Sales & Conversion
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
OK, so here's the thing about email list growth. After working with dozens of clients across SaaS and ecommerce, I've watched businesses burn through thousands trying to grow their lists the "right" way.
You know the drill: create a lead magnet, set up a landing page, run ads, hope for the best. Then wonder why you're getting 200 signups a month instead of 2,000.
The uncomfortable truth? Most email list growth advice is written by people who've never actually built an email list from scratch. They're recycling the same "download our free ebook" playbook that worked in 2018.
What I discovered through real client work is that the fastest list growth doesn't come from better tools—it comes from breaking the conventional rules about how email capture is supposed to work. I'm talking about strategies that generated 200+ collection pages across multiple touchpoints instead of one generic "newsletter signup."
In this playbook, you'll learn:
Why single lead magnets are killing your growth potential
The collection page strategy that generated thousands of targeted subscribers
How to automate personalized email sequences at scale using AI
Cross-industry tactics that work for both B2B and ecommerce
Tools that actually move the needle (spoiler: it's not what you think)
Industry Context
What every marketer thinks they know about list building
Walk into any marketing conference or scroll through any growth blog, and you'll hear the same advice repeated like gospel:
Create one irresistible lead magnet - Usually a PDF guide or checklist
Build a dedicated landing page - Minimal distractions, single CTA
Drive traffic through paid ads - Facebook, Google, LinkedIn
Optimize conversion rates - A/B test headlines and button colors
Nurture with email sequences - 7-part welcome series
This advice exists because it does work—in controlled environments with unlimited ad budgets. The problem is most businesses don't have unlimited budgets, and they're competing against thousands of other companies using the exact same playbook.
Here's where conventional wisdom falls short: it treats email capture like a single conversion event instead of an ongoing relationship-building system. You end up with one point of failure (your lead magnet) and one type of subscriber (people who download free stuff).
The result? You attract freebie-seekers instead of qualified prospects. Your list grows slowly, your engagement drops, and you wonder why email marketing "doesn't work" for your business.
What's missing is a systematic approach that creates multiple entry points for different audience segments at different stages of awareness.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
This realization hit me hard when I was working on ecommerce projects. I had this client—a Shopify store with over 200 collection pages getting organic traffic. Each page was bringing in visitors interested in specific product categories, but we were doing nothing to capture emails.
The traditional approach would have been to slap a generic "Get 10% off" popup across all pages. You know, the one everyone immediately closes without reading.
But here's what bothered me: someone browsing vintage leather bags has completely different interests than someone looking at minimalist wallets. Yet we were treating them like the same person with the same generic lead magnet.
That's when I realized we were leaving money on the table. Every visitor who wasn't ready to buy was simply bouncing. No email capture, no relationship building, nothing.
The challenge was scale. Creating 200+ unique email sequences manually would have taken months. My client needed something that worked across their entire catalog without requiring a full-time team to manage.
I'd seen this same problem in B2B contexts too. SaaS companies with multiple use cases, agencies with different service offerings—everyone was using one-size-fits-all lead magnets when their audiences had completely different needs and pain points.
The breakthrough came when I stopped thinking about email capture as a single conversion point and started thinking about it as a personalized system that could scale automatically.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of one lead magnet, I built a system that created 200+ personalized lead magnets, each tailored to specific visitor interests. Here's exactly how I did it:
Step 1: Content Mapping
First, I analyzed each collection page to understand what visitors were actually looking for. Instead of guessing, I used the page content and product categories to identify specific interests and pain points.
Step 2: AI-Powered Personalization
Then I built an AI workflow that automatically generated contextually relevant lead magnets for each collection. Someone browsing vintage leather bags would see "The Ultimate Guide to Caring for Vintage Leather," while wallet shoppers got "Minimalist Wallet Organization Tips."
Step 3: Automated Email Sequences
Each lead magnet triggered a personalized email sequence. Not generic "welcome to our newsletter" emails, but content specifically relevant to what they were interested in when they signed up.
Step 4: Segmentation from Day One
This approach automatically segmented subscribers based on their actual interests, not demographic guesses. I knew exactly which products they cared about before they ever made a purchase.
The key insight was treating each page as its own micro-funnel rather than driving everything to a single conversion point. Every collection page became a lead generation opportunity tailored to that specific audience segment.
For implementation, I used a combination of AI content generation tools and automation platforms to handle the scale. The entire system ran automatically—when a new product collection was added, the AI would generate an appropriate lead magnet and email sequence.
This wasn't just about tools though. The real breakthrough was the mindset shift from "one perfect lead magnet" to "many relevant touchpoints." Instead of interrupting the browsing experience, we enhanced it by offering genuinely useful content related to what people were already interested in.
Technical Setup
AI workflow generated 200+ unique lead magnets automatically based on page context and visitor interests
Segmentation Strategy
Subscribers were categorized by specific interests from day one instead of generic demographics
Content Relevance
Each email sequence matched the exact topic that drove the initial signup for higher engagement
Scale Solution
System automatically created new funnels when new product categories were added
The transformation was immediate and measurable. Instead of one generic email list growing slowly, we had multiple targeted segments growing simultaneously.
List growth accelerated dramatically because we were capturing people at multiple touchpoints throughout their browsing journey. More importantly, these weren't random subscribers—they were pre-qualified leads who had already shown interest in specific product categories.
Engagement rates improved significantly because every email was relevant to the subscriber's demonstrated interests. When someone who downloaded the vintage leather care guide received emails about leather maintenance, they actually opened and clicked through.
The automated segmentation meant we could send highly targeted product recommendations and promotions. Instead of blasting the same sale announcement to everyone, we could promote relevant items to people who had already shown interest in those categories.
From a business perspective, this approach turned email capture from a cost center into a revenue driver. Every new collection page became an additional lead generation opportunity without requiring manual setup or ongoing management.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here's what this experience taught me about email list growth that goes against conventional wisdom:
Multiple weak funnels beat one strong funnel - Instead of perfecting one lead magnet, create many contextual ones
Context matters more than incentives - Relevant content works better than generic discounts
Segmentation should happen at signup - Don't wait to learn about subscriber interests
Automation enables personalization at scale - Use AI to create what humans can't manage manually
Every page is a potential entry point - Stop thinking about your homepage as the only conversion opportunity
Tools follow strategy, not the other way around - Figure out what you want to achieve before choosing platforms
Generic growth advice doesn't work - Your audience and business model require custom approaches
If I were starting over, I'd focus even more on understanding visitor intent before building any capture mechanisms. The data from user behavior tells you exactly what kind of content will resonate.
The biggest mistake I see is businesses trying to implement tactics without understanding the underlying strategy. Tools like Klaviyo or ConvertKit are powerful, but they're just infrastructure. The real growth comes from the system you build on top of them.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies, apply this by creating lead magnets for each use case or customer segment. Instead of "Download our product guide," offer "Automation templates for marketing teams" or "Onboarding checklists for customer success." Each segment gets relevant content and targeted follow-up sequences.
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores, leverage your product categories and collection pages. Create specific guides, care instructions, or style tips for each product type. Someone browsing skincare gets skincare tips, not generic "beauty advice." This approach works especially well for stores with diverse catalogs.