Monthly Round-Up: January'25 Earnings Report

2025 starts promising: growth on Substack Notes is exploding and I set some stepping stones for further boost of my conversion rate.

Yana G.Y.

Feb 27, 2025

∙ Paid

growing stats bars isolated of glat background. 3d c4d. Substack earnings report — Image created with Midjourney

What gets measured gets managed.

I’m a data-driven person.

Some call me a nerd (and I love it).

Truth is: you get all your answers from your data. Simply look into it.

Time to look at January 2025.

As usual, this is what I have:

Content: strategies I implemented and their outcome
Distribution: platforms I used and how they performed and why
Monetization: what I did to sell, how much I earned (total & by channel)
Outlook: what I plan to start, stop, change or continue in the future, and why

Let’s begin!

Content & Distribution

I made three major changes in January.

1. A Lead Magnet for Substack? Why not!

In December I finally finished the “Substack Kick-Starter - how to gain your first 1000 subscribers” guide, so in January I started using it as intended.

It’s a 10-Day email course for Substack beginners, which I designed to help onboard free subscribers. People say it’s helpful. A lot of my paid subscribers wanted it too, although I have something much more valuable for them (coming up soon, read below).

This is an entry-level course. The pro version is coming soon - more about it in the Outlook section below.

So I thought: why not use it as a lead magnet?

I’m not a fan of promotions on Notes, but this one is doing great.

But that wasn’t the reason I created this as a lead magnet. The real reason: I’m testing paid ads for Substack in Facebook and Google. I think I’m on to something, stay tuned, I’ll share more about this soon.

I also used it as a welcome sequence for my free subscribers to help them get to know me and my content.

2. A Welcome Sequence that Converts

If I have to name one huge downside of Substack, it’s - automations.

It’s hard for new subscribers to get to know your content without spending tons of hours on your archive.

It usually takes from 10 to 20 iterations with your content before a person decides to buy. And with subscriptions? It’s >20. Because it’s a commitment to continuous recurring payments. People are more hesitant to buy.

So Kit comes handy.

I used my 10-Day crash course as an educational sequence, but also to convert. I showcase my paid content and I add a tiny CTA that helps people take the decision and become paid members.

The results?

Promising.

But it takes more time.

This sequence started in January, but the real effect is visible in February. Once I get enough results, I’m gonna write a case study and share the exact steps I took to achieve that result.

3. The all new Notes Writer GPT

This one is a blast! I’m getting so much positive feedback, thank you so much!!

For those of you who missed it: I upgraded my custom Notes Writer GPT - I trained it using hundreds of viral Notes and now it writes Notes that go viral and turn likes into subscribers.

Not a joke!

Don’t believe it?

Here’s the proof: