How to Get More Subscribers with Substack Recommendations
Recommendations are a Substack super-power
Hi, Karen here!
This post was inspired by Kevin who writes Business English Bits and thinks a key way to get more readers is through Substack recommendations. I couldn’t agree more.
Recommendations are a top Substack superpower and one of the main reasons that Substack absolutely wipes the floor with other newsletter software platforms like MailChimp or ConvertKit.
In this post I explain Substack’s recommendations features and how to use them to get more subscribers.
What are Substack Recommendations?
The recommendations feature allows publication owners to publicly recommend each other’s work. Recommendations from other writers give your publication authority and expose your work to more people. Some creators report getting more than one-quarter of their subscribers from recommendations.
Recommendations are particularly powerful if your ideal reader is already hanging out on Substack and reading other publications. If that’s you then recommendations are probably the single biggest thing you can do to super-charge your growth.
Recommendations might be the single biggest thing you can do to super-charge your growth
The key to unlocking the power of recommendations is to create real connections with other creators. The most powerful recommendations come from creators who have a similar audience demographic to your publication but many more subscribers.
Recommendations from others
Recommendations from other Substack creators appear on your welcome page and act as ready-made testimonials, a powerful form of social proof that helps convert casual readers into paying subscribers.
Recommendations you make
If you enjoy or admire the work of other creators on Substack, you should recommend them. Substack will prompt you to do this when you subscribe to their publications, and when you visit your recommendations dashboard.
When you recommend a publication you can do so with or without adding a ‘blurb’. A blurb, also called ‘recommendation text’, is a short explanation of why you like the publication.
Recommendations are a way to ‘pay it forward’ and build supportive relationships with other creators on Substack. Creators you have recommended are more likely to recommend you and this could be the start of more collaboration. Publications that have smaller subscriber numbers than you will particularly appreciate a recommendation. And who knows, maybe one day they will become huge and send thousands of readers your way.
Where do your recommendations show up?
Recommendations you make are visible in five places by default. You can disable some, but not all, of these displays or notifications.
1. During the subscription process, new subscribers are shown your recommendations after they have entered their email address. Substack automatically shows up to seven recommendations and if you have recommended more than seven, a random selection is shown. It also shows your ‘Why I recommend’ blurb about the publication if you have written one. You can’t turn this feature off.
2. There is an automatically generated ‘Recommendations’ page that readers can access from a link in the footer of your home page. To see your recommendations page navigate to https://[yourpublication].substack.com/recommendations You can’t turn this feature off.
3. Publications you recommend are shown in a list on your publication’s homepage by default. Reminder, the homepage is the main page a subscriber sees when they visit your publication, different from the welcome page which new readers see before they have subscribed.
You can turn this feature off. Do so from the recommendations part of your publication dashboard.
Publication Dashboard > Recommendations (tab) > Manage (button) > Show recommendations on homepage (check-box)
4. Recommendation digests are emails sent automatically by Substack to your subscribers when you recommend another publication. You can stop Substack from including your recommendations in their digest emails by unchecking a box in the ‘Recommendations’ part of your publication dashboard.
Publication Dashboard > Recommendations (tab) > Manage (button) > Include my recommendations in Substack recommendation digests (check-box)
Note: Readers can opt out of receiving recommendation digests from Substack.
5. Publication owners are notified by email when you recommend them. If they subscribe to your publication they will be notified immediately. If they are not a subscriber they are only notified if or when they get new subscribers from your recommendation. The notification will also include your ‘Why I recommend’ blurb if you wrote one.
Recommendation settings
Access recommendation settings from the Recommendations tab of your publication dashboard.
Publication dashboard > Recommendations (tab)
Here you will find the recommendations dashboard and a button to access the ‘Manage’ page.
The recommendations dashboard shows which publications are recommending yours and allows you to control which recommendations are shown to your audience. It also shows which publications you have recommended and how many subscribers you have generated for them.
To change which publications you recommend and which recommendations are shown to your audience, click the ‘Manage’ button on the recommendations dashboard page.
Publication Dashboard > Recommendations (tab) > Manage (button)
You can stop Substack from including your recommendations in their digest emails, from this page too.
How to use recommendations
The best way to use recommendations is to first recommend other publications and build relationships with other creators, before asking anyone to recommend your publication.
Step 1) Recommend other publications
Choose publications that would also appeal to your ideal reader. Consult Substack’s ‘Suggested Recommendations’ list on your publications ‘Manage Recommendations’ page for ideas.
