Latest / The Newsletter Podcast with Fexingo: Substack, Beehiiv, and Email Newsletter Business / How Newsletters Are Using Interactive Polls to Boost Engagement
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a moment in every newsletter operator's life where they realize open rates and click-through rates are just proxies. They don't tell you what your readers actually think. Luna: Right — you see someone opened, but you have no idea if they skimmed, agreed, disagreed, or fell asleep halfway through. Lucas: Exactly. And a growing number of independent newsletter writers are solving that by embedding interactive polls directly into their emails. Not survey links — actual, clickable polls inside the email body. Luna: I've seen this in a few newsletters lately. Substack rolled out native polling maybe six months ago, and Beehiiv has had it for a while. But is it actually driving better engagement, or is it just a gimmick? Lucas: That's the question. And the data suggests it's not a gimmick — at least not for the right use cases. Let me give you a specific example. Lenny Rachitsky, who runs the Lenny's Newsletter on Substack — he's got over 800,000 subscribers — uses polls regularly to surface the biggest pain points in his audience, which is mostly product managers and tech operators. Luna: He recently did a poll asking people what their biggest challenge was with AI adoption at work, right? I remember seeing the results on Twitter. Lucas: That's the one. He got something like 12,000 responses within 48 hours. Now, a typical email click-through rate might be 3 to 5 percent. A poll response rate — where the action is just one tap inside the email — can hit 10 to 15 percent for a well-targeted question. That's a massive difference in the volume of direct feedback. Luna: And the quality is different too. With a click, you know they were interested enough to leave the email. With a poll, they're telling you something specific about their worldview. Lucas: Right. That's the real prize. It's not just engagement theater — it's market intelligence. If you're a B2B newsletter writer, those poll results can inform your next deep dive, your next product idea, even your sponsorship pricing. Luna: How so on the sponsorship side? Lucas: Morning Brew does this really well. They run a weekly poll in their flagship newsletter — something like 'What's the biggest risk to the economy right now?' — and they share the anonymized results with sponsors. So a bank that's thinking about running a campaign on risk management can see that 43 percent of readers said inflation is the top concern. That makes the ad buy more targeted and more valuable. It's a data asset. Luna: So the poll isn't just for content — it's a revenue tool. I can see how that would be compelling for newsletter operators who are trying to move beyond flat CPMs. Lucas: Exactly. And the technology is getting easier. Substack's polling is native — you just add a poll block in the editor, choose up to five options, and it renders inline. Beehiiv has a similar feature, plus you can customize the styling. There's even a third-party tool called Pollfish that integrates with some platforms, though that adds complexity. Luna: But there must be downsides. If everyone starts polling, readers get fatigued. And there's the bias issue — the people who respond to a poll are probably your most engaged readers, not necessarily a representative sample. Lucas: That's a real risk. Lenny himself has talked about this. He says he limits polls to maybe once a month, and he only asks questions where he genuinely wants the answer. He's not polling for the sake of polling. As for bias — yes, the sample skews toward your superfans. But if you're trying to understand what your superfans want, that's actually the right sample. Luna: Interesting. So you lean into the bias rather than fighting it. Lucas: Right. Your superfans are the ones who will pay for a premium tier, who will refer friends, who will engage with sponsors. Knowing what they think is more valuable than knowing what the average lurker thinks. Now, if you're doing market research for a new product, you might want a broader sample — but for content decisions, the superfan bias is fine. Luna: I want to talk about design for a second. Some polls I've seen look clunky — radio buttons, weird spacing. Does that affect response rates? Lucas: Hugely. There's a newsletter called The Hustle — before it was acquired by HubSpot — they ran a test where they compared a simple text-based poll with one that had emoji options. The emoji version got about 20 percent more responses. It's small, but it matters. Also, the placement: polls embedded early in the email, before the main content, tend to get higher response rates than those at the bottom. Luna: Because the reader hasn't already decided to scroll past. Lucas: Exactly. You catch them in the moment. And that brings up another technique that's emerging — the 'pulse poll.' It's a single question, usually yes/no or multiple choice, placed right after the subject line preview. The subject line itself teases the poll: 'Quick question: are you using AI at work?' Then the email opens and there's the poll. Response rates for those can hit 25 percent. Luna: That's almost a quarter of your list voting. That's enormous. Lucas: It is. And it changes the relationship. The reader isn't just a passive consumer — they're participating. That sense of co-creation can reduce churn over time. A reader who voted in a poll is more likely to feel invested in the newsletter. Luna: I can see that. And I've noticed some newsletters now publish the poll results in the next edition. That closes the loop — 'here's what you told us, and here's what we're doing with it.' That must deepen trust. Lucas: Absolutely. It's a feedback loop that builds loyalty. And it's not just for content. Some writers use polls to decide what to write about next. A writer named Anne Helen Petersen, who does Culture Study on Substack, ran a poll asking readers which topic they wanted her to tackle next. The winner got a full deep dive. She said the engagement on that piece was 40 percent higher than her average. Luna: Because the readers felt ownership. 