Beehiiv doubles ad sales team as newsletter monetization heats up

Beehiiv announced on January 8, 2026, that it would double the size of its advertising solutions team during the first quarter while bringing Andrew MacMannis on board as Vice President of Ad Sales & Customer Success. The expansion arrives as the newsletter platform pays out more than $1 million monthly to publishers through its native Ad Network.

MacMannis joins from LiveIntent, an email-first advertising marketplace where he helped scale operations through the company's acquisition by Zeta Global in 2024. His appointment signals intensifying competition for creator monetization as newsletter advertising adoption surged from 15 percent in 2019 to 77 percent in 2025.

"We're in the middle of a fundamental shift in how media is created, distributed, and monetized," MacMannis said in the announcement. "Creators are building real businesses, and beehiiv is building the infrastructure that allows those businesses to scale predictably, profitably, and on their own terms."

The company positions its Ad Network as comparable to how YouTube democratized video monetization. Tyler Denk, beehiiv co-founder and CEO, said the network represents "a massive bet on making monetization accessible to everyone with a newsletter." Unlike competitors that require creators to manage advertiser relationships independently, beehiiv built advertising functionality directly into its platform.

The timing reflects broader industry patterns. Sponsored content surpassed paid subscriptions as the dominant revenue model for email newsletters in 2025, with 77 percent of new publications seeking advertising partnerships compared to just 2 percent operating paywalls. This marked the first year that more newsletter submissions offered sponsorships than those declining advertising revenue, creating demand for advertising infrastructure that platforms are racing to provide.

Beehiiv's Ad Network currently connects 30,000 publishers sending billions of monthly emails with brands including Nike, Netflix, Google, HubSpot, Deel, and Roku. The platform supports publications ranging from 1,000 subscribers to more than 1 million, with thousands earning through cost-per-click and cost-per-thousand-impression campaigns. To date, creators on beehiiv have earned more than $35 million through platform monetization tools including the Ad Network, subscriptions, boosts, and digital products.

Jake Schonberger, beehiiv's head of strategy and operations, emphasized the company's track record. "Since 2023, we've grown the Ad Network more than 20x," Schonberger said. "This next phase is about scale—investing in the team, technology, and performance needed to support creators and advertisers long term."

The Ad Network originated from beehiiv's 2023 acquisition of Swapstack, one of the earliest newsletter advertising marketplaces. Schonberger founded Swapstack before bringing the product and leadership in-house when beehiiv acquired the company. That strategic move allowed beehiiv to differentiate itself as the only newsletter platform with native advertising built directly into the product rather than requiring third-party integrations.

MacMannis's experience scaling email-native advertising businesses addresses immediate growth challenges. At LiveIntent, a marketplace used by major publishers and brands, he developed sales operations through substantial expansion before the company's acquisition. His background spans working with enterprise publishers and advertisers on email-specific monetization strategies, expertise that translates directly to beehiiv's creator-focused approach.

The expanded Ad Solutions team will add roles across sales, customer success, product development, machine learning, and performance analytics. Beehiiv specified plans for deeper investment in optimization, pricing intelligence, and advertiser performance measurement. These technical capabilities matter increasingly as creators demand transparency around monetization effectiveness and advertisers seek performance data comparable to established platforms.

The company describes its Ad Network as functioning like an in-house sales engine. Publishers enable advertising on their newsletters through platform settings, and beehiiv's team handles advertiser relationships, campaign management, and optimization. This model contrasts with platforms where creators must independently source sponsors or integrate separate advertising networks, creating friction that limits monetization adoption.

Email advertising presents distinct challenges compared to web-based inventory. Privacy protections like Apple's Mail Privacy Protection affect targeting accuracy. Email client caching impacts impression measurement. Publishers must implement unique identifier systems per recipient while avoiding personally identifiable information in advertising tags. These technical constraints require specialized approaches that general advertising platforms struggle to address effectively.

Beehiiv's approach emphasizes simplicity for creators while maintaining advertiser reach at scale. The company compares its system to Meta or Google advertising platforms, where marketers access massive audiences through unified interfaces without managing individual publisher relationships. For email, where distribution remains fragmented across thousands of independent newsletters, aggregating inventory into a single marketplace creates efficiency for both advertisers and publishers.

The competitive landscape intensified throughout 2025. Substack raised $100 million in funding while signaling a strategic pivot toward advertising integration, marking a significant shift for a platform previously positioned as champion of direct reader support. That development acknowledged what data already showed: most creators struggle to build subscription audiences large enough to generate meaningful income through paywalls alone.

