How to Sell a Sponsored Gift in Your Newsletter
A sponsored gift is when a brand pays you to give your readers one of your paid products for free. Your readers get something useful, the sponsor gets credit for the gift and you get paid while a new group of people starts using your product.
This is post two in my series on what Substack's new sponsorship formats mean for small newsletters. Substack calls their version the upgrade, where a brand pays for a month of a newsletter's paid tier. Most small newsletters I work with don't have a paid tier, but they do have products, so this is the version that fits.
Why this works for a small list.
When a sponsor buys a regular ad spot, they're paying to be seen and they're going to look hard at how many people will see it. A sponsored gift is a different purchase. The sponsor is paying to be the reason your readers got something good for free.
That means the things that matter most are how closely your readers match the sponsor's customers and how much your readers trust you. A list of 800 people who all knit and all buy yarn can be worth more to a yarn company than a general list ten times that size.
You also get more out of it than a regular ad spot. Every person who claims the gift is now using something you made, so they're in your buyer follow-up emails the same day.
Step 1: Pick the product
Some products make better gifts than others. Here's what I'd look for.
- It already sells. If people pay for it now, readers will see it as a real gift.
- Someone can use it in one sitting. Templates, checklists, swipe files, mini courses and short workshops work well. Something that takes six weeks to finish won't get used.
- It connects to the sponsor. The best gift is one that uses the sponsor's product or makes it more useful. A Canva template pack fits a design tool. A pricing calculator fits a payments company.
- It leads somewhere. Pick something that sets up your next offer. A $27 template that leads into your $197 course is a better gift than your $197 course itself.
- Delivery is automatic. When someone claims it, they should get it right away without you doing anything.
Most of the time this ends up being a product in the $17 to $97 range.
Step 2: Find the right sponsor.
Start with the tools and brands your readers already use, especially the ones they'd need to use your product. If your gift is a spreadsheet template, think about the apps that template works with. If you write about sewing, think about the fabric shops and machine brands your readers talk about.
Then look at who's already sponsoring other newsletters in your niche. A brand that already pays for newsletter placements understands how this works, so the conversation is a lot easier.
When you reach out, lead with the gift. Tell them what the product is, what it normally sells for, how many of your readers will be able to claim it and that their name goes on the gift. Then share your list size and open rate.
Step 3: Decide how many copies and price it
Set a cap on how many readers can claim the gift. A cap makes the price clear for the sponsor and it gives your readers a reason to claim it right away instead of saving the email for later.
For pricing, I'd start with two pieces. The first is what you'd normally charge for a regular sponsor spot in your newsletter, because the sponsor is still getting that mention. The second is a per-copy amount for each gift you're giving away, which should be a small piece of the product's normal price.
Say your regular sponsor spot is $150 and you're gifting up to 100 copies of a $27 template. If you charge $5 per copy, the sponsored gift is $150 plus $500, so $650 total. If you want to sell more of these, start lower on the per-copy amount and raise it once you have results to show.
Put this on your sponsorship page as its own placement with the price and the number of copies listed, right next to your regular spots.
Step 4: Set up the coupon
In your checkout tool, make a 100%-off coupon for the product. Most checkout tools let you set how many times a coupon can be used and when it expires, so set both to match what you sold the sponsor.
Then make sure everyone who claims the gift gets tagged in your email tool. Use a tag that names the sponsor and the month, something like "Gift - Canva - Nov." You'll need that tag to count claims for your sponsor report and to send these people the right follow-up emails.
Before you send anything, claim the gift yourself with the coupon so you can see exactly what your readers will see.
Step 5: Give the sponsor credit in three places.
The sponsor is paying to be connected to the gift, so their name needs to show up everywhere the gift does.
- The announcement email. This is the issue where you tell readers about the gift. Name the sponsor in the first few lines, link to them once and give the coupon or claim link.
- The checkout page. Add a line near the top like "This month's free gift is brought to you by Canva."
- The delivery email. When the product shows up in their inbox, thank the sponsor again and include their link.
If your product is a PDF or a course, you can also add a small "gifted by" note on the first page or first lesson for the time the gift is running.
Here's an example of how the announcement could read:
This week Canva is giving you my Launch Week Template Pack for free. It normally sells for $27 and it has every graphic I use when I open the cart on a new offer. There are 100 copies, so grab yours with the link below before they're gone.
Step 6: Follow up and report
Everyone who claimed the gift has your product now, so treat them like buyers. Put them into the same follow-up emails your paying customers get, the ones that help them use the product and then point them to your next offer.
When the gift period ends, send the sponsor a short report. Include how many copies were claimed, how many people clicked their link and any replies that mentioned them. If you ran the before-and-after poll I talked about in the first post, include those numbers too.
Name it something plain like "Sponsored Reader Gift." Say which product gets gifted, how many copies, what it normally sells for, the three places the sponsor's name shows up and the price. A sponsor should be able to read that one listing and know exactly what they're buying.
Where to go from here.
Pick the product first, because once you know what you're gifting, the right sponsors are much easier to spot. Then add the listing to your sponsorship page and send it to three brands your readers already use.
The next post in this series covers the sponsored unlock, where a sponsor pays to make one of your paid workshops free for a week. And if you want to see the whole sponsorship setup start to finish, I'm teaching it in my workshop Get Paid by Sponsors Even With a Small List at the AI Newsletter Summit, October 27 through 29. Registration is free.
Get Paid by Sponsors Even With a Small List
I'm teaching the whole sponsorship setup at the AI Newsletter Summit. It's one of 20+ workshops and registration is free.
Save your free seat →Frequently asked.
What is a sponsored gift in a newsletter?
A sponsored gift is when a brand pays a newsletter owner to give readers one of the owner's paid products for free. The sponsor's name goes on the announcement email, the checkout page and the delivery email.
What product should I use for a sponsored gift?
Pick something that already sells, can be used in one sitting, connects to the sponsor's product and leads to your next offer. Templates, checklists, swipe files and short workshops in the $17 to $97 range work well.
How much should I charge for a sponsored gift?
Start with your regular sponsor spot price and add a small per-copy amount for each gift you give away. For example, a $150 spot plus 100 copies at $5 each comes to $650.
How do I limit how many people claim the free product?
Make a 100%-off coupon in your checkout tool and set a usage limit and an expiration date that match what you sold the sponsor.
What do I send the sponsor after the gift ends?
Send a short report with how many copies were claimed, how many people clicked their link and any replies that mentioned them. Add before-and-after poll results if you ran a poll.
Dr. Destini Copp helps digital product creators build sustainable, systems-based businesses through the Creator Growth Flywheel framework. She's the founder of Creator's MBA and HobbyScool and has been teaching online business strategy for over a decade. Learn more →
