The Rebooting Show How TechCrunch rebuilt its email strategy
12 snips
Oct 29, 2025 
Matt Gross, VP of Digital Initiatives at Regent, and Tyler Denk, CEO of Beehiiv, discuss TechCrunch's major email strategy overhaul. They dive into the challenges of upgrading outdated tech infrastructure and how they reframed newsletters from mere traffic drivers to vital editorial assets. Topics include the importance of building an email-first CMS, practical tactics for audience growth, and balancing comprehensive reporting with personality-driven content. They also share insights on modern acquisition methods and the future of email in publishing.
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Morning Brew's Homegrown Email Stack
- Tyler built a custom CMS and ad/referral systems at Morning Brew because off-the-shelf tools were built for web, not email.
- That bespoke stack let Morning Brew scale quickly and publish email and web simultaneously.
Define Email's Core Job
- Email can be either a traffic driver or a standalone inbox product and publishers must decide which job they want it to do.
- TechCrunch sorted emails into traffic-driving and inbox-read products before choosing platforms and workflows.
Hybrid Curation Plus Personalization
- Combine editorial curation with personalization: editors pin key stories while the platform personalizes the middle slots.
- This hybrid saves editor time and improves relevance at scale.