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Expert’s Guide to Boosts 2.0
Seamlessly tap into a network of thousands of the most popular newsletters in the world to both grow and monetize.
Tyler Denk & Darwin Binesh
July 12th, 2024
This article has been updated to maintain its accuracy and relevance
In less than one year since launching Boosts in April 2023—newsletters on beehiiv have grown by nearly a half million subscribers, and inversely hundreds of thousands of dollars have been paid out to content creators and publishers.
In this post, I’m going to explain what Boosts are, showcase some power users who are experiencing tremendous success using it, and then walk through a step-by-step guide on how to leverage this powerful network to grow and monetize.
I’ll also provide a ton of explanations and best practices along the way 🙂.
Table of Contents
What are Boosts?
It’s a marketplace where newsletters can seamlessly grow and monetize their audience at scale. ”Boosts” and “Boosts Marketplace” are interchangeable here.
For those looking to grow their newsletter—you can create an offer specifying how much you’re willing to pay per new subscriber. In this situation, you’re on the “grow side” of the marketplace. Thousands of newsletters in the beehiiv network can apply to Boost your newsletter (or you can invite them directly), driving you tons of new subscribers.
Our verification process ensures that you’ll only ever pay for real and engaged subscribers, making Boosts one of the highest-performing acquisition channels for newsletters.
For those looking to monetize their newsletter—you can browse hundreds of offers in the Boosts marketplace, discover newsletters that align with your audience, and then apply to boost those that entice you the most. You’ll get paid for passively driving subscribers to other newsletters. We will describe the many methods for driving subscribers below.
And you can do both at the same time. Earn passive revenue by boosting other newsletters, then funnel that cash straight into your own Boosts budget to scale your audience more easily and more cost-efficiently than ever before.
Who’s Having Success With Boosts?
With 30,000 subscribers, Geekout Newsletter has made over $25,000 solely from beehiiv Boosts to date.
It is his favorite feature since the setup is straightforward, requiring only occasional checks on pending revenue to ensure the pipeline is filled with quality subscribers.
Rowan Cheung from The Rundown AI has grown by over 10,000 subscribers using Boosts, paying an average of $2.00 per high-quality subscriber.
How high quality?
Engagement metrics from Boosts via beehiiv segmentation feature
He has also made almost $8,000 in revenue from Boosts, offsetting nearly half of his acquisition budget (i.e. the net CPA is roughly $1.20).
Ben Tossell of Ben’s Bites has also grown by over 10,000 subscribers using Boosts and had the following to say…“It was mega easy to set up, I set it and forgot it - and haven't really looked at it since.”
How Does The Marketplace Work? (Overview)
With the two sides looking to grow and/or monetize respectively, everything starts with an “offer” that dictates how much a publication is willing to pay for an active, engaged subscriber.
In addition to the payment amount, a.k.a. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), the offer also covers adjustable criteria for these subscribers which we will describe below.
Whether publications bid on the offer via the marketplace or are invited to promote the offer, we eventually reach an “agreement” between publications. One side pays to grow, the other side promotes them for those funds (the reason why it’s the Boosts Marketplace).
When agreements are “Live”, a general workflow may look something like this:
A newsletter subscriber will land on Publication A’s website (Creator’s Toolbox in this example), and subscribe.
A modal will appear, recommending several other publications.
If they toggle on another publication (such as The Publish Press), and select continue, they will also subscribe to this publication (in addition to the first).
Once done, that will be considered subscriber-driven via Boosts.
Creator’s Toolbox sent The Publish Press that subscribe via their website.
The Publish Press pays for it (provided the subscriber is active and engaged), based on the terms of their offer.
Note: The word “sponsored” refers to Boosts (as they are paid for), and newsletters without this “sponsored” tag are free recommendations.
That’s it. Not that hard, right?
These are called Web Boosts (since they start by subscribing on a website), which refers to one channel for promoting newsletters via the Boosts Marketplace. We’ll cover the additional channels available in the “Boosts Channels” section below.
But, since everything starts with an “offer,” we’ll start by describing how to create an offer and grow with Boosts.
Show me how to grow…
To get started, go to Grow → Boosts, then Add Funds (since this is a paid marketplace).
You’ll be redirected to a checkout page to deposit funds into your beehiiv wallet. There is no fee associated with the deposit, so what you pay is what is made available to spend on new subscribers.
Once done, you’re ready to create an offer!
Creating an Offer:
Click “New Offer” to get started.
Your offer is displayed to other publishers in the Boosts marketplace (we’ll cover this in the section on monetizing with Boosts below).
