Will newsletter advertising replace website advertising – and how soon?

Is the Morning Brew model  – $20M revenue from newsletters – poised to become a template for media to thrive – and in some cases to survive – in the future?

While print, events, and apps are largely immune to drops in organic web traffic, niche media that rely on organic search to power online display advertising or subscription sales are at risk.  Experts estimate a 66% drop in organic search traffic over the next two years. It’s already happening to major media brands. The New York Times pivoted in July after a 30% plus drop in traffic.  Business Insider’s summer lay-off was preceded by a 50% drop over two years.  Drops of as much as 40% are all too common. 

Niche media may think they are immune, but unless direct traffic is the primary source of visitors to the website –  or website advertising is not essential to the revenue model –  online ad revenue is at risk.  

One solution is to double down on newsletter sales. 

The data so far

All the data show that media are in the crosshairs of disruptive technology yet again.

Search traffic has remained steady for some, primarily due to the increase in searches overall, plus direct traffic fueled by the strength of the brand.

However, Google  delivered AI summaries to only  13% of search queries in early 2025 . As Google scales this up, virtually no clicks from summaries will go to publishers. It is a question of when, not if, media companies will need to adjust their core revenue streams.

Direct queries to AI engines like ChatGPT are also still in their infancy, accounting for only 1% of all queries in early 2025. By summer, that number had doubled  to  around 2%  – about 2 billion daily queries, about 50% of which were executed on Chat GPT, according to the Meeker Report released in May, 2025. This is not enough to affect current niche media traffic today, but usage that doubles at this speed means exponential growth ahead.

Mary Meeker’s comprehensive 340-slide document titled “Trends – Artificial Intelligence,”  her first major public report in 5 years notes that AI adoption has been 5 times  faster than adoption of Google search, and is, in fact, the fastest technological adoption in history. Known as the “Queen of the Internet” for her influential annual Internet Trends reports, Meeker’s predictions are considered information gold.

If she’s right, media over the next two years will be forced to shift their focus to products that are most resilient to search traffic losses – newsletters, apps, and, ironically, print. 

The late realization that newsletters are not just marketing tools but core business models will have a massive impact on how the industry thinks about it’s business model. 

Why newsletter revenue growth will explode

Newsletters have spectacular qualities as a substitute for website advertising.

• Advertisers get 100% of the owned audience, with ZERO declines in reach and performance when web traffic declines.
• Newsletter have much better CTR, data and engagement
• They are already primary touchpoint for advertisers
• Bonus: Fuels reader revenues, if that is important

Owned audience/website visitors

Instead of focusing  on SEO and traffic, the new metric to follow is the ratio of email subscribers  to website visitors – subscribers/visitors.

For example,  one local online-only media company has 10,000 email subscribers and 60,000 website visitors, that metric is 1/6.  Today they are aiming for email subscribers at 30,000 – or 50% of web traffic – by 2026.

While there is no one right answer for what the metric should be for every niche media company, 50% is good short term goal that will position the company to withstand drops in traffic, with an even higher aim for 2026 and beyond.

Niche media  and the newsletter opportunity

The good news is that research on niche media’s current use of newsletters as a revenue model shows that newsletters revenues are well-positioned for exponential growth. Take a look at these three factors:

a. Most media already sell newsletter advertising in some form

b. Revenues in this sector steadily grew in 2024/5 without a major effort

c.  Most media today could sell much more, with a small shift in focus

In the 2025 Niche Revenue Survey almost all media said they publish a newsletter, and 72% are selling advertising it to it. In fact, of 18 revenue sources, sales of newsletter sponsorships is the second most common revenue sources after advertising.

This is a model, in other words, that most media already deploy and the skill sets are  in-house.

Niche media in the survey also said that newsletter revenues were growing – unlike print and event revenues, which are important models for search independence but are often mature sources of revenue, and thus unlikely to replace website advertising.

When asked were print and event revenues up, flat or down in 2024, most 25 niche media surveyed said both print and events were flat or down.

Finally, niche media currently under-utilize newsletters as a revenue source. The majority  of the 83 publishers surveys said that less than 10% of revenues from came newsletter advertising and sponsorship sales.

The companies with 30% plus of revenues from newsletters, have newsletter first models, that package content/frequency/audience into uniaue ad products, and build a  techstack that powers revenue growth.

A. Content/Frequency/audience

It is almost impossible to drive significant revenues from newsletters that are published only weekly or monthly, because there is not enough inventory to sell.  Frequency can however, create more unsubscribes. So newsletters with major revenues streams often switch out the kinds type of content offered and frequencyoptions  but allow subscribers to be more selective about what they want, but still keep the frequency levels high.

B. Ad Products  – The type of ad unit sold is also a factor that fits into the model and can either fuel or impede exponential revenue growth. Products include exclusive “newsletter takeovers,” classifieds,  sponsorships,  content marketing and recurring revenues from ad memberships. Exclusive sends increase revenues, but can severely impact unsubscribes for weekday newsletters. one option is a “newsletter take over” or sponsorship that still is sold to a single advertiser, but is wrapped around or ingested into the content.

C. Techstack – Often overlooked as the game changing factor, the technology used can determine what models will and will not work. One of the first changes media often make is to switch into a more robust CMS such as MediaOS, or simply change email providers to something like ActiveCampaign or Hubspot that is able to segment audience data and has a built-in CRM that can be used for advertising or reader revenue. The  techstack now also may include an AI agent that curates news from other websites.

See also: How these Four Publishers Turned Newsletters into a Major Revenue Stream,  and The Advertiser Membership Model at Fishing Tackle Retailer.