Edition #33: The fastest list-growth ideas

To attract your best subscribers, and repel coupon hunters.

Author

Alec Beglarian
July 14, 2026

750+ marketers just settled the "email is dead" debate

Customer.io surveyed 750+ marketers, product managers, growth leaders, and engineers about how they're actually messaging customers in 2026, across email, SMS, push, and in-app.

Some of what they found lines up with what you'd expect, like email isn't dead. This report finally backs it up with data from real marketers. Other things they found goes against advice you've probably followed for years, like which format actually wins in head-to-head tests, and how long your copy should really be.

From channel deep dives to AI adoption trends, this report covers the full picture of customer engagement in 2026.

Today's Email: The fastest list-growth ideas

Hello email aficionados,

As usual, we're sharing the most valuable reads to make email marketing successful:

  • Five list-growth moves that actually work in 2026, and the discount trap to skip

  • Why chasing open rates keeps failing you, and which metrics should run your decisions

  • What Greco Gum's cow-to-clarity email gets right about selling with a story

✉️  Growing your list in 2026, without the discount trap

Every email list leaks. People switch jobs, abandon old inboxes, or lose interest.

Just go and check what percentage of your list goes stale every year. Once you see that number, you will realize that not growing your list actually means shrinking it

The good news is that list growth in 2026 has less to do with clever popups and more to do with where your subscribers come from. Here's what's actually working.

Make the offer worth an email address.

"Subscribe for updates" grows nothing. "10% off" grows a coupon list.

Trade something that maps to what the buyer actually wants: a sizing guide, a 60-second quiz that recommends the right product, a template, a small free tool. The closer the incentive sits to the purchase, the better those subscribers convert later.

Borrow other people's audiences.

Newsletter recommendation networks are the fastest clean-source growth channel a lot of brands still overlook. Platforms like beehiiv and Kit let you recommend non-competing newsletters at the moment someone subscribes, and they recommend you back. You grow from audiences that already trust the person sending them your way.

Turn your short-form traffic into subscribers. 

This works if you're already making TikToks and Instagram reels. Usually, people ask viewers to like their video or subscribe. But in some of the videos you can redirect them to visit your profile link. In the link, you can put a specific freebie or send them to your subscriber page.

Capture at the highest-intent moment. 

For ecommerce, the best signups happen at checkout and right after purchase. Someone who just bought will hand over their email without a second thought. Add one preference question ("what are you shopping for?") so you can segment them from day one instead of dumping everyone into the same welcome flow.

Chase sources, not headcount. 

A thousand subscribers who came for a quiz about your product will out-earn ten thousand who came for a discount and vanished. Track engagement by signup source over the first 30 and 60 days, then double down on the sources that bring people who open, click, and buy.

📧 Email Marketing Strategy: The Critical Difference Between Strategies and Tactics

Email marketers spot a low open rate and reach straight for the bag of tricks. New subject lines, different send times, whatever moves the number this week. It works for a bit. Then the number slips again and nobody can say why.

You must know which metrics run the show. Strategic metrics (revenue, conversions, audience growth) tell you where the business is heading. Tactical metrics (open rate, click rate, bounce rate) tell you how today's send did. You track the tactical ones. You make decisions on the strategic ones. As Sun Tzu put it, "Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."

Get that order right and every tactic starts pulling toward the same goal.

📫️ From the inbox

This email is from Greco Gum. It's a storytelling promo that sells chewing gum as a tool for mental clarity, opening on cows in a pasture and landing on a one-line reframe.

Here's what we liked in this email:

  • The story does the selling, not the product. It opens on a Swiss pasture with cows chewing cud. You're several paragraphs in before gum is even hinted at, so you're curious instead of braced for a pitch.

  • The science earns the claim. "Calms the nervous system, boosts blood flow to the brain, activates attention and memory centers." This is a concrete mechanisms, not a vague feel better promise, and it disarms the skeptic on the spot by saying that it's not some old wives' tale.

  • Bold text marks the turns. Only the pivot lines are bolded such as, "Their jaws gyrate in slow, hypnotic circles," "It literally keeps them alive," A skimmer gets the full arc from the bold alone.

  • The product shows up as the payoff, not the premise. After building the whole case for chewing, the gum arrives as "a secret weapon that allows you to chew your way to clarity anytime, anywhere." It makes you want it even if you're not asked to buy it.

  • One CTA, and a tagline that sticks. "Stop stewing, start chewing" compresses the entire email into four words, sitting right above a single buy button.

👀 Worth the read

Best,
Alec

P.S. Have a topic you’d like us to cover in the next edition? Reply to this email and let us know! We're always eager to address.