How The DONUT Decimated Newsletter Admin
Sponsy’s seamless migration, no questions asked reporting, and advanced integrations and automations help lean teams scale with ease.
Joe Sharkey
Director of Subscriber Growth @ The DONUT
J.P. Carroll
Director of Sponsor Experience @ The DONUT
- Happy advertisers
- 500+
- Publications managed
- 3
- Average time saved per ad operation
- 20 minutes
The DONUT has been delivering fast, impartial news that’s enjoyable to read since 2019. Established in response to the media industry’s often dense and negative approach to communicating the latest events around the world, the DONUT transforms what was once a time-consuming and anxiety-ridden chore into a jargon-free guilty pleasure.
The result? A free newsletter that reaches nearly 154,000+ subscribers every week, thanks to informative and interesting articles that ensure readers are always the most interesting people in the room - whether at work or play.
Building on this success, the team behind the DONUT launched a second positivity-focused newsletter and an SMS channel that keeps its Gen Z and younger Millennial audience informed with bite-size news via their phones.
Sprawling spreadsheets
While sponsorship and advertising play a crucial role in the brand’s current and future success, managing this aspect was increasingly challenging for Joe Sharkey, the DONUT’s Director of Subscriber Growth.
For Joe and his team, vigilance was key:
“Bogged down”
Tracking this information within the spreadsheet wasn’t easy, according to Joe’s colleague JP who looks after day-to-day administration of the “extremely cumbersome” spreadsheet.
Above all else, JP found his lack of confidence in the spreadsheet’s capabilities “very stressful” explaining:
Why the DONUT partnered with Sponsy
That’s when Joe and JP discovered Sponsy, the platform streamlining ad operations for media companies.
Designed to enable lean teams to scale with efficiency, Sponsy allows publishers to manage sponsorships across a range of channels, such as newsletters, podcasts, social media and in the DONUT’s case SMS. Sponsy’s powerful capabilities track and manage team efforts from booking ad space right through to post-campaign reporting.
Competitor comparison: Passionfroot
To ensure the best fit for the DONUT, Joe and JP benchmarked Sponsy against vendors such as Passionfroot.
“Seamless” migration
Moving the DONUT’s operations to Sponsy was “super straightforward and simple”, according to Joe.
As Sponsy has expanded, Joe’s found it “super easy” to continue, thanks to its ongoing customer focus. He explains:
Advanced automations
The team at the DONUT make good use of Sponsy’s automations. Designed to power up team workflows, a range of automations are available: from sending reminders and updating statuses to maximizing inventory and reporting performance.
And where automations don’t exist? As the DONUT discovered, Sponsy is always ready to help.
“No questions” reporting
One of JP’s favorite Sponsy features is the reports page for its ability to provide him with a single source of truth, which, in turn, significantly speeds up his work.
He finds it “fantastic” to work with on a day-to-day basis compared to how things used to be. He recalls:
Time-saving integrations
Sponsy integrates easily with leading platforms to ensure media organizations don’t need to get “bogged down” in repetitive or mundane tasks, such as checking ad performance.
The DONUT utilizes the ESP integration with Campaign Monitor. This enables Joe, JP and the team to view ad performance in just one click with Sponsy.
Better still, Sponsy makes it possible for media organizations to automatically share this information with sponsors - reducing the need for the copying, pasting, and email sending previously required.
Results
Since migrating to Sponsy, operations at the DONUT continue to scale upwards with developments including:
- Increased booking confidence
- Less risk of costly booking errors
- Quicker administration (from 20 mins to mere seconds)
- Planning and strategizing for two additional publications
“We were back in the stone age and now we’re in the 21st century - whizzing around with a high level of confidence,” enthuses Joe. “Sponsy ticks so many boxes for us - allowing us to think about so many other things with our business.”
Above all else, introducing Sponsy ensures Joe and his team at the DONUT, as well as its valued sponsors benefit from complete accountability.
“And that makes it easy for us to recommend it to media companies - especially those with multiple publications,” continues Joe. “Sponsy provides a clear snapshot of anything and everything going on within your publications - letting you make sure things are on track.”
As well as allowing Joe and his team to assess trends and decide whether they’re moving in the right direction, it also allows the DONUT team to study sponsorship performance - including potential gaps for new sponsors.
The director concludes:
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40+
The average number of hours per week saved with Sponsy
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