Brand Substacks are starting to show real results

The RealReal was not initially tracking purchases generated by links featured in its Substack, The RealGirl. After noticing products linked in the newsletter were repeatedly selling out, the company started monitoring performance more closely. The RealReal found that its Substack has generated over $334,000 in sales. It’s one of the clearest signs yet that branded Substacks are evolving from marketing experiments into channels that can produce tangible business results.

“We started to notice that they were all selling out,” said Kristen Naiman, The RealReal’s chief creative officer, referring to product links featured in the company’s Substack. “It wasn’t meant to drive sales, but it is driving sales.”

A year ago, most fashion and beauty companies joining the platform described their newsletters as community-building tools rather than sales channels. The focus was on telling stories that didn’t fit on Instagram or TikTok. Now, some of those early adopters have numbers to show for it.

Brands of all sizes have flocked to Substack, with fashion and beauty companies leading the charge. Since 2022, the number of publications and subscriptions in the fashion and beauty category has more than doubled year over year, according to Substack. Some of the biggest brands with their own Substacks include American Eagle, Madewell and Nike. Even Shopify, the e-commerce technology company, has a Substack now. American Eagle declined to participate in this story, while Nike and Madewell did not respond to requests for comment.

Still, not every company has stuck with the experiment. Some branded newsletters have gone quiet for months at a time. American Eagle’s Substack, Off the Cuff, for instance, last published a post in March. Before that, it hadn’t posted since October. Substack itself advises Substackers, including brands, to post at least once a week. 

“Your growth is tied to your output,” Substack wrote in a blog post. “When you post, it gives existing readers a reason to share, and new readers are more likely to bump into your work.”

For brands that have continued investing in the platform, the efforts can be worth it. The RealReal has seen its audience growth accelerate alongside sales. Total views quadrupled from 58,400 a year ago to 236,000 today, the company told Modern Retail. Subscribers also grew from 3,470 to 8,281, up 138.6% year over year. In addition, the publication added roughly 8,000 followers over the past year, a 150% increase. (On Substack, subscribers receive newsletters directly in their inboxes, while followers only see posts and updates within the app.)

The RealGirl focuses on fashion, culture and editorial-style storytelling. Posts often include links to The RealReal products connected to the broader topic at hand. For instance, one recent post highlighted 25 items from the 2006 movie “The Devil Wears Prada” that readers could shop on The RealReal, timed to the theatrical release of “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” Naiman said the approach works because readers view the newsletter as useful rather than promotional.

M.M. LaFleur’s Substack play

The women’s workwear brand M.M. LaFleur moved its editorial publication, The M Dash, from WordPress to Substack 16 months ago in part because of the platform’s built-in discovery tools. The M Dash has gained 6,000 new subscribers through Substack’s internal discovery channels, according to Maria Costa, M.M.LaFleur’s director of brand and integrated marketing. The growth has helped validate the company’s decision to move its content operation onto the platform. In total, the M Dash has over 81,000 subscribers. But Costa said the biggest surprise was learning what readers actually wanted. 

Styling advice remains popular. Yet some of the newsletter’s strongest-performing stories have been personal essays about careers, ambition and professional life. One of the publication’s most successful posts came from founder Sarah LaFleur reflecting on the departure of a co-founder. It became the newsletter’s most-viewed story and generated its highest engagement rates.

“I think people really enjoyed getting under the hood there,” Costa said.

The response has helped shape M.M.LaFleur’s plans for The M Dash. M.M.LaFleur plans to publish more original photography and long-form features. The company is adding recurring columns from employees, including founder Sarah LaFleur, while developing partnerships with other Substack creators and contributors such as Mayan Silverman. Other recent collaborations have included The Laundress founder, Gwen Whiting, and a planned partnership with 831 Stories.

Costa said open rates quickly rebounded and are currently “sitting right at 50%.” She said that consistently achieving 40-50% open rates is significantly harder through traditional marketing emails.

While M.M.LaFleur views the newsletter as a revenue channel, Costa said the company does not evaluate it based on whether a single post drives a spike in sales.

“It’s not like we look at it week to week and say, ‘We ran this M Dash post, and that’s the reason we made our forecast,’” Costa said. “But it is supportive of e-commerce hitting its forecast, and we can literally see that in the numbers.” 

The company has also become more deliberate about measuring the success of partnerships. Costa said one collaboration generated strong engagement, but roughly 75% of resulting orders came from existing customers, compared to 25% from new customers. The experience showed that strong engagement doesn’t always translate into new customers.

Inside Rare Beauty’s Substack playbook

Unlike The RealReal and M.M.LaFleur, Rare Beauty says it isn’t tracking how its Substack newsletter drives sales. Instead, the company has focused on audience growth and learning what kinds of stories resonate with readers. Viewership has increased 281% over the past year, and subscribers have grown 40%, according to the company. The Selena Gomez-founded brand launched its Substack, Rare Beauty Secrets, in April of last year. The company declined to share its total subscriber count. 

“We’re not really that driven by numbers as a KPI,” said MacKenzie Kassab, Rare Beauty’s director of creative strategy. Kassab authors the Substack under the byline “Rare Insider.”

“We’re measuring our success through the DMs that we get, through the comments and through the general sentiment around it,” she added.

The company has begun experimenting more with Substack’s built-in community features. Rare Beauty maintains a publishing cadence of once a week, but Kassab said the team is increasingly using Substack features like Notes, a social feed for short-form posts, and Chat, a messaging feature that allows creators to converse directly with subscribers. Rare Beauty uses those tools to start discussions with readers and share more spontaneous updates that don’t fit into its weekly newsletter schedule. Kassab said the brand has seen a “good response” to both.

“We treat Notes and Chat as the place where, when we hear something from our community and want to start a conversation, or something interesting happens in the office that we want to share, or we come across a cool, uplifting quote, that’s where that happens,” Kassab said. 

“Brands actively engage with others through chat, notes, and comments, fostering direct conversations, understanding audience interests, and establishing a valuable feedback loop,” Christina Loff, Substack’s head of lifestyle, previously told Modern Retail in an email statement. “It’s less about pushing out content and more about creating conversations.”