Every newsletter should publish a holiday gift guide.
Done well, they're an easy way to boost engagement, drive revenue, and grow your audience — at a time of year when your readers are less likely to be opening emails.
Gift guides work for any kind of newsletter: From consumer reads (great example: The Pour Over) to niche B2B publications like the Lenny's Newsletter gift guide.
And – even though Thanksgiving is next week(!) — it's not too late for you to (literally) profit from sending a newsletter holiday gift guide of your own.
Start today, and without much work you can have it live next Wednesday.
Here's the playbook 👇
🎄 Step 1: Source Your Gift Ideas
You need 15-25 solid gift recommendations. Stuff your audience will a) want to buy, and b) where you can include an affiliate link that'll earn you revenue from their purchases.
Here's how to find them fast:
1. Ask Your Audience For Recommendations
Use the welcome section of your regular newsletter to ask readers for their gift recommendations and their best purchases of the year.
Incentivize sharing by promising to give them a shout-out in the guide if you choose their idea.
Also, make it clear that they can suggest their own product as a gift idea — especially if they include a discount for readers.
2. Hit Up Sponsors
Send an email to anyone who has sponsored your newsletter in the past (or who you want to sponsor it in the future) offering them a spot in the gift guide.
Ask for a generous discount/offer and an affiliate link.
Bonus way to drive extra revenue: Some newsletters like Morning Brew also allow brands to be the "presenting sponsor" of their gift guide (for a nice fee of course).
3. Do Your Own Research
Think about what products and tools you genuinely use and love. Browse Amazon bestsellers in relevant categories. Check what other newsletters in adjacent niches are recommending.
And yes, use AI to help brainstorm. Try a prompt like: "Give me 20 unique gift ideas for [your audience description] that aren't the obvious choices everyone recommends."
4. Include Your Own Products
Don't be shy here. If you have a product or paid subscription, absolutely feature it in your guide.
🎄 Step 2: Get Unique Offers & Affiliate Links
Now you have a list of gift ideas for your guide, you want to get affiliate links and special discounts for as many of them as you can.
Here's an email template you can adapt with AI to send to the brands (or hit them up on social):
Subject: Featuring [Product Name] in [Your Newsletter Name] Holiday Gift Guide
Hi [Name],
I'm putting together a curated holiday gift guide for my newsletter audience of [X subscribers] who are [description of your audience].
I'd love to feature [Product Name] as one of my top recommendations.
Would you be able to provide:
1. An affiliate link or partnership arrangement
2. An exclusive discount code for my readers (even 10-15% helps)
The guide goes out on [date] to [X subscribers], and I'll also be promoting it across my social channels and website.
Let me know if you're interested!
Best,[Your Name]
Keep it short. Most brands will say yes immediately, especially if you have a decent-sized audience. Even with 1,000 subscribers, you're offering valuable exposure.
For Amazon products, just sign up for Amazon Associates and create your own affiliate links. Takes five minutes.
🎄 Step 3: Build Your Gift Guide
Next, create your gift-guide as a dedicated email send and a post or page on your site.
If you have more than 10 gift ideas, it's probably better to only include the first few gift ideas in the email and link through to the full guide on your website (to prevent clipping).
Alternatively, you could "drip out" the full gift guide across multiple emails.
The best way to do this is by creating categories of gifts (eg "for the beginner newsletter operator", "for the guy who just sold his newsletter and doesn't know what to spend all the cash on" etc).
From researching a bunch of successful newsletter gift guides, here's the format I think works best:
1 | Eye-Catching Image – High-quality product photo. Ask the brand for assets or pull from their website. Make sure you have permission to use it.
2 | Compelling Title – The product name, but make it interesting. Not just "Notebook," but "The Notebook That Finally Made Me Love Journaling."
3 | "For the..." Hook – "For the coffee snob in your life" or "For the marketer who reads too many newsletters" or "For your friend who's always cold."
This immediately helps readers identify who they're shopping for. It's the gift guide equivalent of a good subject line.
4 | Description (2-3 sentences) – What is it? What does it do? Keep it concise and conversational.
5 | "Why We Like It" Section – This is where you add personality and credibility. Share a specific detail, a personal story, or what makes it unique. Avoid generic marketing copy.
Example: "I bought this for my co-founder last year and he literally said it changed his morning routine. The built-in timer and precise temperature control mean you can't mess up your pour-over, even at 6am."
