Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Data and AI with Mukundan.
In today's episode, I want to talk about how we can boost our newsletter growth with analytics
today.
So there's a lot of hidden growth in traffic and I want to focus this episode specifically
for content creators.
As content creators, one of our biggest challenges we face is understanding how work is received
by our audience.
So whether we're just starting out a sub stack journey.
So as you guys may know, I already have a web, as you guys may know, I have a website
on sub stack, which I've linked in the podcast pages.
And hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Data and AI with Mukundan.
And in today's episode, I want to talk about my sub stack journey and how I can help you
while helping me grow on sub stack by boosting our newsletter growth with analytics.
So as content creators, one of the biggest challenges we face is understanding how our
work is received by our audience.
Whether we're just starting out a sub stack journey or we are established writer.
One thing which is clear is that analytics is our best friend.
They offer a treasure of insights about our audience, content performance, and most importantly,
how people find and engage with our newsletter.
Yet there are many creators that I've seen which underutilize the tools available at
their disposal.
Sub stack analytics, if they are properly understood, they can be leveraged to transform
the growth trajectory of our newsletter.
And this guide is focused to dive deep into the traffic data from my newsletter, which
is Data and AI with Mukundan to demonstrate how you can use these insights to grow your
audience and refine your strategy.
Why traffic analytics matter?
Substacks simplicity and focus on its creators make it a preferred platform for newsletters.
So sub stack is a very independent platform for creators.
I know I had trouble with getting my articles accepted into different publications in another
platform that I've been using and sub stack is more independent that way.
Like it offers a lot of creative outlet for its creators.
Like it allows their creators to be very independent, very free.
So that's what separates it from its other peers.
But its analytics feature is often overlooked.
Traffic analytics specifically are crucial for understanding how readers discover your
newsletter and which channels drive the most engagement.
Knowing where your audience comes from allows you to focus your efforts on what's working
and tweak what's not.
For example, if I were to speak about my sub stack dashboard, I noticed significant spikes
in direct traffic for a smaller proportion from social media and referrals as well.
It was a clear signal for me that while people were engaging directly with my content, there
was a lot of untapped potential in these other sources.
And traffic analytics therefore can help you answer critical questions like that, just
like it did for me.
So it can help answer questions like where are your readers coming from?
Which traffic sources drive the most engagement or the most subscriptions?
How can I improve my outreach efforts to grow faster?
What other platforms can I use to promote myself out there?
And the answers to these questions are the building blocks for a robust growth strategy.
So let's break down subtract traffic sources.
So let's break down sub stack traffic sources.
One is direct traffic.
We all know what that is.
Basically, visitors who land on your newsletter by typing your URL, by clicking a bookmark
or following a direct link.
And why that matters is direct traffic often includes your most loyal audience, those who
intentionally seek out your content.
And how to optimize this is make the most of direct traffic by ensuring your homepage
is optimized for conversion.
We can include a strong clear call to action like a subscribe for free or unlock exclusive
posts by becoming paid subscriber.
From my data, I personally don't have a paid subscription yet.
But from my data, what I saw was that direct traffic was by far my largest source.
And I'm sure it could be for most of your content creators out there.
And it accounted for about 3.5k views since the time I've been a sub stack, which is less
than three months at this point, like a little over two and a half months and approximately
173 unique users just from direct traffic alone.
While it was really encouraging, it also highlighted the need to optimize my homepage to convert
more visitors into subscribers.
So recently I did a homepage redesign.
So it makes finding content on my website very easy.
And I hope you can feel the same way when you have a look at my website, again, link
in the show notes.
So feel free to have a look.
The other place where I did see increase, where I did see like sufficient traffic was
sub stack app traffic.
So what that is, is where readers are discovering your content through the sub stack app, where
users are often browsing and engaging with different newsletters, right?
So why this matters is they're already engaged users within the sub stack ecosystem.
So they're already browsing through different content creators content out there.
They're already engaging on the app.
