Boletin Growth

We help unlock subscriber growth for newsletters companies and creators with paid ads. | Clients like Ben Meer, James Clear, Dan Go, Mark Manson, Market Briefs and more.

Founder & CEO

GrowLetter

Head of Growth 

Workweek

Managed a team of three that contributed to 106% YoY growth in ecosystem newsletter subscribers.

→ Managed a paid acquisition team that grew Workweek's creator newsletters to over 550k+ subscribers through paid acquisition strategies. (~270k upon entry in role)
→ Created data review processes that resulted in target CACs being beaten by 30% on average during tenure
→ Managed the allocation and execution of $2M+ in paid ad spend
→ Led the data inputting processes for yearly subscriber forecasting and came within 10% of forecasted numbers across Jan-Sep 2023
→ Built lifecycle marketing journeys for automated subscriber churn of newsletters
→ Created CRO roadmap and spearheaded the execution of all A/B tests that led to a 49.5% avg conversion rate

Sr Growth Manager

Morning Brew

Deployed $10m/year paid acquisition budgets that drove 2M+ newsletter subs across multiple newsletters.

→ Helped grow Morning Brew's daily newsletter to over 4M+ subscribers by utilizing paid acquisition strategies, organic gated content, and partnerships.
→ Optimized all paid acquisition channels to achieve target CACs while focusing on engagement levels in subscriber cohorts.
→ Contributed to experimentation process to achieve a 30%+ avg conversion rate across landing pages
→ Worked with product/engineering teams to activate conversion-focused features across web pages
→ Used Looker and Heap to provide deeper insights into the performance of paid acquisition channels
→ Worked with team to create processes for influencer marketing logistics to achieve efficient ROI on 6-figure monthly budgets.

Growth Marketing Associate

Growth Marketing Coordinator

Incredible Marketing

Collaborated with various account managers and built value-based relationships with clients. 

→ Worked closely with account managers on day-to-day client support and building of value-based relationships 
→ Assisted in project scheduling and processes across client services including SEO, copywriting, social media content, design, and website development
→ Documented all client interactions into Jira and flagged any potential issues to account managers
→ Spearheaded social media engagement project resulting in a 44% increase in engagement across various client accounts
→ Produced real-time content based on client inquiries and resolved any issues brought to attention for various products

Account Management Intern

Founder & CEO of Boletin Growth - a paid newsletter growth agency driving growth for names like James Clear, Mark Manson, Hubspot and many others. For more about me: mannyreyes.xyz

May: 2020, I graduated college in a pandemic, freshly laid off from my internship, with no clear path forward. Then, 1 cold DM changed my life:

I sent it to Austin Rief at Morning Brew, looking for a job.

I became their growth coordinator and shortly thereafter discovered I had a natural talent for paid newsletter growth. We scaled Morning Brew from 2.5M to 4.2M subscribers, mostly through paid social.

I was completely hooked on this work.

After Morning Brew, I joined Workweek and grew their newsletter portfolio 106% year-over-year. I was getting really good at this one specific thing: acquiring newsletter subscribers through Meta ads.

From there, I got an offer from an agency for close to $200,000 in salary, where I could still pick up a couple of freelance clients on the side. 

I took it, and have nothing bad to say about my experience. But, even making a great salary, I still felt broke. 

Not financially broke, but I realized wealth meant owning my time, not just earning money. I was stuck working with clients I didn't choose and couldn't fire. 

The paychecks hit every two weeks, but by the 4th or 5th one, I stopped getting excited about them. Again, felt no sense of wealth.

More than that, over time, my side hustle clients started to match my monthly W2 income. The demand for paid newsletter growth kept increasing, and I was one of the few people who'd spent their entire career doing exactly that. 

That was really the lightbulb moment - realizing I had the skill and demand to take control, I quit and started Boletin Growth.

That first Monday morning after leaving, I sat on my patio feeling pure happiness. Not relief, but genuine excitement about building something that was completely mine.

Fast forward to 14 months later: and I run a top newsletter growth agency for 20+ newsletters, and have helped generate over 5,000,000 subscribers.

I finally built the business I wanted: expertise-driven, client-focused, and completely on my terms.

Now, I have the opportunity to build the business I want on my own terms. It's been a while since I shared this story, so I thought I would add a quick refresh to the timeline 🤝

Pictured: my guy Dominyck Bullard and I sporting the agency hats I made.

Manny Reyes

I grow newsletters with paid ads | 5M+ subs driven across 25+ newsletters | ex. growth @ Morning Brew & Workweek

The numbers are in from August: It was our 4th straight month hitting $50K in revenue – and that's not even what I'm most excited about 🔥

A few wins I want to highlight:

1. Promoted my VA to Head of Operations.

I kept putting this off for months because delegation has always been my weakness. After hiring the right media buyer, I knew the Head of Ops role was next. 