6 | Discount/Deal Callout – Make this super visible. "Get 20% off with code NEWSLETTER20" or "Black Friday price: $79 (normally $129)."
7 | Clear Call-to-Action Button – "Shop Now" or "Get It Here" with your affiliate link. Make it impossible to miss.
🎄 Step 4: Turn Your Gift Guide into a Growth Engine
Most newsletter operators are good at creating gift guides that generate decent affiliate and sponsorship revenue from their existing audiences...
... but they completely fail at going that one extra, tiny step that'd turn their gift guide into something that drives new subscriber growth too.
If you've done the hard work of creating your gift guide, make sure you follow these 4 steps to avoid missing out on easy audience growth 👇
1 | Email-Gate the Full Guide on Your Website
Require visitors who want to read the guide on your website to subscribe to the newsletter first to gain access.
This is super important, because in the next 3 steps we're going to pull a bunch of easy levers to drive potential readers to the guide on your site... and we want them to subscribe.
2 | Ask The Featured Brands To Promote The Guide
If you have 25 gift ideas in your guide, that's 25 brands you've just written something very nice about, in the run up to the biggest sales period of the year.
Share that with them via email. Include a screenshot and a link. Ask them to share with their audiences and make it easy for them to do so. You'd be surprised how many will!
3 | Post Individual Gift Ideas on Social Media
Don't just share the guide once in an email.
Create individual posts for each gift (or your top 10 gifts) on social media and link back to the full guide.
Tag the brand in each post to increase their likelihood of sharing.
4 | Run a Referral Giveaway Competition
Next, let's incentivize existing readers to share the guide with friends/family/colleagues, and new readers to opt in...
Choose a gift (or multiple gifts) from the guide as a giveaway prize:
- New subscribers: one entry for opting into the gift guide
- Existing subscribers: one entry per friend you refer who opts into the newsletter via the gift guide
Brands are often happy to give you the product as a prize for free. It's a lot easier for them than finding sponsorship budget.
There are a bunch of tools out there that make running this kind of referral giveaway possible.
My favorite (unsurprisingly) is SparkLoop which — unlike inbuilt referral tools — has a native giveaway feature making things easier.
(sidenote: if you have a niche/b2b audience, only run a giveaway if the gifts are aligned with your newsletter content — otherwise you'll get a bunch of low-value subscribers)
🎄 3 Bonus Tips To Maximize Revenue
Do all the above and your holiday gift guide should be a success. but here are three bonus tips to take you from good to great:
1 | Dedicated Sends to Your Most Engaged Subscribers
Matt Paulson, whose newsletter company Marketbeat recently processed $1m in affiliate earnings in a single day, swears by this tactic:
- identify your most engaged subscribers (highest open/click rates)
- send them a dedicated daily email, each featuring a longer sales pitch for one of your top-performing gift recommendations (the ones that earn you the most affiliate revenue)
These are your warmest leads. They trust you most. They convert at the highest rates.
Give them the cream of the crop in focused emails with a clear call-to-action.
2 | The "Last-Minute Gift Ideas" Follow-Up
About 5 days before Christmas, send a follow-up dedicated email with gift ideas that will still arrive in time for the holidays.
Pull the best digital products, gift cards, or fast-shipping items from your original guide. Add a few new ones if you can.
This catches all the procrastinators (looking at you, dad) and gives you a second bite at the affiliate revenue apple without any extra work.
3 | Include A Shareable Gift Idea
Every gift guide should have one ridiculous or unexpectedly creative gift that makes people laugh or say "wait, what?"
People are way more likely to share something that surprises them or makes them laugh than another "cozy blanket" recommendation.
For example:
🎁 The Bottom Line
Gift guides work because they solve a real problem (people genuinely struggle with what to buy) in a fun way.
And they align perfectly with when your audience is already in buying mode.
You don't need to be a product review site or a lifestyle influencer. You just need to understand what your audience values and who they're buying gifts for.
Even with Thanksgiving next week, you have plenty of time to ship a simple, effective gift guide of your own. Start sourcing ideas today, get your affiliate links secured by Tuesday, and send on Wednesday.
The revenue potential is real. The growth opportunity is real. And the effort-to-reward ratio is about as good as it gets in the newsletter game.
Now go make it happen (and have fun)!
