Happy Subscribers

·S1 E91

One year later: Adam Sobel goes all-in on email personalization

August 11
20 mins

Episode Description

Episode Summary:

Last summer, Adam Sobel came on Happy Subscribers with one of the most advanced email setups I'd ever seen from a food blogger. Then we had an impromptu catch-up call a few weeks ago — and I hit record, because what he's built since? It's a whole other level.

Adam is a vegan food blogger who has made email the actual engine of his business — not a tool to send people back to his blog, but the brain informing everything his subscribers experience, from the emails they open to the pages they see when they visit his site. He walked me through the personalized offer engine he built, his vision for a Netflix-style subscriber experience, and why he thinks creators who stick with a static, one-size-fits-all approach are going to get left behind.

And don't worry — he also shares what any blogger can start doing today, no developer required.

In this episode, you'll learn about:

  • Why Adam treats his email list as his primary revenue engine — not a traffic driver to his blog, but the main event

  • How Kit's price increase led him to seriously consider Klaviyo — and what he built instead when he decided to stay

  • The personalized offer engine he created with developer Brad Hussey: a Kit snippet that shows each subscriber a different product recommendation based on what they've purchased, browsed, and avoided

  • How he uses RightMessage to track browse behavior and make every email and sales page feel tailored to that specific reader

  • His vision for what's next: email subscribers getting a Netflix-style "for you" homepage and a completely different blog post experience than someone landing from Google

  • What any blogger can do today with tags and simple liquid code to start sending more thoughtful, personalized emails

  • Why deep personalization is, at its core, an act of care — and why readers feel it even when they can't see it

Check out this episode's blog post

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