My VA had earned it, but I was uncomfortable with the amount of responsibility I'd need to hand over. 

The role would make her more client-facing and require me to trust systems instead of micromanaging. One thing I’ve always believed: being uncomfortable is where growth happens.

2. Took my first full week off since starting the agency.

Getting married forced my hand on this one. I had to see if the agency could run without me for an entire week in Maui. 

In the first year, this would have been impossible with all the growth and hiring happening. But with the right systems and team in place, everything ran smoothly. This proved we've built something that doesn't require me to be glued to my laptop 24/7.

3. Hit $50K+/month while building a team that operates like a factory.

We now have 10+ people between creative strategists, media buyers, video editors, and operations. 

Every week, Monday to Friday, our processes move the same way to deliver results for clients. Though I'm still the final set of eyes on creative before client approval, the team and process we’ve built has done an incredible job of delivering client-ready assets more often than not.

So far, building an agency has taught me that your biggest limitation is often your unwillingness to let go of control. 

I'll be back here for a September recap, follow along if that sounds interesting.

8:31am: 1 client cancels, $3K churned. Ouch.
8:49am: 1 client pauses till Q4, $6k total churned. Yikes.
9:01am: Stripe notification – everything will be okay.

Old me would've freaked out losing two clients in under half an hour. I'd be spiraling about the agency falling apart and wondering what I did wrong.

But as I've learned, that Stripe notification is not a coincidence. It's emblematic of what running an agency really is like: a constant stream of ebbs and flows.

To that point, though I'm not overly religious, I do thank a higher power every time a Stripe notification comes in. 

I take it as a sign of a "flow" after experiencing "ebbs" with churned clients.

This simple practice of acknowledging the Stripe payment to counteract the “bad” things happening in the business has changed how I make decisions during the tough moments. 

Instead of panic-hiring or scrambling to fix things that aren't broken, I know the best thing I can do is to stay focused on what actually moves the needle:

1. Building the right SOPs
2. Hiring the right people
3. Setting/enforcing the right standards

The rest will take care of itself, and those Stripe pings are a reminder of that.

This is probably true for any and all businesses – not just agencies. This has helped ground me over the last year or so, so I figured I'd share it here as well.

September will be our 5th straight month of $50K in revenue! Looking back, though, it wasn’t always this way. Our growth trajectory:

July 15, 2024: the first day I woke up with no W-2.

I walked out to my patio feeling the purest form of happiness I’ve ever felt in 27 years. I had existing clients that could replace my income, and I was optimistic about making this work, even if it stayed a solo operation, hitting $20K/month with just me and a VA.

August 2024: focused the first 30 days on serving existing clients and building systems.

Right after those 30 days, I was planning to get serious about outreach.

September 2024: the floodgates opened.

I never had to do that outbound that I was kind of dreading. Newsletter growth appetite was so high that inbound took over completely. I had zero time for outreach because there was plenty of demand and referrals coming to me.

November 2024: hit my capacity wall at 10-12 clients.

I faced a decision - either stop there or get serious about scaling. I chose to scale and started hiring creative strategists, media buyers, and video editors.

March 2025: we're now 10+ people deep.

Three creative strategists, a media buyer, head of ops, video editor, static ad designer. Today, I'm the last set of eyes on creative before client approval because that's our biggest performance lever.

August 2025: promoted my VA to Head of Ops.

This was forced by my wedding and honeymoon - I needed the agency to run without me for a full week. Delegation has always been my weakness, but I knew being uncomfortable was where growth would come from.

Just over a year after starting, we're hitting $50K+ months consistently with a team that operates like a factory. Every week, Monday to Friday, the conveyor belt moves the same way to deliver results for clients.

I'm extremely grateful for the team, but even more grateful to every newsletter operator who trusts us with their paid newsletter growth to have made this possible. Onward.

On January 1st of this year, I did something I never thought I would. 9 months later, it’s clear that this was an amazing decision.

I created a vision board.

The goals I wrote down:

- $500,000 in agency revenue
- Trip to Japan
- Getting married
- Becoming a US permanent resident
- Staying as sober as possible
- Getting a Saturn tattoo
- Seeing Green River live in Chicago

I remember thinking some of this stuff felt way out of reach when I was putting it together. 

- How was I going to hit $500k when the agency was still finding its footing?
- Japan seemed like this far-off dream that would have to wait another year or two.
- Even the smaller goals felt ambitious given everything else I was trying to build.

But, month-by-month, I continued to put my mind to my goals each and every day. As a result, things started lining up in ways I didn't expect.

