newsletter reflections

Happy Monday!

I spent the last 10 days celebrating and imbibing with friends and family in Ottawa.

As always, my social battery was pretty depleted by the end of my visit…

But my memory dividends are freshly topped up.

Which provides the perfect set up for the weird limbo period we now find ourselves in between Christmas and New Years.

Whereas most people tend to look forward…

Thinking about how much money they want to make or how much weight they want to lose in the coming year…

I find it much more useful to look backward…

And reflect on the events of the past 12 months.

That’s where all the real lessons and insights are hiding.

So that’s exactly what I’ll be doing over the next few days.

To kick things off…

I wanted to share a few high-level reflections on building a profitable email list that are bubbling to the surface for me as 2025 comes to a close.

Let’s dive in:

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1) New subscribers are the lifeblood of your business

I rely on paid ads to grow my list.

But Meta’s latest algorithm update (codenamed Andromeda) threw a wrench into my ad account in the back half of the year…

And I didn’t move aggressively enough to address it right away.

So looking back at the numbers, I can see my list growth began to stall out…

Which then affected my bottom line.

No bueno!

Ramping my list growth back up will be a top priority in Q1 and throughout 2026.

2) Anyone still sleeping on AI is in for a wake up call

I had so many AI-related ‘WTF!’ moments this year.

It continues to improve by leaps and hounds.

Even if it can’t do something well right now… there’s a pretty decent chance it will in another 3-6 months.

Whether it was creating insane graphics and images with Nano Banana…

Automating my Story Bank with n8n…

Or launching my very own software tool with EmailStoryselling.ai…

AI was the real MVP here at Newsletter Freedom HQ…

And easily took home the ‘Employee of the Year’ award.

I can’t wait to see what new use cases I’ll stumble upon in 2026 😈

3) I want to experiment with more affiliate offers

A few weeks ago, I promoted an affiliate offer to my list for the first time.

It was on a topic (social media) that I’ll likely never build a product around…

Yet continue to get questions about.

I was a bit skeptical going in…

But candidly, it did better than I expected.

Best part is, I didn’t have to lift a finger to fulfill for any of the people who bought.

Instead, I just got to collect the commissions for each sale.

Which is pretty neat.

So I’ll definitely be looking to plug more of these into my promo calendar in the new year.

***

There you have it.

A trio of profitable newsletter reflections to help you step into 2026 with clarity and conviction.

That’s all I’ve got for ya today, though.

I’m still running on low power mode after the holidays lol

So I’m off to chill on the couch and watch the new season of Fallout.

Adios 🤘

Jim Hamilton

P.S:

Over the last 3 years, I’ve developed a personal review system to minimize “drift” in my life and business.

I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s altered the course of my life.

I shudder to think where I’d be right now without it.

Anyhow, if you’re interested, I’ll share more details on it later this week and how you can get it for free.

So stay tuned :)

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