What would a Substack ad product actually look like?

PLUS: How publishers are rethinking their mobile apps

Welcome! I'm Simon Owens and this is my media industry newsletter. If you've received it, then you either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you.

If you fit into the latter camp and want to subscribe, then you can click on this handy little button:

Let’s jump into it…

What would a Substack ad product actually look like?

From the New York Times:

Substack is pouring much of its effort into building a social network and warming up to the advertising business …

The Substack app now has millions of users that draw in new creators and subscribers, said Chris Best, the chief executive of Substack, and Hamish McKenzie, its co-founder. They also said in an interview that Substack was planning to get deeper into the advertising business, which it previously criticized…

“Their creators have told them that they want Substack to support advertising,” [Mike Kerns, a co-founder of the Chernin Group,] said. “We think it is a massive opportunity to launch a native form of advertising within the Substack ecosystem at some point.”

What could a Substack ads product look like? The simplest version would be some sort of marketplace that matches advertisers with creators. In that scenario, the Substacker would list their price — either on a cost-per-click or flat rate basis — and Substack would simply take a cut when the brand purchases a sponsorship. Then it would be up to the Substacker to agree on the ad's wording and insert it into their newsletter.

Another option would be developing some type of tool that automatically inserts ads into the newsletter as it's being sent. This approach would scale more effectively and require a lot less work from the Substacker, but it would also give them less control over the copy that appears in their content (my guess though is Substack would give them the opportunity to veto any ads that wouldn't be a good fit.)

The third option would be to introduce native advertising posts within the Substack Notes feed — similar to the promoted posts you see on every other social network. My hunch is Substack will will avoid this option given how much its founders have criticized social media ads in the past. This option would also be trickier in terms of sharing revenue with creators. It’d certainly be a lot easier to game this system with engagement bait.

Up until now, Substack's been able to deflect criticisms that it's trying to shift distribution power from the creators to its own platform by pointing out that it only makes money once someone has handed over their email address and payment information to an individual creator. Once it opens the door to advertising, I'm not sure that defense will be valid any longer. That's not to say this move won't be good, on average, for its creators, but we can expect a lot more conspiratorial accusations launched against the company every time a Substack creator sees a dip in reach.

My one tip for Substack? Make the ad product only available to Substack Bestsellers — the designation it gives to accounts that have a minimum of 100 paid subscribers. That would help the company maintain some level of quality control for where ads appear and also steer away those creators who deal mostly in cheap engagement bait.

How the Pantsuit Politics podcast built a huge audience outside the DC beltway

Whenever Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers host live events for their podcast listeners, they purposefully avoid large cities so the gatherings can feel more intimate. [The Business of Content]

Want to pick my brain on your content strategy?

At this point I’ve probably interviewed over 1,000 media entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses.

I also spent over a decade consulting with organizations ranging from small nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies on their content strategies.

For this reason I get a fair number of people who reach out to me to see if I offer consulting calls so they can ask me questions related to their own content strategies.

Currently, there are three options for booking consulting calls with me:

Become a paid subscriber to my newsletter: When you subscribe, you automatically receive an email with a Calendly link that allows you to book a half-hour introductory call with me. Many of my subscribers use these calls to ask me questions related to their own businesses. Use this link and get 20% off for your first year:

Book an hour-long consulting call: This is a good option if you want to have a more in-depth discussion about your strategy. [Book a call on my Calendly]

Book a series of calls: Sometimes people want to book multiple calls with me. I can offer a significant discount for three or more calls. Reach out to me for details.

How Newgrounds accidentally became one of online culture’s defining sites

This is a fun retrospective on an early internet forum dating all the way back to 1995. This was the web I cut my teeth on in high school and college. I remember spending hours upon hours in 2004 arguing George Bush was evil on the message boards hosted by Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. It's kind of incredible to think back to how small the internet was then relative to today. [Fast Company]

How publishers are rethinking their mobile apps

From Press Gazette:

Given The Times website is already optimised for mobile phones and tablet-sized screens, why even bother with an app? “The really simple answer is, it’s what our subscribers prefer,” said [head of digital Edward Roussel].

The Times, Sunday Times and Times Literary Supplement claimed 629,000 digital subscribers at the end of March (up 8% year on year) and Roussel says the majority choose to read The Times on the app. App readers are more likely to renew their subscription and they consume more content than website readers.

The value proposition for media outlets building their own mobile apps has changed drastically over the last decade. It used to be that media executives were hopeful that they could put the genie back in the bottle and move mass audiences into mobile apps; now, these apps are more of a churn reduction tool. Once a paid subscriber has downloaded the app, they're then likely also opting into push notifications, which pull the user into the app on a consistent basis. And the more a paid subscriber interacts with a media outlet on a monthly basis, the less likely they are to cancel their subscriptions.

ICYMI: How the Tangle newsletter reached 77,000 readers and $624,000 in annual revenue

Isaac Saul wanted to create an antidote to the hyper partisan media ecosystem that dominates the web.

Why media executives keep stepping on AI rakes

From Status:

On Wednesday, from a stage at Axel Springer’s headquarters in Berlin, Mathias Döpfner, the company’s chief executive, addressed employees around the world in a global all-hands meeting … Döpfner delivered an impassioned and urgent message: artificial intelligence is no longer an optional tool to use. It’s here, and the company’s future depends on everyone embracing the rapidly advancing technology.

“I tell you, what is happening at the moment with regard to technology is the biggest change in modern civilization,” Döpfner said. “The first wave of internet is nothing against these developments.”

What an absolutely bizarre demand. I think it's telling that the most vocal AI advocates at media organizations aren't the journalists themselves, but the executives furthest removed from the journalism. Do you really think reporters — especially those in the younger cohort — wouldn't embrace tools that would make them better at their jobs?

I'm not even saying there are no journalistic benefits to AI — I use it in limited ways for my own work — but I just think the current hype bubble has made it impossible to discern legitimate use cases from just complete bullshit. And if there's anything we've learned over the past two years, it's that the CEOs at these companies are so terrified of being left behind that they're willing to push forward on AI automation regardless of whether it's actually ready for prime time.

Why Conde Nast was different

I think something a lot of people don't realize about the Conde Nast of the 1990s is that the lavish expensive accounts afforded to editors and writers didn't come as a result of enormous profits; rather, owner Si Newhouse just simply loved magazines and had the luxury of subsidizing them with the profits thrown off by his family's newspaper business. [NYT]

Are you following me on social?

You can follow me on Substack Notes, Threads, my private Facebook group, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Twitter