Advertising performance metrics from the Beehiiv Ad Network reveal newsletters can generate $1-$5 per click, with average campaigns achieving $2.50 per click. Publications averaging 400 advertising clicks monthly report approximately $1,000 in additional revenue through this channel. These figures demonstrate why creators increasingly view advertising as complementary to rather than competitive with subscription revenue.

Platform market share data shows beehiiv held 29 percent of newsletter submissions to industry tracker InboxReads in 2025, positioning it as the primary challenger to Substack's 41 percent market share. The gap narrowed from previous years as beehiiv emphasized monetization tools and creator-friendly infrastructure. Smaller platforms faced mounting pressure to differentiate or risk irrelevance in a market characterized by strong network effects.

MacMannis joins an experienced advertising team at beehiiv with backgrounds spanning newsletter-first companies and media organizations including Morning Brew, Meta, The Information, The Peak, BarBend, Pillar4Media, and Workweek. This collective expertise in digital media monetization, platform advertising, and creator economics informs the company's product development and go-to-market strategy.

The expansion builds on beehiiv's November 2025 release event, which marked the platform's evolution beyond newsletters into a unified operating system for the content economy. That release introduced digital products marketplace with zero commissions, AI-powered website builder, native podcast hosting, and enhanced automation capabilities. Beehiiv framed these additions as positioning the company for comprehensive creator support rather than email-only functionality.

Industry observers note tensions between creator independence and advertising integration that all platforms must navigate. Newsletter appeal historically centered on freedom from algorithmic manipulation and advertiser influence. Balancing creator autonomy with advertising revenue requirements presents ongoing strategic challenges, particularly as brands demand performance data and targeting capabilities comparable to established digital advertising channels.

Google Ad Manager introduced beta support for newsletter advertising in June 2024, allowing publishers to serve reservation and programmatic guaranteed ads within email content. That development expanded technical infrastructure supporting email advertising beyond specialized newsletter platforms. However, adoption remained limited by integration complexity and privacy protection constraints affecting targeting accuracy.

Newsletter platform Paved hired executives from Outbrain and OpenWeb in November 2025, reflecting similar industry patterns where specialized advertising marketplaces compete for both publisher inventory and advertiser budgets. The newsletter advertising sector experienced consolidation and expansion simultaneously, with platforms racing to aggregate sufficient inventory to attract major advertiser spending.

MacMannis characterized newsletters as "one of the most impactful frontiers in media today," reflecting broader shifts in content consumption and distribution. Email remains among the few channels where creators own their audience relationships directly rather than renting access through algorithm-dependent platforms. This independence appeals to both creators seeking sustainable businesses and advertisers pursuing audiences beyond walled gardens.

The company's focus on advertising as a first-class revenue stream alongside subscriptions and digital products acknowledges that sustainable creator businesses typically require diversified monetization. Research shows no single revenue stream proves reliable long-term, driving platforms to support multiple monetization methods rather than prescribing specific approaches.

Beehiiv's November 2025 release introduced features spanning content creation, distribution, and monetization. The AI-powered website builder generates complete sites through conversational prompting. Native podcast hosting keeps audience interactions on publisher-controlled domains rather than directing traffic to external platforms. Website analytics provide real-time traffic monitoring without third-party tracking services. These capabilities position beehiiv for comprehensive creator support beyond email-specific functionality.

The company will continue investing in machine learning for advertising optimization. Platform improvements will focus on pricing intelligence, helping publishers maximize revenue per impression while maintaining advertiser performance. Performance analytics enhancements will provide creators with clearer visibility into monetization effectiveness across advertising, subscriptions, and direct product sales.

Advertising spend continues shifting toward email channels as marketers seek alternatives to cookie-dependent web targeting. Privacy regulations and browser policies limit traditional display advertising effectiveness, creating opportunities for email inventory that relies on opt-in subscriber relationships rather than tracking technologies. This structural shift benefits newsletter platforms positioned to aggregate inventory at scale.

Creator monetization challenges persist despite infrastructure improvements. Building audiences requires consistent content production, effective promotion, and patience through slow early growth. Most newsletters never reach subscriber counts sufficient for meaningful advertising revenue through traditional sponsorship approaches. Platform advertising networks address this challenge by enabling monetization at smaller scales through programmatic inventory aggregation.

