Every email you send and every update that goes live is an opportunity — and that includes the opportunity to generate revenue.
You’ve carved out your space on the world wide web and built a community of like-minded people interested in reading what you provide. You also created an email list from that community and started to grow your audience with a new way to receive and engage with your content.
Now picture this: Sending campaigns to your email list and automatically earning revenue without directly selling any goods or services.
It may sound too good to be true, but that’s precisely what happens when you choose to host ads in your emails:
You create a passive income stream from the content you’re already sending out to your subscribers.
The purpose of this guide is to offer considerable insight into email ads. Specifically, the ads provided through the FeedBlitz integrated ad network. It will also help debunk any myths, address any hesitations you may have, and offer a glimpse into the actual earning potential available to you.
Here’s what we’re going to cover in this guide:
- Are email ads right for me?
- Two ways you can earn revenue from ads in your emails.
- The FAQs of ad sizes, placements, and types.
- Pulling back the curtain: The 2021 ad revenue of three FeedBlitz clients.
- Case studies: How monitoring and making adjustments to your program can increase earning potential.
*Our team has covered a lot of ground for you, but reach out if you’re left with any questions. We’re happy to help.
Settle in, and let’s get started. It’s time to learn about your truly unlimited earning potential.
1. Are email ads right for me?
We start by asking this one question for anyone curious about getting started with email ads:
Are you currently running ads on your site?
If your site is currently hosting ads, it’s a simple, seamless transition to start incorporating them into your email content. Your audience has already become accustomed to seeing them on your site. Your emails also offer additional, coveted ad space and an opportunity to generate revenue.
Monetizing one without the other means you may be leaving revenue opportunities on the table.
If you are not yet running ads on your site, this does not mean you shouldn’t run ads in your emails. If you plan to run ads on your site but don’t meet traffic minimums to join a premium ad network, you can run this process in reverse. Running ads in your emails can prepare your audience for the appearance of ads on your website. The FeedBlitz integrated ad network has no traffic or list size minimums.
2. Two ways you can earn money from ads in your emails.
Monetizing your emails doesn’t require a massive mailing list or sending content within a specific niche. Creating a revenue stream from the emails, you’re already sending may be easier than you imagine.
Earning revenue is an opportunity available to anyone sending email campaigns. When focusing your email monetization efforts on working with ads, the two most common tactics are:
1. Selling space in your email and manually inserting ads. This method relies on sponsorships, partnerships and affiliate relationships you create and offers a variety of possibilities as it could cover images, logos, videos, or text.
However, selling space requires substantial work to establish relationships and agreements, including creating a media kit, gathering your site and email history data, securing multiple agreements across platforms, etc.
2. Ads that are inserted automatically into your emails through an integration with an online ad service. This automated option allows an ad network that you sign up for or that is integrated with your email service provider (ESP) to supply and place ads in designated space(s) of your campaigns.
Many email marketers often incorporate both types of ads in their emails or switch between them for different campaigns. (Important note: FeedBlitz does allow for both in the same email. There is no exclusivity clause that would create a conflict with this!) This is an excellent way to diversify your income through email advertising.
If you’re new to working with ads or prefer a more hands-off approach, working with an ad network is a great option to test the waters—especially if your ESP is directly integrated with an ad network.
At FeedBlitz, we offer a one-click advertising option to all clients. With one click of the mouse, you can turn ads on in your account, starting with your next email campaign—without the extra work of selling the space yourself.
And unlike many standalone ad networks, there are no scripts, tags, markups, pre-approval processes, or minimum traffic counts to meet before you can begin generating a passive income from your emails. Essentially, zero barriers for you to overcome or hoops to jump through just to get started.
3. The FAQs of email ad sizes, placements, and types.
Thinking about introducing ads to your email campaigns can spark many questions…
How many ads?? Where would they go? What would they look like?!?
And that’s understandable! This section will break down some of the most common questions about ad placement, content, and more.
- Ads are available in three sizes: marquee, banner, and square. The variety of sizing allows for optimal flexibility in the placement and frequency of the ads in your mailings.
Yes, one size does outperform the others, but we’ll get into more detail by looking at the case studies below.
- Yes, you can start small and ease into slowly adding more units. You can even begin by placing an ad at the bottom of your campaign and then gradually moving it higher or placing a second ad unit. This will help your audience become accustomed to seeing ads in your emails.
And remember, your audience is already accustomed to seeing ads if you host them on your site, which provides a smooth transition to placing them in your emails.
- Regardless of whether you use automated or single campaigns, you control the number of ads in your emails, the size of your ads, and the placement of ads. Turning ads on in your account does not mean your subscribers will be overwhelmed with ads. You choose the number, the placement, and the size right from the Monetization settings in your account or the template when creating your campaigns.
- All ads are brand-safe. FeedBlitz only allows brand-safe* ads and no politics whatsoever. Regarding the exact ads that show in your emails, it depends mainly on the available ad inventory and the end-user’s anonymized internet activity.
When setting up your ad program, you do have some influence over the ads shown by choosing your preferred categories. It’s important to remember, however, these selections only provide guidance. They are not the primary determining factor for the exact ads shown.
*If you ever feel an ad is not up to par or is not brand-safe, our team is always happy to review it to determine if it violates the policies. The ad will be removed from the inventory when warranted.
- You do not have to have ads in every email you send. The flexibility of the ad program is just that—flexible. You can choose when, where, and how ads appear in your mailing and can choose to remove them entirely at any time for a particular campaign or an entire mailing list.
If you have additional questions not covered above, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Our team is always happy to provide more insight or walk you through placing ads in your campaigns.
