In this issue, I’m sharing a mistake I made early on when building newsletters and one I see all the time. I focused on growing the list fast without thinking enough about segmentation. It worked at first, but eventually engagement suffered. I’ll break down why that happens and how enrichment and smarter segmentation can dramatically improve open rates, clicks, and overall performance.

When I first started building newsletters, I was focused almost entirely on growth. I made the signup process as simple as possible: first name and email address. Fewer fields meant less friction, and in the beginning, it worked. The list grew quickly and the early metrics looked strong.

Then, as the audience expanded, engagement turned inconsistent. Some emails performed well; others barely moved. The issue wasn't timing or creativity. It was that I didn't actually know who I was talking to.

By keeping the form minimal, I had built scale without context. I had email addresses, but no real insight into roles, industries, seniority, or intent. That forced me into broad messaging — every email had to appeal to everyone, which meant it rarely felt deeply relevant to anyone. Over time, that lack of relevance showed up exactly where you'd expect: open rates and click-through rates.

Avoiding extra form fields felt smart at the time because I was protecting conversion. What I underestimated was the long-term cost. A large list without segmentation looks impressive, but it caps personalization — and personalization is where performance lives.

The benchmark data puts numbers on what I experienced. Segmented email campaigns earn roughly 14% higher open rates and around double the click-through rates of unsegmented sends. And the gap between average and great is enormous: in Brevo's 2026 benchmark of real campaign data, the average open rate is about 21% while the top 10% of senders reach 44% — more than double — with the difference attributed primarily to list quality, targeting, and content relevance. In other words: the top performers aren't writing twice as well. They're segmenting.

Broadcasting to an unsegmented list means voluntarily competing at the average.

If I were starting a newsletter today:

The shift for me came when I started using newsletter enrichment solutions. Instead of re-collecting data manually — or begging subscribers to fill out surveys — I appended additional insights to the existing list. Suddenly, anonymous email addresses became defined profiles: job titles, company sizes, industries, behavioral signals.

With that visibility, segmentation became strategic rather than aspirational. I could tailor messaging to founders differently than enterprise executives, adjust content for marketers versus operators, write subject lines that were specific instead of safe, and align calls to action with where each group actually was in their journey.

The results were clear. Open rates improved because the messaging felt relevant. Click-through rates increased because the content matched real needs. Unsubscribes slowed. The newsletter stopped feeling like a broadcast and started feeling like a conversation — which, not coincidentally, is the same shift that turns an audience into a community: relevance first, relationship second.

Looking back, I still believe in reducing friction at signup. But I now think just as carefully about how I'll understand and segment the audience over time. Growth matters — email remains the most direct line you have to your audience, and a bigger list is more of that. But relevance is what makes the line worth having. Combine enrichment with thoughtful segmentation, and a newsletter becomes a genuine driver of engagement, trust, and results.

If you’re looking for guidance on how to do this you can contact me here.