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Defector’s most successful promo email was too “creepy” to repeat — www.niemanlab.org

The headline for this really buries the lede. The actual story here is that Defector - the employee-owned sports and culture website founded by former Deadspin staffers - has had a really good year.

The publisher has released a candid annual report showing that they brought in $3.8 million, with almost every dollar of that coming from readers. More impressively, they are profitable this year, with operating expenses totalling $3.7 million.

If this story is of interest to you, I can also recommend AdWeek's explainer about how Defector turned its hit podcast Normal Gossip into a 10% bump in digital subscribers. It's great to see how much this start-up is thriving with the support of its readers.

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More Americans are getting news on TikTok, bucking social media trend — www.pewresearch.org

The share of U.S. adults who say they regularly get news from TikTok has roughly tripled from 3% in 2020 to 10% in 2022. This reminds me of a very important point Mark Stenberg made in our latest podcast episode: people say they 'get' news on social media, but what they actually mean in many cases is that they come across news on those platforms rather than actively seeking it. When they want to be more informed, they turn to trusted outlets.

Why Bloomberg Media is dropping programmatic ads — talkingbiznews.com

Bloomberg Media CEO Scott Havens writes about why it’s dropping programmatic advertising at the end of the year. "Going forward, if brands want to reach our audience, they’ll need to work directly with our world class media team," he says. The reasons he's listed are worth a read, especially his belief that it doesn't make sense to allow advertisers to reach their valuable audience at a 'low cost with sub-optimal creative'.

“One of the biggest drivers of publisher growth”: How to ace A/B testing — whatsnewinpublishing.com

A new report, “The publisher’s guide to A/B testing” from Digiday and Piano presents an overview of the critical aspects of A/B testing and suggests tactics for success. Some nice ideas here from less obvious case study candidates.

This week's podcast:

Newsletters are finally growing up: how publisher email strategies evolved in 2022 — voices.media

One of the oldest digital delivery systems of all has continued to dominate industry headlines in 2022 as publishers rethink the way they work with email newsletters. This week we're joined by Adweek's Senior Media Reporter Mark Stenberg to explore newsletter trends, from worldwide readership to how creators are driving publisher strategies.

Media Moments 2022 — voices.media

There's just over a month until we're setting loose our annual report on you all. If you'd like to pre-register to get it as soon as it's live on Wednesday 30th November, you can sign up here. It's excellent bedtime reading 😉