It makes them that much more likely to convert into loyal or paid subscribers because they're
already familiar with the platform.
All they need to do now is just get familiar with your content.
And this is where you can offer value to them.
And how to optimize this consider exclusive app only posts, right?
Some posts can be only app.
I'm not sure if sub stack has a way for doing this, but I think if I were to, and I'm still
trying to figure out how sub stack works with all this different platform, but like I think
if they have only app only posts, we can try to do that or pay tiers again for the audience.
So that I'm familiar with that we can do this.
And these users are already primed to consume content on sub stack.
So enticing them with unique offers can yield amazing results.
The sub stack app for me contributed about 300 views and 60 plus newsletters users for
my newsletter.
So I'm still beginning as you can see, but what I would say is just try to understand
your users based on how much the traffic is coming through.
So for me, while this was smaller than my direct traffic, it is an engaged audience
worth focusing on.
Email traffic, it is like basically readers clicking links in your email newsletter.
This is often the more warmer audience and most warmest I would say, because subscribers
who already signed up and receiving our emails, they are really like showing more interest
towards you.
They are loyal.
Email traffic measures how well our subject lines and call to actions are performing.
So how we can optimize this is by experimenting with subject lines to improve open rates,
make sure our email content is compelling enough to drive clicks back to our sub stack.
In my case, email traffic brought in 187 views from 67 users.
So that's like again, small enough, but while it was small, it suggested a lot of room for
improvement in my email marketing strategy.
More engaging subject lines is something I can make.
So that is an immediate focus for me.
Referral traffic.
So this is the fourth category I wanted to speak about in terms of sources.
It is basically traffic from other websites or platforms, which link to our content.
Referrals are a great way to grow your audience organically as they bring in readers who might
not have discovered your content otherwise.
We can optimize it by building relationships with other creators, platforms or organizations
in our niche.
We can also consider guest posting, partnerships or even syndicating content that is basically
publishing to other platforms.
For instance, Canva embed was one of my key traffic sources.
Canva as you know, is like this amazing AI based design tooling system.
So I use that to create my logo for my publication and then you can use it too.
But basically Canva accounts for about 55 views, which is still small, but it shows
embedding my newsletter in visually appealing content could be a valuable strategy.
So maybe people clicked on a very visually appealing image to them.
And there's maybe some things I can optimize here.
And other smaller sources like towards AI and RSS feeds also contributed to referral
traffic, which underscored the importance of collaboration and content distribution.
And then we have social media traffic.
Social media traffic is traffic coming from Twitter, Facebook kind of thing.
So basically people are finding my newsletter through platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter,
Facebook, for example.
And then why this matters is social media is often where your casual readers discover
you for the first time.
So with the right strategy, these casual readers can become loyal subscribers.
How we can optimize it is by sharing snippets, visuals, teasers on social media with direct
links to our sub stack.
And we can experiment with different formats like text, post, videos, or infographics
and analyze which one drives the most engagement.
Social media was a smaller contributor in my data, but its potential is enormous.
And like I said, these are like casual, these are casual browsers, casual readers, whatever
you want to call them, but they have a lot of impact to your platform because once you
go socially viral, everyone's going to find you and that's how you become big.
LinkedIn and Twitter were top performing platforms for me.
So they became a focus area for me.
Now how we can use traffic analytics to grow our sub stack.
Now that you understand the key traffic sources, let's look at actionable ways to leverage
this data for your growth.
You can double down on strengths.
Like for example, your top performing traffic sources, which are already working so we can
lean into them, right?
If direct traffic is high, ensure your homepage or your landing page is optimized.
So that way you get more conversions.
If email traffic is driving clicks, refine your subject lines and call to actions to
boost engagement even further.
Expand your referral network.
Referrals are an excellent way to grow your audience.
Identify the platforms, blogs, or creators during referral traffic and explore collaboration
opportunities.
For example, you can partner with other creators in your niche to cross promote newsletters.
Guest post on other large platforms to reach a wider audience.