Note: if you have not added funds already, you’ll see a prompt at the top of the screen directing you to do so (example below).
The offer is created in 2 simple steps.
Step 1: CPA and Target Audience.
Step 2: Quality Controls.
Step 1: CPA and Target Audience
As described above CPA is how much you will pay for each active, engaged subscriber.
In this example, we’ve set the CPA to $2.50.
However, you’ll notice in the “Preview” (see below) it says $2.00
This is due to the fees associated with Boosts. 5% is for admin fees, and the other 15% goes directly to us.
There are no hidden fees. You would know that you’re paying the $2.50, and the monetizer knows they are earning the $2.00
The target audience reflects your ideal subscriber, and publications see it before applying so they can assess how good a fit they may be for your offer.
For example, if you write “Fortune 500 employees,” as your target audience, a business-oriented newsletter may be more inclined towards applying (as it helps them see if it’s a good fit for their audience who also reads business-oriented content).
Step 2 Quality Controls:
Given the premise of Boosts is to pay for active, engaged subscribers, we use a proprietary verification process to ensure all subscribers meet quality standards.
If you feel subscribers via Boosts are not active, engaged, or otherwise good quality, please contact beehiiv support and we will be happy to assist.
What’s up with “verification?”
To ensure the best results, and also disincentivize others from attempting to abuse the marketplace, we have created a verification process to validate all new subscribers generated from Boosts.
We purposely keep the verification process opaque to prevent users from gaming the system, but it is some combination of email engagement, location, IP addresses, user agents, behavior, and several additional factors.
You will only ever pay for verified subscribers — meaning those who we have vetted and accepted as legitimate and qualified subscribers. In turn, you will be refunded for all subscribers who do not meet the criteria and pass the verification process.
We have two “Verification Modes,” which are “Standard” and “Relaxed.” We always recommend Standard.
Standard Verification takes anywhere from 10 - 17 days to complete verification, but subscribers are typically of a higher quality.
Relaxed Verification takes as little as 48 hours (but can still go up to 17 days depending on the circumstances). In exchange for speed, the users may not necessarily be of the same quality.
As subscribers enter your list, they are in a “pending” state until the selected verification mode confirms they are active and engaged. If they are deemed active, they pass, become verified subscribers, and the money changes hands automatically.
But, what happens to those who fail this verification process?
We refer to these as “rejected” subscribers.
Auto clean will take these rejected subscribers and remove them from your list for you.
If you prefer to keep the rejected subscribers on your list, you can toggle this off.
Geo-location Criteria
In addition to the CPA, Target Audience, and Verification, you can also set the Geo-location criteria for subscribers. This ensures you only pay for subscribers verified to be within your selected region(s).
In this example, you can see the geo-location criteria searching “united” for United States. In this offer, only subscribers from this location would be verified. Subscribers outside of these regions would be immediately rejected.
Potential partners will also see these restrictions before they apply.
You’ve created your offer, now what? (Invite to Boost)
If you don’t want to wait for publications to apply to your offer, you can invite them directly using the “Invite Publications to Boost” button.
From there, you can search via content tag, language, country, or by simply typing in the name of the publication.
Every publication starts with 50 invites per month but can raise this by upgrading their account. For most, 50 is more than enough.
You can also refer to the “invites sent” tab to cancel any invitations.
Once the invitation is accepted, the offer will go “Live” right away.
So, if you already know of several publications that would be a good fit, you can send them an invite right away. Users you invite will see the details of the offer you created earlier in their invitation.
What if you decide to edit your offer?
In some cases, users will create an offer (for example) that pays a $4 CPA for each active, engaged subscriber. But, they may decide to lower that CPA in the future.
When editing an offer’s CPA or geo-restrictions, you will be publishing a new offer that everyone will have to apply to. Users promoting the previous offer would also have to apply to it (and you can resend invitations if you wish). Parties monetizing your previous offer are not automatically moved to the new CPA.
You can cancel the previous offer/CPA via the “Offer Insights” Tab at any time if you no longer want anyone to promote your previous offer.
Reviewing applications from other newsletters:
Applications are visible on the dashboard, and you can see a summary card with some details including the publication name, URL, content tags, and previous subscriber quality (specifically subscribers driven via Boosts).
By clicking “review” you see the rest of the details so you can complete your review to determine if they are a good fit to promote your newsletter.
This application also includes the message from the newsletter (you can see this example has not included a message), details on their demographics, and the option to accept or reject them as a partner.
Note: “Quality Not Available” under Boost Quality Score means not enough data has been collected to give a clear estimate.
You can also report the publication if you feel it’s appropriate to do so.
