ConvertKit Acquires SparkLoop

This elevates ConverKit to a real competitor of beehiv and Subtack

Hey Everyone,

This is really crazy news, if you understand the peer-to-peer (P2P) and paid acquisition landscape of Newsletters.

Not many people understand how Newsletters are growing faster with recommendations. It’s not just on Substack, it’s on beehiiv, SparkLoop, refind and now ConverKit. So when one buys out another, it’s major news for paid and referred traffic. This gives ConverKit an insanely good referral and paid acquisition system for Newsletter Creators.

SparkLoop if you didn’t know was one of the major ways Newsletter creators were growing their lists faster via paid acquisitions via a referral network. So SparkLoop is this referral tool for newsletter growth. The company said “thousands of smart newsletter creators” use SparkLoop to get more high-quality email subscribers on autopilot. So on a system like SparkLoop, it's easy to reward your subscribers for sharing your newsletter with their friends.

The “referral marketplace” has evolved in 2022/2023 for Newsletters

This comes down to how referral systems and recommendations became a win-win on many fledgling platforms like beehiiv. They didn’t just “copy” Substack’s recommendation engine, they actually improved upon them and added many new features and made it more like a marketplace, such as beehiiv Boosts. Now combined with an advertising network, this becomes a powerful thing as beehiiv and ConverKit can attest to - and which Sustack doesn’t play since it is specialized in pure-play paid subscriptions and has “ideological bad-mouthing for ads.” The problem for me is this brand narrative isn’t creator-centric. It’s not putting writers first.

ConverKit Acquires SparkLoop

So the same day as ConverKit’s free online workshop live event (which I missed due to the timezone difference), it acquired SparkLoop. It immediately puts ConverKit into an insanely good position. Don’t forget people like Sahil Bloom left Substack for ConvertKit, and now earn huge amounts via advertising and growing their lists much faster than you could do on Substack alone. This is not well understood by many.

For Newsletters just starting off, I’m not going to lie, advertising is just so much more lucrative than paid subscriptions. You’d have to be a special kind of dummy to do pure-play paid subs without a huge audience, while closing the door to Ads monetization if surviving financially mattered to you. Sadly Substack’s entire ideology wants you to think otherwise, and can trap you in a game you cannot win. With a bit of time, tinkering and experience you come to realize a hybrid approach for the first 2 years, makes a lot more sense (they don’t tell you this upfront).

So what’s the big deal?

To get my take on what this actually means, see my bonus content below.

I’ve been able to grow my list at a rate of 50,000 subscribers per month from Free Recommendations. New subscribers see Brand Sponsor ads which generate income that I reinvest in other creators’ newsletters with Paid Recommendations. It’s crazy how many people are being added to my newsletter now!

Sahil Bloom, Founder of The Curiosity Chronicle