Embed your content in tools or platforms like Canva or RSS feeds where your target audience
is active.
Boost your social media strategy.
Social media may start small, but its potential for growth is enormous.
Just spoke about that earlier.
You can share snippets again on the platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter, which have a direct
link to a sub stack.
And here are a few tips.
Creating engaging visuals or infographics, which summarize our posts that would engage
our casual readers.
Also hashtags, which are strategically used for our post can help increase the reach.
We can engage with our audience by responding to comments and sharing user generated content.
So that maybe you can take a top performing person on LinkedIn or Twitter and then go
respond to their post and then maybe have a link to your sub stack.
I would say at this point, just don't try to put some spam on there because people are
very wary and they may even report you.
So be very careful to promote yourself without sounding very salesy.
So especially when you're commenting, do not sound salesy.
Right, basically you shouldn't be trying to sell something on that platform in a comment
of all the places because it's not yours.
You're just there on borrowed space and optimize for the sub stack app.
Since sub stack app traffic consists of engaged users, consider creating content specifically
for them.
Exclusive posts or app only deals can help convert these readers into paid subscribers.
Turning insights into action is another step you need to follow.
Turning insights into action.
So data without action is meaningless.
Right, so you have a lot of data, you have a lot of analytics and you're not using any
of the insights that you gather from that data.
So what use is that?
We need to regularly analyze our traffic stats and adjust our strategy accordingly.
For instance, if referral traffic is low, we need to reach out to different partners,
like new partners.
If social media traffic underperforms, experiment with new formats or platforms.
If email engagement drops, revisit the subject lines and email content.
So there's a lot of different steps you can take for each of the different problems that
you have.
And I don't think there should be an excuse for not acting on the data.
So common traffic mistakes that we can avoid is focusing only on the top line metrics.
While total views are important, deeper metrics like unique users and conversions, they tell
the real story.
We need to look beyond the surface.
Ignoring trends over time can be costly.
So basically if we analyze trends over weeks or months, they can reveal shifts in our audience
behavior and if certain sources are growing while others are declining, if we are ignoring
this, it's again going to be a loss for us.
So we need to adjust our efforts accordingly.
And not testing and experimenting is another mistake which we should be avoiding in traffic.
So basically your first strategy may not be your best, but we can use A-B testing for
email subject lines to see which ones work better.
Social media formats and homepage call to actions to see what resonates.
Neglecting engagement metrics and other traffic mistake to avoid.
Basically views are great, but we want to see our users actually engaging.
So engagement metrics means clicks, shares and comments, which in Substack's case is
clicks is you can think of the same as love, share as a restack, comment is what they are
commenting, right?
And this would indicate how well the content is connecting with the readers.
So next steps for Substack creators, maybe any creators out there is by diving into Substack
analytics.
So we need to take a quick action plan by analyzing traffic sources and identifying
our top performing channels, focusing on one area to optimize, whether it's improving email
engagement, growing referral traffic or boosting our social media presence.
So we need to set specific measurable goals.
Like for instance, you want to improve your email engagement, email clicks or love by
20% or gain 50 new subscribers through social media, right?
It's a specific measurable goal.
And remember that analytics is just a tool and it's not the end goal.
We need to use them to refine our strategy and keep experimenting until we find what
works.
To conclude, Substack analytics provides a roadmap for creators to grow their audience,
improve engagement and ultimately monetize their work.
By understanding and leveraging a traffic data, we can identify what's working, what
needs to improve and where we can find what our next big opportunity lies in.
So our numbers, they tell a story.
It's up to us to write the next chapter.
So what's your analytics telling you today?
Let's discuss in the comments or you can just reach out to me on my Substack, bhukundhansankar.substack.com.
And I will link to everything in the show notes.
Before I go, here's an exciting update.
I'm building something special for Substack creators and medium creators to help grow
and engage with our audience.
So think of this one as a part one, where I focus on the traffic, but stay tuned for
part two, because that's going to be even more fun.
All right.
So that's all for this episode.