🍦The actual ads I sell for Naptown Scoop

Monetization is the #1 thing people ask me about. And while there’s lots of conjecture about the “right way” to monetize local newsletters, my favorite is (and always will be) ads.

They’re easy to fulfill, relatively easy to sell, and cost basically nothing produce.

When 100% sold out, Naptown Scoop contains 4 types of ads with 10 ads total. That’s a 3:1 content-to-ad ratio. Many local publications have a 1:5 ratio. You can probably guess that readers like my ratio better.

So, today’s big idea is the four types of ads I sell.

P.S. I’ve also got a fun content idea for you at the end of the newsletter.

Before we get to the ads, I’m introducing a new section. Lots of newsletters (Naptown Scoop included) invent cute names for sections like this. But that makes me cringe for Life of Scoop so I’m just calling it headlines. It’s for news local newsletter operators will want to know. And today’s headline is a big one.

6AM City, one of the real OGs in local newsletters, bought the AI-powered local newsletter company Good Daily. No price is publicly available. It takes 6AM from 1.4 million to 2 million subscribers and 30 markets to over 400. They also got a new VP of engineering, Good Daily’s founder and only employee, Matthew Henderson. It also gives 6AM a much cheaper and faster way to launch new markets (using Good Daily’s AI tech) which they said costs up to $250k the way they’d been doing it.

Hidden elsewhere in the article was a brief mention of two new products: a white-label newsletter studio and a Slack group for newsletter operators.

My take: This doesn’t worry me at all from a competition standpoint. It’s a smart move for 6AM and probably a good outcome for Henderson (who started Good Daily less than 2 years ago).

🔐 Life of Scoop Plus members get my full and unfiltered thoughts on the acquisition later this week.

These are my favorite. And my most expensive. But that’s only part of why they’re my favorite.

Native ads look and feel like unpaid content. They’re clearly marked as ads because nobody likes deception. But they don’t feel like ads. Which is a good thing because lots of people (myself included) have conditioned themselves to skip ads.

I’ve had many readers say they actually enjoy my native ads.

The combo of image & text is super desirable. Even though these are my most expensive offering, I have no problem selling out an entire year in advance. I created Features a few years ago to meet the demand.

Copywriting is a huge value add. Get super good at it and offer it. The below resources are good enough to get you 80% of the way for less than $200.

Bottom line: If you’re monetizing with ads, you should absolutely offer at least one native ad per newsletter, charge a premium, and include copywriting services.

This is a hybrid of classified ads and banner ads. We have room for 3 ads on the Bulletin Board.

While copywriting is no extra charge for Headlines, Features, OG Baselines, and Bulletin Board Takeovers, graphic design is not included with Baseline 2.0s. This is because I suck at it and have to hire it out 99% of the time when requested.

Much like Baseline 2.0s, these are basically banner ads. They’re 600x150 px (ish) and must be tied to a specific section.

Note: These are not section dividers. They introduce our sections. I know newsletters using a bunch of banner ads as section dividers. I hate it and readers do, too.

Tying banners to specific sections creates automatic content fit. This week, Naptown Scoop’s live music calendar was sponsored by a nonprofit with an outdoor concert series. A charity sailing regatta sponsored the weather. Sailors are obsessed with weather.

We even sold a sponsorship for our weekly adoptable dog feature to my dog’s vet.

And finally. . .

Naptown Scoop’s event section is never paid. There’s no way to get in unless we think your event’s cool enough to make the cut. However, we do allow one Featured Event every day. It goes right at the top of the calendar and even includes a photo.

Note: This much cheaper than any of our native ads with photos but we will not sell it to anyone unless they’re promoting an event. It’s not a loophole to get a cheaper ad with an image.

You get a photo, short description (written by us), and even a button link. There aren’t any other buttons in the newsletter so that’s a big deal.

I normally create the image with ChatGPT because it’s fun but we’ve only sold a few (mostly to friends) and if we start selling a lot, I’ll start charging for design because it takes times or I’ll hire it out.

Want to know how much we charge and how we sell? Life of Scoop Plus members get access to Naptown Scoop’s current media kit with real live rates.