Once you’ve got a few publications reporting you, the Boosts dashboard will be your best friend.
Let’s get into it.
Understanding the Boosts Dashboard (Grow)
Now that you have a few partners promoting you via Boosts, let’s review what it all looks like when everything is in motion, starting with the dashboard.
There are some important definitions to call out here to better understand all of the data being presented on this dashboard above.
Total Subscribers — The total number of subscribers that other publications have sent you via Boosts.
Verified Subscribers — Subscribers who have been accepted by our verification process. These are the ones you pay for. You only ever pay for verified subscribers, which prevents you from paying for low-quality and/or fake subscribers.
Pending Subscribers — Subscribers who you haven't yet paid for, currently going through our verification process. This process takes between 10-17 days for our normal verification process (recommended), or as little as 3 days for our relaxed verification process.
Note: “pending” in boosts refers to if/when they are verified and paid for.
“Pending” in your active subscriber list refers to subscribers who have double opted-in. These are separate.
Open Rate - The open rate of all verified subscribers. Deliveries/Opens.
Click Through Rate - the click-through rate of all verified subscribers. Opens/Clicks
Unsubscribe Rate - the unsubscribe rate of all verified subscribers. Deliveries/Unsubscribe events.
Total Spend — This is the amount you have already paid for verified subscribers.
Pending Spend — The amount tied to those subscribers currently going through the verification process. Funds associated with subscribers who fail verification will be returned to your beehiiv wallet and made available to spend again.
My Available Balance - for paying for new subscribers via Boosts.
Understanding Offer Statuses
You may also notice in the screenshot above that my offer is Live while we previously saw offers that were “active.” To explain the different statuses associated with offers…
Live — the offer is visible to others in the Boosts Marketplace, where beehiiv users can view and apply to boost your newsletter.
You can only have a single Live offer at any given time.
Offers that were previously Live can still be promoted, it’s just that new partners can no longer apply to old offers. Users can only apply to Live offers.
Active — these are the offers that were previously Live, and are still being promoted. There are publishers currently boosting your newsletter based on the terms of this offer, but it is no longer visible in the Boosts Marketplace.
Example: you created an offer with a $2.00 CPA, and accepted 10 publishers to Boost you. You later decide to create a new offer with a $2.50 CPA. The new offer will be Live and visible in the Boosts Marketplace and no one else will be able to apply to the old $2.00 offer. But as long as those 10 publishers are still boosting your publication (or at least 1 of them), that old offer will remain Active.
This ensures continuity that subscribers are still being driven to your newsletter. However, if you want to terminate those old Boosts, you can Pause and/or Archive them. Doing so will require those publishers to re-apply to your new offer, however.
Inactive — the offer is only visible to you and previously had active Boosts but none are currently active.
Draft — is only visible to you, and has not yet been published. You can choose to publish the Draft, which would move the current Live offer (if one exists) to Active. Or you can choose to Archive it.
Archived — can think of an archived offer as deleted. It will pause and archive all active Boosts associated with the offer.
Warning: archiving a Live or Active offer will disrupt all Active Boosts associated with it, requiring each publisher to have to re-apply in the future.
What if you don’t like one of your partners?
With Boosts, it’s natural for some publications to deliver better-fitting subscribers than others.
On the publications table, you can use the “Actions” dropdown to pause agreements between newsletters that may not be delivering the quality you’re looking for. Pausing is temporary, and you can resume the agreement at any time (provided the other publication still exists).
This provides you greater control to manage who promotes your newsletter and when.
Additional Notes on Balances:
These additional notes can help you better plan your budgets.
All deposits are non-refundable.
If your available balance hits $0, all agreements will enter the Paused status.
You must then add at least 10x your offer’s CPA in available funds for it to become active. Anything less than that 10x CPA amount, will not work.
For example: if your Boost pays $3 CPA, but is paused due to insufficient funds, you will need to deposit at least $30 for it to unpause.
This is set at 10x your CPA so we don’t have people adding $3 at a time, creating several pause/unpause scenarios over a few dollars.
If you prefer not to deposit additional funds, you can always wait for “pending funds” (more on this below)to return to your wallet as subscribers fail the verification process.
In the Boosts marketplace, the default sorting algorithm weighs a few different factors, including the amount of available funds. Publishers with a larger available budget are more likely to be prioritized because those publishers provide more liquidity, which leads to a better experience for those on the other side of the marketplace.
What’s happening step-by-step (grow)?
Let's walk through exactly what happens when someone boosts your newsletter. For this example, let's say that Newsletter A is boosting your newsletter that has an offer of $2.50 CPA.
