Hey fam… we have a hot one today! 🔥
Last week I sat down with Armando Roggio, VP of Audience Development at Quartz, for the Audience Bridge Insights podcast.
Armando’s been around the block. Media, e-commerce, retail, and he’s even seen the inside of an ESP (he worked at ConvertKit, now Kit). So when he talks audience growth, he’s not guessing.
He’s seen it from every angle.
But the part of the conversation that stuck with me wasn’t about AI, SEO, or whatever the trend of the week is.
It was about a simple reality most media businesses ignore until it’s too late:
Deliverability is either your foundation… or your silent killer.
You can watch the entire podcast now or scroll down to get the full breakdown.
The Number That Changes Everything
Here’s the version of “growth” most publishers chase:
More subscribers
More volume
More spend
More campaigns
But here’s the version that actually moves revenue:
More engaged people seeing your emails in the inbox.
During the podcast, we talked about what happens when you stop blasting the full file and you start running a real base sending segment, meaning: you only send to people who actually open and click.
Armando shared what that looked like at Quartz:
They stopped sending to a huge portion of their list, and their total clicks didn’t drop, because those people weren’t clicking anyway.
On top of that, they saw open rates triple in some cases once they tightened the segment.
That’s the part operators don’t understand:
Your “list size” can be inflated, but your revenue KPI is driven by clickers.
The Problem Nobody’s Watching
One of the most important parts of the conversation was about visibility.
Armando explained that Quartz now monitors deliverability by top-level domain, Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc., and he checks it constantly because one day is all it takes for performance to fall off a cliff.
And here’s the line I said on the podcast that I wish more operators would tattoo on their forehead:
ESPs and ISPs show you just enough to keep you happy… so you keep sending.
Because the incentive structure is obvious:
The more you send, the more volume runs through the pipes.
So instead of getting an honest “hey, your inbox placement is slipping,” a lot of businesses just keep increasing volume… and they unknowingly make the situation worse.
That’s when things start rolling downhill.
And by the time most people catch it, they’re asking:
“Where did 100,000 engaged readers go?”
The Metric That Actually Matters
Armando laid out Quartz’s KPI clearly:
They’re optimizing for lifetime value, and the “holy grail” subscriber is someone who:
Opens
Clicks
Clicks sponsor ads
Clicks through to the site (ad revenue)
Migrates to other newsletters
In other words: a clicker, not a vanity subscriber.
And that’s why “cost per lead” is the wrong north star.
The better question is:
How long does a subscriber stay engaged, and what percentage of them become clickers?
Because if you get the same number of clicks sending to a smaller, engaged segment… you win twice:
Same monetization outcome
Better sender reputation
Better inbox placement
Better long-term scalability
Capturing the Audience Before Google Shuts Off the Spigot
We also talked about the broader media landscape in 2026.
Armando was blunt: SEO is the most fragile channel right now. It’s changing so fast that even the experts don’t have the same confidence they had in the past.
That’s why owning the audience matters.
I brought up the “what if Google shuts off the spigot tomorrow?” scenario, because it happens.
“I mean, it would have a massive impact on us, right?
Quartz still gets a meaningful amount of traffic from Google Discover and Google News, so losing that overnight would have a real impact.
But he also said something important.
If search ever dried up, the channels they would lean on the most are email and paid acquisition, because they’re the most controllable and predictable growth channels right now.
That’s where owning the audience matters.
And that’s when I brought up something we’ve implemented with Quartz.
If you’re getting organic traffic today, you should be capturing that audience before the algorithm changes tomorrow.
Armando confirmed something we’ve seen across a lot of publishers:
Smart Pixel has been one of Quartz’s top performers when you look at cost-to-revenue ratio.
Not because it captures every visitor.
But because it helps convert the right visitors into email subscribers, before you lose them to an algorithm update.
And When People Drift Away? Reactivate Them (Don’t Poison Your List)
Another key point Armando made:
When you tighten your base sending segment, you’re not “losing” those people.
You’re just removing them from daily sends so they don’t drag your reputation down.
Then you use Smart Reactivation to bring them back at the right time, at a low cost, instead of blasting them forever and hoping they magically re-engage.
It’s counterintuitive if all you care about is that top-line list number.
But in 2026, it’s the best practice if you care about staying in the inbox.
Everything We Actually Talked About
Armando and I went deep on:
Why SEO is the most fragile channel right now, and why email is having a renaissance
Why clickers and LTV matter more than list size
Why base sending segments improve performance without killing monetization
Why domain-level deliverability reporting (Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook) is non-negotiable
Why Smart Pixel is a “capture the audience before it disappears” play
Why reactivation is the missing piece that makes list hygiene work long-term
If you run a newsletter, media company, or any email-driven business, this one is worth your time.
See you next week,
Chris Miquel
PS: If you’re sending to your entire list every day and hoping the inbox figures it out… it won’t. The fastest way to fix deliverability isn’t a new ESP or new content. It’s tightening your base sending segment and protecting your engaged audience.
