Newsletter advertising best practices
This is your no-fluff, battle-tested guide, built from running our own campaigns and partnering with hundreds of advertisers in TLDR newsletters.
Ad copy best practices
For your first campaign, build trust with our audience before asking for anything in return. Start by promoting content such as an ungated guide, blog post, or webinar.
Sponsors who collaborate with our team on ad copy tend to see higher engagement. Send us a few bullet points and a landing page–we’ll write your ad in our editorial style, free of charge.
Quick Links
Up to 30 words, 1 CTA
✅ Bottom of the newsletter
✅ Up to 30 words
✅ 1 CTA
Secondary Placements
Up to 50 words, 2 CTAs
✅ Middle of the newsletter
✅ Up to 50 words
✅ 2 CTAs
👑 Primary Placements
Up to 100 words, 3 CTAs
✅ Top of the newsletter
✅ Logo
✅ Up to 100 words
✅ 3 CTAs
utm_campaign={PlacementDate} - ie. Primary12252025utm_source={name of newsletter} - ie. tldraiutm_medium=newsletterThis gives you a clear visibility into your campaign’s performance. Here’s the utm structure we use at TLDR:
https://example.com?utm_campaign=Primary12252025&utm_source=tldrai&utm_medium=newsletter
Landing page best practices
The top of your page should load within 2 seconds. Use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to identify ways to speed up your site.
TLDR subscribers clicked on your newsletter ad to learn more—now make sure your site follows through.
For Content
- Guides should be highly actionable and practical with clear takeaways.
- Case studies should present a relatable challenge, real-world results, and how they were achieved
For Webinars
- Showcase the presenter’s credibility
- Include event timing and whether an on-demand version will be available
For Demos and Trials
- Emphasize benefits over features
- Showcase the product with GIFs, short demo videos, or clean screenshots
If you have a form, keep friction low with only 3-4 form fields that ask for:
- Contact information (typically email)
- Qualification or intent
- Self-reported attribution – “How did you hear about us?”
0x
form submissions
Fun fact: TLDR increased form submissions by 5x after cutting our form fields down from 7 to 3!
Include a special offer or discount code for TLDR readers to drive more conversions (and help with attribution)
Examples of successful campaigns driving...
Threatspike
See Threatspike's Case Study
In the last campaign we did, we ended up speaking to a company with about 30,000 employees. To be able to get into an actual warm conversation with a company like that from a newsletter placement is nothing short of brilliant.”
– Adam Blake, Co-Founder & CEO, ThreatSpike
QA Wolf
MLOps Community
See MLOps Community's Case StudyOut of all of the paid marketing channels, TLDR was our best performing channel for driving leads and attendees. We are advertising on Meta, LinkedIn, Google and other newsletters. Meta drove over 2x the number of registrants than TLDR, but when you look at the quality of the registrants, TLDR actually drove more attendees than Meta.
- Demetrios, Founder of MLOps Community
Postman
Paragon
Read Paragon's Case StudyTLDR allows us to connect with engineers who aren’t on social media…Our CTO reads TLDR but doesn’t scroll LinkedIn.
– Forrest Herlick, Growth Marketing Manager, Paragon
Metronome
Reach over 6 million tech professionals
Get your brand in front of developers, product managers, marketers, designers and executives. Copywriting services and campaign performance reports are included at no additional cost.