Dominik

Trying to build successful newsletters from scratch.
No guru stuff. Just real numbers, experiments & lessons.

[Dominik @dom_x98]

I'm starting from almost zero

My goal:

Build a newsletter to 1,000 subscribers.

No huge audience.
No secret growth hack.
No pretending I'm an expert.

I'll share:

→ Subscriber numbers
→ Growth strategies
→ Mistakes
→ What actually works

Let's see how far I can take this.

[Dominik @dom_x98]

@builtbydice get them all from meta ads.

[Dominik @dom_x98]

Friday newsletter update:

229 subscribers.
37% open rate.
$0 revenue.

I'm documenting this every Friday until this becomes a real business.

Let's see where we're at next week. 📈

[Dominik @dom_x98]

@MikeyPesto How ? And i was happy to have 170 Subscribers after a week 😅

[Dominik @dom_x98]

@MikeyPesto I don't want to copy you, but how can I create something like this?

AI, or do I need to learn programming by myself?

[Dominik @dom_x98]

Week 1 of building my newsletter from scratch.

92 subscribers.

I have no idea how big I can grow this, but I'm going to document the entire journey here.

The wins.
The failures.
The numbers.
The experiments.

Next stop: 100.

[Dominik @dom_x98]

@MikeyPesto Impressive what business you built out of a newsletter.

And I would love to get into the newsletter club, but it is not in my budget at the moment.

[Dominik @dom_x98]

@MikeyPesto Always amazing to see with what ideas you come around

[Dominik @dom_x98]

Just got my first ever reply to a newsletter welcome email.

It's a small thing.

But knowing that a real person actually read my email and took the time to reply feels pretty damn cool.

Small wins. 📩

[Dominik @dom_x98]

@MikeyPesto I just started my local newsletter, and what you are doing is definitely the goal.

[Nathan May @_May_Ham]

I’ve spent $10,000,000 testing Meta ads in the last 6 months. Here’s what I have learned (the new Meta ads playbook):

1. Go all-in on Meta

Don't split budget across Google, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitter, and other platforms.

Early on, lead costs are higher everywhere else, there's far less documentation on what works, and nothing scales as Meta does.

We've scaled B2B, financial publishing affiliate offers, consumer newsletters, and top B2C brands, all on Meta.

It wins on volume, targeting maturity, and learning speed.

2. Use broad targeting

I don't run Advantage+ or any narrow targeting because Meta's new algorithm finds the right audience for you based on your ad creative.

So, 80% of your time should be spent on market research and knowing your audience.

You’ll then be able to write copy specific enough that it filters your audience.

3. Start with proven ad formats

Don't reinvent the wheel.

Instead, model what’s working:

• Open the Meta Ads library
• Search 1440, Morning Brew, The Hustle, The Rundown
• Sort by impressions and how long the ad has been running
• Screenshot & study structure
• Recreate (in Canva) using your value prop + brand voice

Ad formats to start with:

• Text-over-video
• Raw selfie / talking-to-camera
• POV ads
• “Us vs Them” ads
• Founder/team photo ads

4. Make your customer the copywriter

Go to the top subreddit in your niche.

Sort by top posts of the year, then the month.

Read the top comments, sorted by likes and by controversial.

That's real language your exact audience already uses to describe their own problems.

Steal it.

You should also look inside your own newsletter.

What are people actually clicking?

For one of our fitness newsletter clients, it was sleep content.

So we used it to lead into ads for muscle building, longevity, and weight loss.

5. Track everything down to the specific ad

You have to know whether a subscriber opened or clicked because of a specific ad concept.

Use UTM parameters, and make sure one of them, campaign or medium, is the actual ad name.

Feed that into your email platform or a spreadsheet if you have to.

Once you know exactly which ad brought in which reader, you can build segments and see which ad concepts are actually producing engaged, high-quality subscribers.