Does the size of my town change what Meta ads cost for a newsletter?

I ran the exact same ad, everything held constant, in two Texas towns. It cost consistently less in Round Rock than in Leander. I put the difference down to population.

That pattern has held through the 20-plus brands I've launched: the bigger the area, the cheaper the ads. The smaller the area, the relatively more expensive it gets.

What size market works best?

"Most of my brands are usually two to four hundred thousand total, max. A county of 330, 340 is actually a really good size for this kind of thing. Not too big, not too small."

One regional publisher's target county had about 237,000 people, and I called that an ideal size for $20 to $25 a day plus a $5 test campaign. Very small areas are expensive to target because the audience is so limited. Huge metros are outside most of my experience.

I usually launch in the big suburbs. Big cities have too much competition. In the big suburbs, there's almost none.

What do the numbers look like by market?

Here's one real snapshot. I launched six newsletters at the same time, spending about $300 a day across the six, roughly $15,000 on growth so far at that point. Facebook was reporting:

Market	Cost per subscriber
Omaha	$0.28
A big Arizona suburb	$0.32
Sioux Falls	$0.35
A large Southern California city	$0.56
A small, expensive coastal California town	$0.71

The order lines up almost perfectly with population and wealth. In an earlier snapshot of the same launches, the wealthiest market cost the most and the less wealthy markets were much cheaper. That small coastal town was also growing the slowest, because it's small and expensive.

Across my other markets, mainstream areas usually run under 70 cents, around 50. Smaller, wealthier areas run 75 cents, some up to $1. In some areas it's hard to even get 60 to 70 cents, and rural is likely higher. One caveat on all of it: Facebook's numbers and Beehiiv's sometimes don't match.

Does the cost change as the list grows?

Yes, it always goes up. Don't get too excited by launch numbers and expect them forever. Across 18 local brands, I added about 140,000 subscribers in 12 months, all from Meta ads. My rough rule of thumb:

List size	Typical cost per subscriber
First 2,500	$0.20 to $0.30
Up to about 5,000	$0.30 to $0.40
7,000 to 9,000	$0.40 to $0.60

Bigger areas hold the low range longer. Some of my brands covering bigger suburbs were still in that $0.40 to $0.60 range at about 14,000 subscribers.

For a newly launched market, I expect it to inch up to 50 cents, then 75. Then you try some different things, it goes down for a bit, and it goes back up. Usually I should be able to stay under a dollar to get close to 10,000 subscribers. Each market varies. There are a lot of variables.

Is the cheap market winning because of better content?

No. When one newsletter in a group I coach posts the lowest cost per subscriber, it's market size and demographics, often a big upper-middle-class suburb of a large metro. Two others in that group served populations about a third the size, and they cost more.

Someone deciding whether to subscribe can't see your content quality yet. Nobody knows it until after they subscribe. It can't be what makes the ad cheap.

One client in a large Canadian suburban market produced some of the best numbers I've ever had. My guess is that Canadians don't get as much of this kind of thing, so it's more novel there, and it's also a really big location.

What if my market is small?

Know the trade-off going in. Smaller communities are much better for engagement but much worse for financials, at least on Meta ads. My best-performing brand is my biggest area.

• Spend less. Start at $20 a day main plus $5 test and creep up a dollar or two at a time.
• Expect a higher cost per subscriber and plan the business around it.
• Expect to burn through creative faster. A guest on my podcast warned that a small area burns out the audience quickly.

It still works. It just costs more per head. Location setup is in how to set up location targeting.