'I voted for this, so I'm going to read it.' That's brilliant. Lucas: It is. And it scales. You don't need a million subscribers to do this. A writer with 1,000 engaged readers can run a poll and get 150 responses. That's enough to guide their next three or four pieces. It's like having a free focus group every month. Luna: But there's a flip side — what about readers who don't want to engage that way? Some people just want to read and move on. If every email starts with a poll, you might alienate the passive readers. Lucas: That's a valid concern. The key is frequency. Once a month is probably the sweet spot for most newsletters. If you're doing it every week, you risk fatigue. Also, the question has to feel relevant. If it's too broad or too self-serving — like 'What feature should we add to our paid tier?' — readers can smell that. They'll disengage. Luna: So the question has to be interesting to them, not just useful to you. Lucas: Right. The best poll questions are ones that readers would want to see the answer to even if they weren't participating. That's the test: would I click to see the results? If the answer is yes, it's a good poll. Luna: I also want to ask about the technical side. Some email clients — like Outlook on desktop — don't render interactive polls well, right? Lucas: That's the biggest limitation. Substack's polls, for example, require JavaScript to work, which most email clients block. So they fall back to a link that takes you to the web version. That hurts response rates because it's an extra step. Beehiiv's polls use a different approach — they embed a clickable image that sends a signal back to their server. That works better across clients, but still not perfect. Luna: So there's a technical barrier. But if the majority of your subscribers are on Gmail or Apple Mail, which support interactive elements, it's probably fine. Lucas: Exactly. Most independent newsletter writers have audiences that skew toward modern email clients. Legacy corporate email is less common for consumer newsletters. So the technical issue is manageable. Luna: Okay, I'm sold on the concept. But let's talk about monetization. Beyond using poll data to sell sponsorships, can you directly monetize the poll itself? Lucas: Some writers are experimenting with 'sponsored polls.' A brand pays to have a question inserted into the newsletter, and the results are shared with the brand. It's essentially a lightweight research service. But you have to be careful about editorial independence. If the sponsor is asking leading questions, it erodes trust. Luna: The line between research and advertising gets blurry. Lucas: It does. The best approach is full transparency — label it as a sponsored poll, and let the reader opt in or out. Some writers have had success, but it's early days. I think the bigger monetization angle is indirect: better content from polls leads to higher retention, which leads to more paid conversions. Luna: That's a longer game, but more sustainable. Lucas: Yeah. And speaking of sustainable — this show stays sustainable only because of listeners. If you got something out of this conversation, the best way to support it is a small donation. It's at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Just a few dollars helps keep the show ad-free and focused on the tactics that actually work. Luna: We don't run ads, we don't have sponsors — it's just us and the listeners. Every contribution makes a difference. Lucas: Alright, back to polls. One more technique I think is worth mentioning is the 'live result reveal.' Some writers now include a live-updating results bar in the same email, so after you vote, you see the tally immediately. That gamifies it a bit — makes it feel like an instant referendum. Luna: I've seen that on Substack. It's satisfying to see your vote move the needle. Lucas: It is. And that instant feedback loop, combined with the community aspect, makes polls one of the most underused engagement tools in email right now. Most writers still rely on open rates and clicks. Polls give you a third dimension: intent. Luna: So for someone listening who wants to try this: what's the first step? Lucas: Start small. Pick one question for your next edition. Make it relevant, make it easy to answer — two or three options max. Put it near the top. Then in the following edition, share the results and thank the participants. That's the minimal viable test. See if the response rate surprises you. I bet it will. Luna: And if it does, you've just turned your newsletter into a two-way conversation. Lucas: Exactly. And that's where the real value lives — not in the number of opens, but in the number of people who feel like they're part of something.