The mechanics of cross-brand newsletter collaborations
Paid ads and SEO are reliable channels for list growth, but they take significant budget and time. If you want to scale your email database quickly without spending money on media buy, brand partnerships are the most underutilised strategy available.
Using this exact collaborative approach, I grew my own newsletter database by roughly 1,165% over a period of 7 to 8 months. The concept is straightforward. You partner with a non-competing business that shares your exact customer demographic, package a joint incentive, and cross-promote it to both of your email lists.
You get direct access to their existing subscriber base, and they get access to yours. Both brands walk away with a substantially larger audience for zero ad spend.
Identify your ideal customer profile and complementary peers
Before reaching out to anyone, you need absolute clarity on your ideal customer profile (ICP). You are looking for businesses that sell to the exact same person you do, but solve a completely different problem.
Here is an example. If you run a nutritional supplement brand targeting older adults focused on joint health and natural remedies, you should not partner with another pill brand. That creates direct competition. Instead, look for businesses selling mobility equipment, specialised fitness programmes, or healthy meal delivery services to that same demographic.
- Complementary product: They cater to the same demographic without competing for the same basket spend.
- Shared values: Their brand positioning, tone, and pricing tier align with yours.
- Distinct solution: You provide value where their catalogue ends.
Targeting direct competitors causes friction. Targeting complementary brands creates a natural win-win.
Vetting audience size and pitching the collaboration
You want to partner with brands that have a similar audience size to yours, or ideally slightly larger. If you have roughly 20,000 subscribers on your database, approaching a brand with 500,000 subscribers will usually result in a rejection. Aim for peers in your weight class.
Check their social channels and subscribe to their newsletter first. If they have around 10,000 to 25,000 followers with steady engagement, their email list is likely in a comparable range. Inspect the welcome emails they send to see how active their marketing is.
Once you identify a good candidate, reach out via email or direct message with a short, commercial pitch. Keep it simple:
- State who you are and introduce your brand in one sentence.
- Propose a joint giveaway where each brand contributes free product to a shared prize bundle.
- Offer to send 2 to 3 dedicated campaign emails to your database in exchange for them doing the same.
- Highlight the mutual benefit: both brands double their exposure without ad spend.
Building the giveaway landing page
Do not overcomplicate the mechanics. You need a dedicated, co-branded landing page with a single sign-up form where all entrant data is captured.
Both brands send traffic from their respective newsletters directly to this landing page over a 5 to 7 day promotion window. The page requires nothing more than a headline explaining the prize bundle, high-quality images of the products included, and an email entry field (plus an optional SMS field if you collect phone numbers).
I prefer to integrate the form directly into Klaviyo so all entrants flow straight into a dedicated list. Once the campaign closes, you export the entrant list and share the file with your partner brand so both parties update their databases.
Nurturing giveaway entrants inside Klaviyo
Collecting the email address is only step one. What you do immediately after they join determines whether these leads turn into paying customers or sit as dead weight on your account.
Set up a bespoke welcome flow inside Klaviyo specifically triggered when someone enters the giveaway list. The first email should confirm their entry, explain what both brands do, and highlight the value of remaining subscribed. Follow this up with educational content about your products over the next few days.
When the giveaway ends, send an announcement campaign to the entire entrant list revealing the winner. Crucially, include an exclusive consolation discount code inside that email for everyone who did not win. This single email often generates a rapid surge in first-time orders from the partner brand's audience.
The trade-off on giveaway lead quality
Free list growth comes with a catch. It is important to be realistic about audience intent.
Subscribers who join your list through a free giveaway will never have the immediate purchase intent of someone who clicked a high-intent Google Search ad or signed up on your website to claim a 10% welcome voucher. A portion of them are purely looking for freebies.
That is not a reason to avoid the strategy, but it is a reason to manage your deliverability. Monitor engagement closely over the subsequent 60 days. If giveaway subscribers do not open or click your regular campaigns within that window, suppress them from your core sends to keep your deliverability healthy.
Final Thoughts
Cross-brand collaborations are one of the most cost-effective ways to inject thousands of relevant subscribers into your Klaviyo account. Find non-competing peers who serve your demographic, pitch a clean prize swap, and back it up with an automated welcome flow and consolation offer. Execute this once a quarter and your list growth will compound steadily.
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