I Got Jon Dykstra and Scott DeLong’s Million Dollar Newsletter Playbook — Here’s What Like and Don’t Like About It

6 min readFeb 27, 2024

So there’s quite a bit of buzz circulating about Scott DeLong’s Million Dollar Newsletter Playbook.

I’m always looking new ways to boost my website traffic, so this course caught my eye.

Google is one of my favorite traffic sources, but recently, they’ve been stingy with rankings and traffic for smaller publishers like myself.

This means I’ve had to diversify my traffic generation strategies.

So far, Pinterest and Google Discover are performing decently for me. However, it still doesn’t compensate for the Google traffic I’ve lost.

A friend recently mentioned that daily newsletters are helping him counter his own Google traffic decline. He sends two newsletters a day to the same audience…

And surprisingly, his readers love it.

They click his email links, get directed to his ad-supported site, and he generates revenue. He’s pulling in over 200,000 monthly visitors just from his newsletter.

Intrigued, I asked him where he learned to do this, and he credited Scott DeLong — a guy known for making millions through simple newsletters. He’s built this strategy successfully on multiple sites, proving it’s a repeatable system.

Naturally, when I found out Scott launched a course teaching his exact newsletter money-making method, I jumped on it. This was my chance to give newsletters another shot.

A decade ago, I attempted a niche-site newsletter, and it tanked spectacularly. I lost a ton of money on writers and hefty monthly MailChimp bills. Despite having 250,000+ email subscribers, I couldn’t make it profitable. Discouraged, I shelved the whole newsletter idea.

Now, armed with Scott’s course, I completely understand why my initial attempt failed. Here are the 4 top reasons:

Reason #1: I attracted the wrong people to my newsletter.
Reason #2: The way I got people to sign up was ineffective.
Reason #3: My email content was not a good fit for its medium.

Let’s not forget:

Reason #4: I tried to wing it rather than learn from an experienced guide.

Scott’s course helped me identify how to tackle each of the challenges associated with a successful newsletter. Some of the things it covers are:

Identifying the ideal niche or audience.
Effective strategies to gain email subscribers.
Creating compelling email content and coming up with topics easily.
Maximizing each email’s profit potential.

The most transformative part of the course was the section on content creation. It revealed a huge blind spot in my previous approach… I was sending my 250,000 subscribers links to content that just wasn’t engaging for them.

See, I was focused on creating content optimized for Google search — meeting the needs of people looking for specific answers. That doesn’t necessarily mean that same content is what they want in their inbox on a regular basis.

Scott’s course taught me how to craft content people want to read daily.

You need to find your niche, give readers content that sparks curiosity, inspires or entertains them, and most importantly, ties back into their interests and passions.

Scott does a fantastic job outlining the course, guiding you through finding your audience, gaining subscribers, and delivering the content they crave. Additionally, he provides insights on leveraging ChatGPT to streamline your content creation process.

So, you’re probably wondering, “Is this course the right fit for me?”

This course is for you if:

You’re passionate about a topic that others share (think makeup, football, crafting, recipes, etc.)
You can invest a minimum of $5/day for Facebook ads to attract subscribers (Scott provides detailed guidance).
You want to reduce your reliance on ever-changing Google algorithms for traffic.

This course MAY NOT be for you if:

Your site primarily answers one-off, infrequent search queries (e.g., lawnmower repairs, credit card comparisons, etc.)
You lack an hour per day (for two weeks) to dedicate to the course and implement its lessons.

What I like about the course

I thought I’d go through and share my favorite part of each module:

Module 1: “The Entire Playbook At A Glance” — This is great for getting a quick overview that provides the foundation for the rest of the course.
Module 2: “Monetize Your Mind and Passion” — I love Scott’s framing here. He shows how to match your interests with audience interests to serve them effectively. Even if you’re unenthusiastic about the topic itself, Scott teaches how to leverage ChatGPT for assistance.
Module 3: “Create a Facebook Ad Your Entire Business Is Built On” — This was mind-blowing. The idea of promoting a free newsletter with Facebook ads to drive profit is something I’d never considered. He cracked the code on creating the perfect lead magnet to attract eager subscribers.
Module 4: “5 Ways to Monetize (And Why The Future Is Bright)” — I skimmed this one as I’ll stick with my current ad model for now but might revisit later. The ad layout template bonus is valuable if you’re placing ads on your site.
Module 5: “How the Power of Compounding Will Explode Your Growth” — He started with a spreadsheet (and shared it!), which speaks to my numbers-loving side. He breaks down the math on newsletter profitability, something I lacked in my first attempt.
Module 6: “9 Golden Rules of Running Your Newsletter” — These are the wisdom nuggets only experience can provide. I’ll keep this module close as a reminder to help me stay on course.

One of my favorite aspects of this course is how Scott builds a real newsletter, right before your eyes, as an example. This step-by-step demonstration, born of necessity, made the process crystal clear.

What I Don’t Like About The Course

As great as the course is, there are a few things I didn’t care for. They wouldn’t stop me from getting it in hindsight, but I thought you should at least be aware:

I wish there were more example newsletters. Scott walks us through a real site he created for a newsletter, but more examples are helpful. But as a course creator, I recognize this is much more work.
It’s hard to pull off for people who don’t use LLMs like ChatGPT or have a lot of time to create content themselves or money to outsource it.
I wish he had more examples of different types of lead magnets.
No student testimonials (it’s a new course, so I understand)

Course FAQs

I had the opportunity to ask the course creator some questions that were on my mind. Here’s what I asked, and his answers:

Isn’t daily emailing going to annoy readers?

Not if you’ve got the right audience and content they actually care about. Think about it — you probably receive daily emails from brands you like (my wife gets them from Old Navy all the time). She may not read every single one, but the subscription stays active because sometimes those emails pique her interest with deals or new styles (and also trigger spending alert emails from the bank to me, haha).

How does this model actually generate revenue?

The core idea is sending links to articles on your website, where you display ads. There’s also the emerging potential of email-specific ads. Further down the line, a digital product or course, tailored to your audience, can potentially bring in even more than advertising revenue.

How can I keep up with the demand for daily content?

You can either dedicate serious time to writing, or adopt the approach Scott and I use — leveraging AI for assistance. Another strategy is repurposing popular content from Facebook, adding your own commentary or unique perspective. Scott covers lots of content creation methods, so this is no longer a huge concern for me. It’s streamlined enough that a VA can handle it.

What about the timeframe for seeing returns?

Realistically, it takes time. The speed is largely determined by how much you invest in Facebook ads to build your subscriber list. For ad revenue to become significant, you’ll ideally be sending at least 500 daily visitors from your newsletter to your site. With dedicated effort, you could recoup your course costs within 2–6 months. Scott provides a detailed financial breakdown in Module 5 to help you set realistic expectations based on your budget.

Final Verdict:

If you’re looking to diversify your site’s traffic and revenue sources, then I recommend you get Scott’s course.

Just a heads up — enrollment closes on Sunday, March 3rd, 2024, at midnight.

P.S. The links to Scott’s course are my affiliate links, which means I’ll earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. If you’re skeptical of my review — I honestly recommend this course no matter what, so feel free to get it without my affiliate link here. But if you appreciated my honest and thorough review, you can get it through my affiliate link here.