4. Pulling back the curtain: The 2021 ad revenue of three FeedBlitz clients.
When talking about ad earnings, it’s one thing to say:
“Our clients typically see ad earnings run between $2 to $3 (USD) per 1,000 opens for US-based readership, depending on real-time ad markets and available inventory.”
(Because they do, that is the general earning rate for ads in emails.) However, it’s far different to show actual numbers of subscriber counts, open rates, and earnings.
As you’ll see below, ad earnings vary greatly and depend significantly on list size, mailing frequency, and open rates. To help you better visualize your earning potential, you’ll find the average monthly ad earnings of three FeedBlitz clients and a summary of their email practices for better context. (Clients are listed as A, B, and C, to protect their privacy, with their average monthly ad earnings listed by quarter.)
Client A is a craft blogger.
They have a total of 2,800 subscribers in one mailing list.
Their monthly fee is $49.
Client A emails daily, with an average open rate of 25%.
Their average monthly ad earnings for 2021 are listed in the table to the right.
| Quarter | Average Monthly Earnings |
| 1 | $79 |
| 2 | $88 |
| 3 | $72 |
| 4 | $108 |
Client B is a coupon/deal blogger.
They have has just over 20,000 subscribers in one mailing list.
Their monthly fee is $149.
Client B emails daily, with typical open rates between 30 and 35%.
| Quarter | Average Monthly Earnings |
| 1 | $290 |
| 2 | $291 |
| 3 | $289 |
| 4 | $347 |
Client C is a recipe blogger.
They have 280,500 subscribers, split into three mailing lists.
Their monthly fee is $799.
Their main list is emailed daily, and their additional two lists are mailed weekly. Their average open rate is 25% across the three lists.
| Quarter | Average Monthly Earnings |
| 1 | $3,486 |
| 2 | $3,375 |
| 3 | $3,384 |
| 4 | $4,128 |
Did you notice that all three of these clients more than covered their FeedBlitz fees with the income generated from the ad program? (In fact, over 70% of participants in the ad program for 2021 earned more than enough to offset their FeedBlitz fees!)
Looking through Clients A, B and C, hopefully, you could identify which client either most closely resembles your current setup or a client you may aspire to match—or surpass.
Earnings not only depend on list size, mailing frequency, and open rates, they can also fluctuate month to month, depending on ad inventory, supply, and demand. Which explains why we always see a bump during the holiday season—November through December—in revenues as retailers tend to flood the market with inventory.
What is most impressive about this method of monetizing your mailings is that it provides unlimited earning potential as it all hinges on your preferences and practices.
5. Case studies: How monitoring and making adjustments to your program can increase earning potential.
Embracing the opportunity that including ads in your emails provides starts with turning on the ads themselves. The next step is to monitor your progress and adjust your approach to optimize that opportunity.
Below you’ll learn about two clients who increased their ad revenue in 2021 by making simple adjustments to their ad placement. Then you will read about a third client who has found great success with the ad program through another popular email marketing tactic.
They’ll be labeled Clients E, F, and G to protect their privacy. You will also see the percentage increases for the first two clients after their change and average monthly earnings for the third client.
Client E is a coupon/deal blogger who emails approximately 57,000 subscribers daily.
- They have an average unique open rate of 29% and generally run three ads per email.
- Our team began working with this client in September 2021. They privately sell the top ad spot in their mailings to sponsors, but this placement doesn’t always have a sponsor.
- After reviewing their program, we suggested turning on the marquee ad at the top of the email option in their ad settings and allowing marquee-style ads within the body of the email. They continued to run three ads per mailing. When they do sell the top ad space, they can easily turn off the top marquee unit.
- This edit yielded a consistent 200% increase in revenue in the following months.
Client F is a performance marketer who emails a total of 1.1 million subscribers, split into many lists, daily.
- They have an average unique open rate of 17% across their lists and were displaying one ad per email.
- After reviewing their program, we suggested a change to their template that would place an additional ad unit.
- This adjustment yielded a consistent 31% increase in revenue in the following months.
Our top recommendation for all clients running ads is to switch your ads to marquee size ad units. (And if you only change the size of one ad, let it be the first shown in your mailings.)
The final client highlights a popular email marketing strategy used to encourage higher open rates and better engagement.
And you guessed it, higher open rates = greater impressions = higher revenues.
Client G is a political blogger who emails 3,000 subscribers split into four mailing lists, mailing at least once a day.
- The average open rate across all four lists is 40%.Their average monthly ad revenue for 2021 was $450, compared to their average monthly fee of $49.
- Client G offers the same content to all four mailing lists, each set to a different mailing schedule. Their subscribers then receive content on a schedule that suits their preferences, encouraging higher open rates and greater engagement.
- While this client’s subscriber numbers are lower than all of the previous examples listed, we wanted to show this client to highlight how mailing frequency and engagement can significantly affect your earning potential.
Your earnings can be easily increased based on small changes to your ad settings. And while not every tweak to your ad settings will guarantee a higher return, if you’re feeling stagnant with ad earnings, we always recommend making an adjustment, monitoring, then adjusting again as needed.
Embracing your unlimited earning potential.
Monetizing your email campaigns with ads is one of the easiest and quickest ways to build a revenue stream that genuinely offers unlimited earning opportunities. And, as you’ve read above, it doesn’t take a giant mailing list to get started or to see results. Especially if you’re already hosting ads on your site, it’s a simple transition to placing ads in your emails.
There’s no reason to leave money on the table. Embrace your opportunities!
Are you interested in giving email ads a try with the FeedBlitz one-click advertising program? Head to this page to start your free trial. Questions? Feel free to reach out with any questions through our Support Page. While live support is available Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern, and you can always find helpful information 24-7 at the resources linked here.
