Working in close collaboration with senior editors, this was the process we followed: By following real-time analytics, we curated four top stories from the day’s six to ten that were already published. These stories provided the backbone of the newsletter, with an additional emphasis on gear reviews and latest news. The story most likely to succeed in terms of inbound traffic would be promoted in the subject line, but placed in the lower part of the newsletter, encouraging readers to browse other stories before clicking through to that which was featured. (However, no one likes to have to hunt for the content they want, so the newsletter was designed to be heavy on visuals and allow for quick scrolling. In other words, the point of the newsletter wasn’t for readers to stay there — it was used as an invitation to explore their interests in full on the website.)

The newsletter regularly enjoyed average click rates of around 20%, reaching up to 50% during high news days or during Tour de France coverage.