Publication Dashboard > Recommendations (tab) > Manage (button) > ‘Suggested Recommendations’ (list)
Always add a blurb saying why you are recommending. Not many writers do this, so it will help you to stand out from the crowd.
Step 2) Build relationships with other Substack writers
Interact with other writers by commenting on their posts, replying to their notes, getting involved in chats and re-stacking their posts. Avoid platitudes like “This is interesting”. Instead, write comments that add value or share your unique perspective.
Step 3) Ask for recommendations
This can feel scary. For how to do this, read on.
Step 4) Review and adjust
Set a calendar reminder to review your recommendations dashboard every few months. You can rotate recommendations, return favors to other writers who are sending you a lot of new subscribers, and write new ‘blurbs’ for your favorite writers.
Substack Recommendations Health Check
A big hello from the Substack ‘expert’ who definitely doesn’t follow her own advice when it comes to consistent, predictable posting.
How to ask for recommendations
You should have at least ten published posts and have been publishing regularly for at least a few months before you ask for recommendations. It’s hard for someone to recommend your work if your publication is very new.
Make sure the other writer already 'knows' you, as discussed above. Check that they have subscribed to your publication and (ideally) commented or replied to a post or note.
Write to them by replying to one of their emails, saying "Hey, I love what you do and recommend your publication to my readers. If you like my publication and have a moment to write a 10-word recommendation I would be really grateful.”, or something like that. Keep it brief.
If they don't respond, move on.
How to contact other creators
To get in touch with another Substack creator, add their newsletter’s subdomain in front of @substack.com to create an email address. Or, subscribe to their publication and reply to one of their emails.
Example:
My publication’s URL is pubstacksuccess.substack.com.
Its subdomain is pubstacksuccess.
My Substack email address is pubstacksuccess@substack.com
How to control recommendations on your welcome page
If you do get a recommendation, make sure it is visible on your welcome page.
Substack says “During testing, we found welcome pages with blurbs were more likely to elicit new subscribers than ones without.”
Control which recommendations are visible on your welcome page by clicking the ‘Manage Blurbs’ button on the Manage Recommendations page
Publication Dashboard > Recommendations (tab) > Manage (button) > Manage Recommendations (list/table) ‘Manage Blurbs’ (button below the Manage Recommendations list)
Best practices
Recommend at least five publications. Be genuine, only recommend publications that you actually enjoy and that you think your readers would like too.
Take the time to write one sentence about each publication you recommend. Most creators don’t bother writing a ‘blurb’ but it is incredibly valuable to the publication you are recommending (even if you are ‘a nobody’). Don’t worry too much about what you say, the first sentence that pops into your head is fine.
If you have received recommendations from other creators but they have not written a blurb, consider reaching out to them to ask if they would mind doing that for you. A blurb can be shown on your welcome page, whereas a recommendation without a blurb won’t show up there.
Be genuine and authentic when engaging with other creators so you can build trust and real relationships.
That’s it for this week. Have fun with your writing and let me know how you go.
Karen
P.S. Thank you very, very much to everyone who has recommended my publication, much appreciated.
This is indeed a distinguishing feature of Substack. However, I think it sometimes contributes to low conversion rates for subscription upgrades. A lot of us who already write on Substack and who subscribe to WAY more newsletters than we could ever pay for find it easy to click "subscribe" when a colleague recommends another newsletter. And this gives a sense of progress when we see the free subscriber count going steadily up. But my paying subscriber count has plateaued for months, despite many attempts to change my model or offer different kinds of value-added content. I hear people with 5x and 10x the free subscribers that I have saying the same. So I'm wondering if we're reaching a kind of saturation point in some quarters or genres?
I was thinking about this the other day -- when I used to write for lit mags, I had a very clear sense of my audience. Typically editors at other journals were a lot like my creative writing mentors, they had a certain sensibility, read many of the same craft books. I knew how to craft an essay in a way that they would find compelling. But I know so little about my Substack readers. Sometimes they reply my Welcome email and explain why they subscribed. But that still doesn't tell me what they'd be willing to pay for. And so I think I'm winning at attracting readers who like my sensibility, just as I was in the lit mag game, but the conversion puzzle is a different thing altogether.
Anyway, a long-winded way of suggesting a question to tackle in a future post!
Thank you for this, Karen! You have answered so many of the questions I had about this feature. I’m a newbie here on Substack so still have the training wheels on. I appreciate all you do to help us writers gain the most we can from this community. ✨🫶