The newsletter industry reached maturity in several dimensions during 2025 while continuing to attract new creators across diverse topics. Substack and beehiiv established dominant positions that smaller competitors struggle to challenge without substantial differentiation or resource advantages. Technical infrastructure investments, advertising network scale, and brand recognition create barriers that favor platforms with existing network effects.

MacMannis will focus on brand and agency partnerships, expanding beehiiv's direct advertiser relationships beyond programmatic inventory. This dual approach—automated advertising for broad reach plus direct partnerships for premium placements—mirrors successful digital advertising platforms across other channels. Direct relationships typically generate higher revenue per impression while requiring dedicated sales infrastructure.

Beehiiv frames its role as providing infrastructure that creators and publishers use to build, scale, and own their businesses. The advertising expansion supports this positioning by offering monetization accessibility that previously required creators to develop separate advertiser relationships, negotiate contracts, manage campaign logistics, and handle payment processing independently.

Industry consolidation accelerated through 2025 as strategic buyers pursued advertising technology acquisitions and platforms expanded capabilities through talent additions. The pattern reflects recognition that sustainable competitive advantages require either controlling significant inventory, providing unique audience access, or offering technical capabilities competitors cannot easily replicate.

Email marketing spend growth supports beehiiv's advertising expansion strategy. Marketers allocated increasing budgets to email channels throughout 2025, driven by performance data showing strong engagement rates and conversion effectiveness compared to algorithm-dependent social platforms. Newsletter advertising benefits from this broader trend while offering inventory characteristics that differentiate it from traditional marketing emails.

The company emphasized that advertising functions as one monetization option among several rather than the exclusive revenue model. Creators can combine advertising with paid subscriptions, digital product sales, membership tiers, and direct services depending on audience characteristics and content types. This flexibility contrasts with platforms prescribing specific monetization approaches.

MacMannis's appointment and team expansion reflect beehiiv's bet that creator monetization through advertising will scale substantially beyond current levels. The investment demonstrates confidence that demand exists from both advertisers seeking newsletter inventory and creators requiring accessible monetization infrastructure. Execution challenges remain around balancing creator control, advertiser performance, and platform economics at increasing scale.

Timeline

• 2023: Beehiiv acquires Swapstack, bringing one of the earliest newsletter advertising marketplaces in-house
• 2023-2026: Beehiiv Ad Network grows more than 20x since launch
• June 2024: Google Ad Manager introduces beta support for newsletter advertising
• July 18, 2025: Substack raises $100 million in funding while exploring advertising integration
• November 1, 2025: Newsletter platform Paved adds executives from Outbrain and OpenWeb
• November 14, 2025: Beehiiv expands beyond newsletters with digital products and zero commission
• December 17, 2025: Newsletter monetization report shows 77% of publications seeking advertising partnerships
• January 8, 2026: Beehiiv announces Andrew MacMannis as VP of Ad Sales & Customer Success and plans to double Ad Solutions team in Q1 2026

Summary

Who: Beehiiv, a newsletter platform serving 30,000 publishers sending billions of monthly emails, announced the expansion. Andrew MacMannis, former LiveIntent sales leader, joins as Vice President of Ad Sales & Customer Success. The expansion affects newsletter creators, advertisers, and agencies working with email-native advertising campaigns.

What: The company will double its Ad Solutions team across sales, customer success, product, machine learning, and performance analytics during the first quarter of 2026. The Ad Network currently pays out more than $1 million monthly to publishers, with creators having earned more than $35 million through platform monetization tools to date. The expansion includes deeper investment in optimization, pricing intelligence, and advertiser performance measurement.

When: Announced January 8, 2026, with team expansion planned throughout the first quarter of 2026. The Ad Network launched following beehiiv's 2023 acquisition of Swapstack and has grown more than 20x since launch. MacMannis previously helped scale LiveIntent through its 2024 acquisition by Zeta Global.

Where: The expansion affects beehiiv's entire platform ecosystem spanning 30,000 publications across every major vertical and scale. The Ad Network connects newsletter publishers with major brands including Nike, Netflix, Google, HubSpot, Deel, and Roku, functioning as a unified marketplace comparable to Meta or Google advertising platforms but built specifically for email.

Why: Newsletter advertising adoption surged from 15 percent in 2019 to 77 percent in 2025 as sponsored content surpassed paid subscriptions as the dominant revenue model. The expansion addresses accelerating advertiser demand, growing creator monetization requirements, and competitive pressure as platforms including Substack pivot toward advertising integration. Beehiiv positions the investment as scaling infrastructure to support sustainable creator businesses across advertising, subscriptions, and digital products.