✅ The agency started growing faster than I thought. We’ll pass the $500k goal with flying colors
✅ Going to Japan in November.
✅ Got married.
✅ Became a permanent resident.
✅ Have been pretty solid about not drinking (unless it’s a real celebratory reason)
✅ Got the tattoo.
✅ Got to see the green river in Chicago.

I still don't fully understand how this works.

All I know is that I used to write this stuff off, but after trying it and feeling its power for the first time this year, I'm fully on board. 

This is some food for thought if you currently feel the same way I used to. Might be time to give it a shot.

When I worked at Morning Brew, there were occasional ESP glitches that stopped the newsletter from sending. Within minutes, the support inbox looked like a warzone.

Hundreds of emails flooded in asking where the newsletter was and if everything was okay. 

People were genuinely panicking because they didn't get the newsletter they crave every day.

That's the Morning Brew ESP effect: when your content is so good that people notice immediately when it's missing. To me, this was and still is one of the clearest signs of Content-Market-Fit (CMF)

Subscribers weren't just opening emails out of habit, but instead they were actively craving the content.

This matters enormously for growth and monetization:

- Paid growth becomes incredibly efficient when you have content this sticky. You can confidently spend money acquiring subscribers because you know they'll stay subscribed, increasing LTV.

- Monetization becomes easier too. Advertisers want engaged audiences, not dead email lists. When readers are genuinely excited about your content, you can charge premium rates.

The barrier to entry for newsletters has never been lower. AI can write content, tools make sending easy, and everyone thinks they can build the next big newsletter.

But this makes people think they can skip the hardest part: creating content so valuable that people panic when they don't receive it.

That should be the ultimate goal. If your subscribers wouldn't notice if you skipped a week, you probably don't have a sustainable business yet.

Growth tactics and monetization strategies only work if you nail content market fit first.

Spicy hot take / bold prediction: newsletter sponsorships as a revenue model will not be the go-to monetization model for newsletter operators by 2030.

Why?

Right now, advertising and sponsorships dominate because they have the lowest barrier to entry. 

When I was at Morning Brew, I thought charging advertisers $60K per sponsor slot was just how everyone would monetize forever. Compared to convincing someone to pay $10 monthly for a paid subscription, getting an advertiser on board seemed much easier.

But advertisers are getting pickier. They're not throwing money around without clear ROI and click volume promises anymore. The metrics they're demanding are getting more involved, and the "willy nilly" sponsor money is drying up. 

Meanwhile, I keep discovering creative monetization approaches that go way beyond the traditional advertising model.

Over 6 years in this newsletter industry, I've seen newsletter operators experiment with everything from premium communities to productized services to affiliate partnerships that actually work. 

I really think that these alternative models are going to prove scalable and efficient enough to challenge advertising's dominance.

By 2030, there will be a monetization method that's as popular as advertising - maybe more popular - because it'll offer better unit economics and lower barriers than paid subscriptions but more reliability than sponsor-dependent revenue.

I can't tell you exactly what that model will be because there isn't a clear winner yet. 

But the newsletter operators who figure it out first are going to have a massive advantage over everyone still chasing the next advertiser.

Agree or disagree?

Trying to sell newsletter ads in 2025 the way it was done in 2020 is a great way to go out of business in 3-6 months.

Back then, advertisers were eager to test this new channel. Companies sponsored newsletters with little-to-no due diligence. 

If you had a decent-sized list and a 40% open rate, you could land sponsors without much friction.

Then Morning Brew got acquired. Then The Hustle, followed by The Milk Road. 

Suddenly, newly minted newsletter operators wanted to jump in on the newsletter wave, and supply shot up.

Advertisers suddenly had options. So, they started asking better questions about performance, metrics, and ROI.

That hasn’t changed. Newsletter ads are 2-3x harder to sell today than five years ago (from what I’ve heard).

Remaining advertisers are far more sophisticated.

So what does that mean for you?

1. More outbound, the right way.

Here's what to include in your pitch:

- List size
- Open rate (expect pushback since everyone can claim 50-60% nowadays)
- Click-through rate
- Clicks on past sponsor ads
- First-party data: household income, job titles, industries.

Being able to say "65% of my 20,000 subscribers have a household income of $150k+" or "I have at least 100 VPs of growth reading my marketing newsletter" is what makes your newsletter stand out to advertisers.

2. Diversify revenue.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Once your advertising revenue is stable and operations are smooth, open up another revenue stream. 

Memberships, affiliates, or really anything else that gives you breathing room when ad sales slow down.

Sure, it's a lot less fun than being able to close newsletter ad deals left and right. But it’s more practical and will ensure you’re around in 5 years.

