The Rise of Substack as a Marketing Tool
It seems like just yesterday when podcasts seemed like such an innovative idea, and a way for brands to engage with customers, readers, or users. Well not anymore, there is a new kid in town, and his name is Substack.
The Changing Profile of Substack Users and Readers
You may be asking yourself what Substack is and you are right to do so, since for quite a long time it remained a niche communication tool preferred by journalists and writers. Not anymore, though. Substack in a newsletter platform that focuses on long-form content, which has risen in popularity as short-form content saturates consumers’ screens.
Initially favored by independent creators, in 2025 Substack’s fashion and beauty subscriptions have increased by 80%. In many ways, the rise of Substack seems like a natural reaction to the oversaturation of influencers, paid content, and direct advertising on social media. In fact, in a study conducted by YPulse, 61% of 13-39-year-olds admitted to not trusting influencers who post one too many ads, and 65% said they preferred recommendations from creators with a smaller following. According to RSS Magazine ”the subscription boom on Substack for the fashion section rages on, confirming the desire for new, freer, and less regulated horizons on the part of content creators and their followers.”
Influencer Fatigue and The Search for Authenticity
For fashion and beauty content creators, Substack enables them to take financial control of their voice, and creative freedoms without the contrains usually associated with freelancing. Substack also offers more comprehensive opportunities for audience engagement, and it thus feels more authentic than social media, particularly because followers are measured by reading time as opposed to clicks, so whilst the follower base might be smaller, it is also more loyal.
Rare Beauty is one of the last beauty brands to join Substack, and to leverage the platform to share behind the scenes stories, product development tidbits, and team culture. At its core, Substack offers more established brands a way to deepen brand loyalty through storytelling. MacKenzie Kassab, Rare Beauty’s director of creative strategy and author of the “Rare Beauty Secrets” newsletters under the pen name “Rare Insider” “described the newsletter as a place to spotlight elements of the brand that don’t always fit on TikTok or Instagram, such as the Rare Impact Fund’s mental health initiatives or how specific products come to life.” Kasaab further goes to say that their Substack strategy is fluid, and is fed by readers and users’s response to the newsletter.
In 2024, Denim company Still Here, partnered with five creators for the launch of its Everyday Jean, and found Substack to be more effective in generating sales than Instagram. According to Vogue Business, the denim brand “found that 80 to 90 per cent of click-throughs originated from Substack newsletter emails versus social media. Each creator was given full creative agency over how they spoke about the product and, with an over 75 per cent open rate, the jeans sold out on launch day.”
The Meteoric Rise of Substack
Content creators on Substack can count on annual or monthly subscriptions as a source of stable income, with users paying an average of USD 5 to USD 8 per month to have access to their go-to newsletters. This is great news for Substack, whose user base grew from 11,000 paying subscribers in 2018 to over half a million by 2021. 2021. More importantly, as of January 2024, Substack had close to 50 million active users, and over 2 million paid subscriptions. A year later, the number of paying subscribers more than doubled to reach an eye-watering 5 million.
Whilst subscriptions start at USD 5, creators can price them higher. In return for using the platform, Substack takes a 10% cut of all revenue. For Subrina Heyink, author of the Are You Wearing That? Substack, makes over USD 100,000 in income from the platform, or 80% of her income. Instagram Partnerships generate the rest, which is quite impressive considering Heying does not use affiliate links.
Freedom of Speech and Substack Saturation
Substack may be the rising star in digital platforms; however, as its popularity rises, so does the likelihood of misinformation spreading like wildfire. Bloomberg Opinion columnist, Jessica Karl, states that “While Substack’s evolution has been similar to that of podcasts, its rise has been much more rapid, fueled in part by widespread distrust in traditional media and a shift toward individual voices. The site has content guidelines, but the company takes no part in the editing process. The outcome has been catastrophic.”
In 2022, the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate shared that Substack made over USD 2.5 million from anti-vax content, and is no stranger to accusations of harboring hateful and antisemitic content on the platform.