Application Acceptance:
Once you accept their application (or they accept your invitation), Newsletter A will start actively boosting you.
Subscriber Redirection:
Each time a new subscriber signs up for Newsletter A, they will be redirected to a page showing Newsletter A’s recommended newsletters.
Your newsletter could be one of up to five loaded on that page, allowing them to opt-in as described above.
Opt-In Process:
If the new subscriber opts in to receive your newsletter, they will be added to your list in a Pending state.
A Pending subscription means they need to confirm their email to start receiving your posts.
Note:
This is also known as double opt-in, and a reminder email will be sent 48 hours later if they haven’t confirmed their email.
Confirming double opt-in is just one part of the verification process, and entering the “active” status alone does not guarantee payment.
Fund Allocation:
The $2.50 CPA associated with your offer will be moved from your available funds into Pending Spend while we verify the quality of this subscriber.
Verification Process:
Depending on whether you chose the Standard or Relaxed verification process, the subscriber will be assessed for a period ranging from 2 to 17 days.
Verification Details:
During this period, beehiiv analyzes engagement and behaviors associated with the subscriber to determine if they are legitimate and engaged.
The beehiiv system will decide whether or not to verify the subscriber by the end of the verification window. It’s possible for early verification if sufficient data points are available.
Post-Verification Outcomes:
If Verified:
The funds move from Pending Spend to Newsletter A for delivering a quality subscriber.
Beehiiv will receive a 20% transaction fee.
If Not Verified:
The funds will be returned to your wallet and made available for future growth.
The subscriber will remain on your list, but you won’t be charged as they didn’t meet verification requirements. If Auto-Clean was toggled on, the subscriber will be removed.
Compensation:
Newsletter A does not receive anything if the subscriber is not verified.
Beehiiv does not receive anything if the subscriber is not verified.
Lastly, as you scale Boosts as an acquisition channel, it’s recommended to continuously assess the quality of these new subscribers, broken down by publisher.
Reviewing Individual Partners:
From your dashboard, you can click on the publications title to view their “Partner Page” and all of the relevant details associated with that publication.
From here, you can see all of the details associated with that individual publication including the metrics of their subscribers, how much you’ve paid them up to that point, and more.
However, you can also review individual partners using segmentation.
All subscribers from Boosts will be shown in beehiiv with the following attribution — boost: newsletter.beehiiv.com / referral (where newsletter.beehiiv.com will be replaced with the URL of the publisher’s website).
Using beehiiv’s powerful segmentation tool you can drill down and view the aggregate quality of these subscribers.
Note: you want to specify the status as Active to only assess the quality of subscribers actually receiving your newsletters. Source is the URL of the newsletter boosting you. For example, if our Product Announcement newsletter was boosting you, subscribers sent your way from our Boosts will show as:
boost: product.beehiiv.com / referral
Creating the above segment will result in the following…
44.5% open rate and 15.1% CTR … Boosts delivers again 😉.
Boosts Channels:
Until now, our examples have focused on using Web Boosts to grow. But these are not the only channels available in the Boosts Marketplace.
There are 2 ways to use the Boosts feature to grow and monetize.
Web Boosts – users will add your publication’s card to their website (on the /recommendations pop-up). As their subscribers see the pop-up, they can toggle on the option to subscribe to your newsletter as well. This will move the subscribers through the verification process. Web Boosts are active on their websites when you approve that publication’s application to boost your newsletter.
Embed Boosts – These are the same as web Boosts, but the modal (/recommendations page), is embedded onto a third party website. You can use this option if you’re not using beehiiv’s native sites, but wish to use Boosts.
Show me how to monetize…
To get started, go to Monetization → Boosts, then Connect to Stripe. Stripe is required to monetize with Boosts.
You’ll be prompted to either sync an existing Stripe account or create a new one.
This is required in order to receive funds for your contributions to the Boosts network (i.e. this is how you get paid).
Next, you’ll be able to browse the Boosts Marketplace for enticing offers.
Publishers who are part of the beehiiv network will browse the marketplace and apply to offers that are most enticing and relevant to their audience. You could probably assume that the higher the CPA, the more attractive the offer is for other users to apply as well.
As people apply to Boost your newsletter, you’ll receive email and in-app notifications alerting you that you have pending applications. You’ll be notified of pending applications on the main Boost dashboard as well, as shown in the picture below.
In the top left you’ll be able to filter the offers by payout amount and category.
In the top right you’ll be able to sort by featured (our algorithm), newest, oldest, and highest CPA payout.
When you find an offer that interests you, click the button to formally apply.
Please note that Stripe Identity Verification is required to complete this step. This is a required step to continue preventing bad actors from abusing the beehiiv platform and our users. If you are unable to complete Stripe Verification, please contact beehiiv support.
Once complete, you’ll be prompted to share some additional context as to why you believe your newsletter and audience is a good fit to Boost them—which helps them to make a more informed decision about your application.
You’ll later receive an email notification once your application has been responded to. Accepted applications officially become Boosts, and will appear in your primary Boosts Dashboard.
Understanding the Boosts Dashboard (Monetize):
There are some important definitions to call out here to better understand all of the data being presented on this dashboard:
Total Subscribers — The total number of subscribers that you sent to other publications via Boosts.
Verified Subscribers — Subscribers who have been accepted by our verification process. You only ever get paid for verified subscribers, and aren’t rewarded for low-quality and/or fake subscribers.
Pending Subscribers — Subscribers you haven't yet been paid for, who are currently going through our verification process. This process can take upwards of 21 days depending on the verification settings of the publication you are boosting.
Pending Revenue — The amount tied to those subscribers currently going through the verification process. Funds associated with subscribers who pass verification will be moved to your wallet as a part of Total Earnings and accessible to withdrawal.
Revenue per Subscriber – the average amount you’ve earned for each subscriber delivered.
Total Earnings — This is the amount you have already earned for driving verified subscribers to other publications via Boosts.
You may also notice under Details that there are a few pieces of information—the payout amount for each subscriber you drive to the publication via Boosts and the status of the Boost.
Boost Statuses Explained
Active — are currently being displayed on your recommendations page and driving subscribers to those newsletters.
Inactive — are currently disabled and not being shown to your readers for the time being, but can be reactivated on your own accord.
Paused — these have been disabled by the other publications associated with the Boost, due to a variety of possible reasons. You can’t resume these Boosts until they take action on their end.
Rejected — were Boost applications you submitted but were rejected by the other publication.
Archived — these were permanently disabled by either publication associated with the Boost and cannot be reactivated. You’ll need to re-apply if you want to Boost that publication again in the future.
You cannot update or edit Boosts that are Paused, Rejected, or Archived because those actions were taken by the other publication. This includes cases where Boosts are paused due to insufficient funds.
However, you are able to transition Boosts from Active → Inactive and vice versa, which gives you control over which Boosts are shown to your readers. You can also Archive a Boost at any time which essentially turns it off for good.
Note: if you accidentally Archive a Boost, you’ll have to re-apply to re-activate it after 30 days. You cannot undo an archive.
By clicking on any individual Boost, you’re able to view additional details via the same Partner Page as described above.
What’s happening step-by-step?
When a new reader signs up for your newsletter, they’ll be redirected to a page on your site that shows other publications and newsletters you’re recommending, just like in the example at the introduction of this guide.
At the top, it’ll show up to 5 Boosts, which are identifiable via the Sponsored disclaimer above the name of the publication.
When new subscribers toggle to sign up for a publication like The Publish Press, here's what happens:
Fund Allocation:
$2.40 (the CPA associated with the offer) will be moved from the publisher's available funds into pending while we verify the quality of this subscriber. This will appear to you as Pending Revenue.
Verification Process:
Depending on the verification process chosen by the publisher when creating the offer, this subscriber will be assessed and verified for a period of time ranging from 2 to 17 days.
Verification Details:
During this period, beehiiv carefully analyzes engagement and behaviors associated with this subscriber to determine if they are legitimate and engaged.
At the conclusion of the verification window, the beehiiv system will determine whether or not to verify the subscriber. A subscriber may be verified before the end of the verification window if sufficient data points are available.
Post-Verification Outcomes:
If Verified:
The funds will move from pending (Pending Revenue) to your wallet for delivering a quality subscriber.
If Not Verified:
The funds will be returned to the publisher's wallet from pending, meaning you won’t get paid for this subscriber.
The $2.40 in your Pending Revenue will no longer be pending, nor will it be made available to you.
We will always show a maximum of up to 5 Boosts in your post-subscribe flow. By default these are chosen at random to normalize the distribution of publications being shown.
Lastly, you can always search for additional Boosts by exploring the marketplace as described above.
Cashing out
At any point, you can withdraw your earnings from your beehiiv wallet. These funds will be deposited into the Stripe account you synced when initially configuring your Boost account under Monetize → Boosts.
From there, the funds will be deposited directly to your bank account. They are sent from beehiiv immediately and can take up to a few days for your bank to process them depending on the institution.
Thank you for reading. For any additional information, please consult the beehiiv Knowledge Base or reach out to our outstanding support team!
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