Marketing
How Morning Brew Built a Newsletter That Actually Gets Opened
, Community Leader
Aug 8, 2025
4 minutes
In a digital world where unread emails pile up by the hundreds, Morning Brew stands out. As of 2025, its newsletters still achieve nearly 50 percent open rates, far above the industry average. While most email campaigns are quietly deleted or ignored, Morning Brew has managed to stay relevant, read, and respected.
The Technology Behind the Numbers
Morning Brew’s success is not the result of a single tool but a smart combination of systems, each serving a specific function. After moving away from MailChimp, the team adopted Campaign Monitor. This shift had a dramatic impact, as open rates more than doubled and inbox delivery reached 99 percent.
To go even further, the company added Iterable, a communication platform powered by artificial intelligence. Iterable allowed them to personalize messages and optimize send times, which led to more than 15,000 new subscribers and saved about 100,000 dollars in operational costs. For content management, Morning Brew uses Sanity, a flexible content system. The final delivery happens through Sailthru, which transforms drafts into polished newsletters and ensures they arrive on time.
The result is a well-designed, multi-platform infrastructure focused on speed, personalization, and efficiency.
Writing That Feels Like a Conversation
Technology keeps things running, but it is Morning Brew’s editorial voice that keeps readers coming back. Unlike companies that rely on AI-generated content, Morning Brew invests in real people. Writers and editors meet each morning to review headlines and select the most relevant stories. Each piece is written in a clear and concise style, with a dose of humor and personality.
Every vertical, whether Marketing Brew, Tech Brew, or Retail Brew, has its own dedicated team. Each edition reads like it was written by a sharp and slightly sarcastic friend who happens to know what they are talking about. That tone is deliberate and consistent. The goal is not just to inform but to be part of someone’s daily routine.
This sense of voice and personality is one of the hardest things to imitate. It is also the foundation of trust between Morning Brew and its readers.
More Than Just a Newsletter
Morning Brew has turned its daily email into something more than a content product. It is a ritual. Readers know what time it will arrive and what kind of tone and format to expect. This consistency builds loyalty. The newsletter is not just opened, it is anticipated.
That trust has made Morning Brew one of the rare brands in email media that people talk about. For many in marketing and tech circles, reading it feels like a shared experience. At a time when inboxes are full of noise, that sense of belonging matters.
Can Anyone Else Do This
Plenty have tried to copy Morning Brew’s success. Some adopt similar tones. Others use the same platforms. But results are mixed. One founder of a Gen Z business newsletter put it simply: you can clone the tools, but you cannot clone the culture.
Morning Brew also benefits from being early. It built its reputation at a time when few others were delivering short and smart business news with personality. That advantage is hard to recreate. Still, there are lessons for others. Prioritize clarity, use technology to support content rather than replace it, and always speak in a human voice.
What Happens Next
Morning Brew’s approach is not without risks. Email algorithms are changing. Reader fatigue is growing. AI tools continue to tempt companies into faster and cheaper content strategies. And yet, the very thing that makes Morning Brew work — its editorial tone — is what could be lost if automation takes over too much.
There is no perfect formula. But Morning Brew proves that newsletters can still be read, loved, and shared if you build something people genuinely look forward to each morning, and if you never forget who is on the other side of the inbox.
