2 builders who never spoke to each other · contested
Tell the list plainly how the business makes money
Readers who understand where the revenue comes from act to protect it, and explaining a change to the list rather than making it silently keeps the trust that the list is built on. The members disagree about measurement: one author dropped open tracking entirely and judges the list by replies, another keeps clicks and opens while stripping everything else.
What both sides agree on
- Tell your readers plainly how your business actually earns money and they will act to support it
Where this splits
One author switched off the tracking pixel and measures replies instead, while another argues clickable links and open tracking should be kept even in a stripped-back email.
2 claims against 1
Paul Jarvis
Drop the tracking pixel and count replies instead
- 01Announce a change like that to the list itself, admit you cannot predict what it will cost you, and name the companies that did it before you.
- 02Switch off the tracking pixel in your newsletter and judge the list by the replies it produces instead of open rates.
Keep open and click tracking in the email
This is not an argument for plain text: keep clickable links, bold and italics, and open and click tracking
What it returned
- 2020
Alexandra Jimenez explained to her newsletter how her affiliate links worked when travel collapsed in 2020; the business grew beyond its previous peak and kept all ten staff employed
- 1
His 1 March 2020 newsletter told subscribers he would never again know who opened his mail, cited Basecamp removing pixels from its own newsletters, and said the loss of the data was worth it.
Paul Jarvis disabled the pixel across Mailchimp campaigns and automations and confirmed with their support that it had gone; he had only used opens to pick topics and treats replies from readers as the metric that counts.
Sources
- The Audience Shortcut: How the Right People Paying Attention Changes EverythingNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Case Study #4: From Business Crash to Record Growth · 2025-07-01 · dissenting
- Why beautiful email templates hurt your businessNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Not plain text · 2013-05-06 · dissenting
- No more spy pixels - Fathom AnalyticsPaul Jarvis · usefathom.com · No more spy pixels · 2020-03-01
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in email
- Move the audience you rent onto a list you own7 unconnected
- Hold the schedule you promised to hold5 unconnected
- Decide whether cold email is worth what it signals5 unconnected · contested
- Settle who the publication is for before growing it5 unconnected
- Open the list before the product is real4 unconnected
- Send each subscriber the thing they told you they want4 unconnected