Content strategist Brandon Smithwrick interviewed Daniel Roth, VP of Content and editor-in-chief of LinkedIn, about what newsletters taught him. According to Smithwrick’s summary of the interview, the key is to see the newsletter as a service to a community: “you’re writing for your community, not yourself”.
Smithwrick summed it up in his post. As soon as a creator starts writing for the reader, “your approach will become much more effective.” Advice from someone who runs content at one of the largest professional platforms, however, comes with a catch.
The newsletter is the only format a creator can take away with them. On LinkedIn, though, the creator does not fully own it.
Where the money for newsletter infrastructure is going
Capital is betting on email as a category of its own. In July 2025 Substack raised $100 million in a Series C at a valuation of $1.1 billion, compared with $650 million in 2021.
The round was led by BOND and The Chernin Group, with investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Rich Paul of Klutch Sports Group and Jens Grede of Skims. According to TechCrunch, the platform has passed 5 million paid subscriptions, up from 2 million in 2023.
What an email list does that a feed does not
The difference lies in who holds the address. According to the platform’s help pages, the author of a LinkedIn newsletter sees the subscriber’s name, profile photo, position and headline from their profile. An email address is not among them, and the list cannot be downloaded. The subscriber stays on LinkedIn’s ground.
On beehiiv, exporting the list is a basic function. According to the service’s help, a creator can download subscriber data as a .csv file with email, status and plan. If the platform gets worse or more expensive, the list can move with the creator elsewhere. Substack offers the same.
Social reach is rented, and the algorithm redistributes it with every update. An email subscriber, by contrast, is an opt-in relationship that the creator can take with them.
According to beehiiv’s own data, publishers on the platform sent a total of 28 billion emails in 2025, reaching more than 255 million unique readers with an open rate above 41%. Paid subscriptions on the platform generated $19 million, compared with $8 million a year earlier. For LinkedIn, the newsletter is a tool that brings users back into the app. For the creator, it is the only channel that leaves them with an address book.
The European layer has the name GDPR
In Europe, an owned list has a second value. First-party email with consent rests on a different legal basis from targeting based on third-party data, which regulators are pressing on.
On 1 September 2025 the French regulator CNIL fined Google LLC and Google Ireland Limited €325 million, split into €200 million and €125 million, for advertising inserted between emails in Gmail without user consent and for invalid consent for advertising cookies. According to the regulator, 53 million people saw the inserted advertising.
The case targets advertising reach based on targeting, and does not concern newsletters themselves. But it does show where regulatory pressure is growing. A brand that builds its audience on an email list with subscriber consent holds a first-party relationship with a clean legal basis, whereas rented targeting on a platform rests on a basis that the EU regulator is tightening.
An owned list survives a change of platform
The advice of LinkedIn’s editor-in-chief makes sense to creators, and the numbers behind newsletter infrastructure confirm it. The difference remains in whose ground the audience stands on. A feed belongs to the platform and changes with its algorithm. An email list is something the creator can take away. That is why capital is flowing into the format, and why even channels that keep the list to themselves are pushing it.
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