Rookies see low CPAs from ads running to lead magnets and get excited. Veterans know there's more to the story.

Today, 90% of my newsletter ad campaigns drive people directly to a newsletter signup page. The other 10% use lead magnets, but only after having a specific conversation with the client first.

It comes down to understanding what you're getting into with each approach.

When you offer a lead magnet, people are signing up for the incentive first and foremost, not your newsletter. They want the free guide or checklist - the newsletter is secondary.

Here's what to expect when you run ads to them:

1. Higher unsubscribe rates after they get their freebie
2. Lower engagement because they weren't there for your newsletter content
3. Potentially more expensive advertising since you're complicating the funnel

With direct newsletter signups, people who click your ad are genuinely interested in your newsletter content. 

They know exactly what they're signing up for, which means higher engagement and lower churn.

Lead magnets can work when the freebie directly relates to your newsletter's core value and you have a strategy for converting freebie seekers into engaged readers.

But, in practice, my opinion is that most newsletter operators should stick with direct signup ads. Your goal is getting the right subscribers into your ecosystem at the lowest cost, then monetizing them through sponsorships or paid upgrades.

I always set these expectations before we choose an approach. An incentive is an incentive - it's going to bring in people who may not be genuinely interested in your content or the delivery of a weekly newsletter if all they wanted was the PDF you promised.

Keep it simple unless you have a compelling reason not to.

Everyone thinks a <$2 CPA on newsletter ads is great news. Often times, it's the worst thing that can happen to a publication.

Ad execution and formats are very similar for B2B and B2C newsletters, but the messaging strategy is completely different.

And with B2B publications, it’s extremely easy to get distracted by low CPAs and lose track of your messaging. 

You see a $1.80 CPA ad that doesn't call out your target audience and think it's working. In reality, you're acquiring the wrong people who will unsubscribe within two newsletter issues.

You can get away with much more vague, broad messaging as a B2C newsletter.

But, B2B newsletters need to:

1. Call out the specific profession in every single ad
2. Use phrases like "If you're a [PERSONA TYPE]…”
3. Make it crystal clear on both the ad and landing page who this is for
4. Divert anyone who isn't your ideal subscriber before they even sign up

Ex: When I was at Workweek running ads for HR and marketing newsletters, there wasn't a single ad we put out that didn't call out that specific profession or job role.

If you don't do this, over time, you will pour cash into acquiring subscribers who don't engage with their content because they prioritized cheap CPAs over quality targeting.

Better to pay more for the right subscriber than less for the wrong one.

At some point, you'll read a newsletter that's 97-100% AI-generated and absolutely love it, because you'll have no clue a human didn't write it.

Whether you like this or not doesn't matter. It's already happening.

I'd guess 20-35% of newsletter operators are using AI to some degree right now. And being that the models are only getting better, fighting this is a waste of energy.

"Should we use AI? to help with our newsletter?” is now a useless question.

The more practical one is "how do we use it right?"

BAD OPERATORS WILL:

- Use a single, broad prompt
- Copy + paste output into ESP
- Press send and pray

Result: they’ll lose subscribers, stall growth, and diminish revenue.

GOOD OPERATORS WILL:

- Set up projects for their newsletter
- Feed prior writing samples to match tone
- Upload supporting documentation/guidelines
- Input a list of phrases and words to stay away from
- Re-prompt after initial output to improve product
- Add a human in the loop at the end for final touchups

Result: Faster time to produce, happy readers, more time to focus on other areas of growth.

Readers won't mass unsubscribe if the content is good. They may not even notice. Most people opening newsletters in the morning aren't running AI detectors on every sentence.

The point is that whether you like it or not, moving fast matters in business, and this tool lets you do that without sacrificing quality if you use it correctly.

Eventually, you'll read something that was almost entirely AI-written and think it's great. That day might have already happened without you knowing it.

Before it was acquired for millions, a university student sold $250K of newsletter ads for The Milk Road in just 60 days.

Wouter Teunissen had zero sales experience.

He was a university student in Europe working around the clock while taking classes.

And he started with nothing but a two-week trial period to prove himself.

Prove himself he did. Wouter closed his first deals within days, went on to sell over $1M in total sponsorships, and became one of the most respected ad sales operators in newsletters.

I spent time going through everything Wouter has shared publicly about his process (podcasts, newsletters, etc). 

What I found was a repeatable framework that any newsletter operator can use.

This carousel breaks down:

→ How to validate if you're ready to sell
→ The exact prospecting workflows he used
→ Email templates that actually got responses
→ How he qualified and closed sponsors on calls
→ The retention tactics that drove renewals

This works for newsletters of all sizes. You just need a defined audience and the willingness to do the work.

The system is in the carousel. Go grab it.

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