vibration 

• Master your reality

• Escape the matrix

Each ad ran for $5-6 or 400 impressions. They linked to the landing page, but didn’t get many opt-ins (about 1-2% opt-in rate). That’s expected because the “traffic” goal consists of users who like to click ads, but not necessarily opt-in. 

Which is why the costs are cheaper, making it an ideal option for testing.

The first 3 got the highest CTR and lowest CPC, so I used a combination of them on the ads and landing pages later. 

For targeting, I just picked the “Kundalini Yoga” interest. Later we will test more interests. 

Test Images

Images are crucial because they grab people’s attention from scrolling and get them to read your headline.

For this campaign, I used the AI image generator Midjourney to create images with a spiritual theme.

Again, I ran $5 to each image using the “traffic” goal.

Test Ad Copy 

Next, I combined the best image and headline from the previous test and created 5 ads to test ad copy. The copies only differed in the first sentence, since that’s the part that is displayed in the ad before the “read more…” link.

The structure of the ad copy is as follows…

• Who it’s for + big transformational benefit (this is the part to test)

• Pain point this solves

• Bulleted benefits of the newsletter (from the landing page)

• Quick about me

• Call to action 

Again, each one ran $5. I took the clear winner and combined it with the winning headline + image. 

Now I have an optimized ad.

Testing Audiences

Next, I launched a new campaign with the Facebook “lead” goal with multiple ad sets and different interests, including:

• Kundalini yoga (original) 

• Self-awareness

• Astrology

• Personal development

• New age

• Mindvalley

I ran each for $25 to see which got the lowest lead costs.

Mindvalley and Kundalini yoga were the winners, with leads coming at around $2 per lead.

Relaunching 

Finally, I made a new campaign with the “leads” goal again combining Kundalini yoga and Mindvalley interests. I manually set the placements to show ads only on news feeds on Facebook and Instagram.

After a few days, lead costs dropped to below $1, with an average of $0.75 per lead.

Will Paid Ads Work In Your Business?

I believe testing paid ads is something every business owner should consider.

While they may not work for everyone, paid ads are an amazing way to get quick feedback on your marketing message. 

If your marketing message is off, you’ll know right away because your ads won’t be performing. You can take those learnings and use them to amplify your content strategies. 

With the testing strategy I outlined above, paid ads don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. 

You’re testing with very budget friendly clicks and will know right away what’s working and what’s not. 

If you’re looking to supercharge the growth of your email list, then I highly recommend you give this a shot.