Newsletters have become one of the most important distribution channels for publishers. They are where loyalty is built, habits are formed, and editorial voice reaches readers directly, without the filter of algorithms or platforms. Despite their importance, the tooling behind them hasnʼt kept up.
Newsletters still live in a fragile middle ground between the Content Management System (CMS) and the Email Service Provider (ESP). And that middle ground is where things break.
- Newsletters aren’t a core function of most CMSs. Arc XP excels at publishing to web and apps through its Content API and PageBuilder, and its extensibility allows additional layers to package that same content into consistent, high-quality email products.
- ESPs are built for marketing campaigns, not editorial. They think in terms of triggers, segments, and funnels. Not curated products with voice, tone, and habit.
The result is that publishers end up duct-taping the two together with RSS feeds, copy-pasting, and inconsistent templates. Each workaround adds another layer of fragility, and more room for error.
From a technical perspective, this creates a long list of pain points:
- Integration overhead: every additional API, cron job, or pipeline increases maintenance costs.
- Workflow friction: editors depend on developers to debug templates or tweak layouts instead of staying in flow.
- Inconsistent output: no single templating system means every newsletter varies, breaks differently, and requires rework.
- Scattered data: engagement data is trapped in ESP dashboards, disconnected from the rest of the stack.
Newsletters end up being both editorially weak and technically fragile. Not because teams donʼt care, but because the infrastructure itself was never designed for them.
Principles of a proper solution
From what weʼve seen across stacks, solving newsletters means building a system that follows a few key principles:
- Editors should work where their stories already live. Moving away from their primary CMS invites frustrations, additional training, and breaks the flow.
- Templates should be consistent but flexible — a unified engine that ensures stable rendering across clients, while still allowing flexible formats (briefs, digests, long-reads).
- Let editors own the tone of voice — room for commentary and curated selection, not just automated content blocks set once and forgotten.
- Experimentation built in — A/B testing on subject lines, comments or intros without relying on hacks.
- Native ad integration — email specific ad slots with reliable placement.
- Audience intelligence — not just opens and clicks, but loyalty, repeat reads, and habit formation.
The interoperability challenge
Even with the right principles, thereʼs a deeper challenge: interoperability. Newsletters sit at the crossroads of three systems:
- CMS — manages content, links, and the editorial workflow at scale
- ESP / Paywall systems — segment audiences into paying, trial, and free users
- Ad platforms — serve and track monetisation units
The issue is that none of these were designed to work together around newsletters.
- CMSs donʼt natively handle templated editions.
- ESPs think in triggers, funnels, and segments, not editorial cadence.
- Ad platforms expect web or app inventory, not email-native placements.
This leaves developers to build and maintain custom glue: API bridges, RSS feeds, export/import workflows. Every extra link in the chain increases fragility and cost.
The missing piece is a newsletter-native layer that integrates cleanly with all three, without the duct tape.
Why developers and editors both care
For developers:
- Fewer systems to maintain
- No fragile sync jobs between CMS, ESP, and ads
- Cleaner architecture, easier debugging, lower cost
For editors:
- They stay inside the CMS workflow
- They spend time curating, not wrestling with templates
- Their newsletters feel authored, not assembled
This is not just about making newsletters easier. It’s about extending Arc XP’s unified platform approach to cover the complete publishing workflow.
Closing: treat newsletters as first-class products
For many readers, the newsletter isnʼt just another channel; it is the brand. Itʼs the first touchpoint each morning, the daily habit that builds loyalty.
That means newsletters canʼt be treated as afterthoughts bolted onto marketing stacks. They need to be treated like first-class products: curated by editors, supported by the right technology, and fully integrated into the publishing stack.
The duct-taped model is breaking. Both editors and developers feel the pain. A newsletter-native layer is how you turn the inbox from a fragile workflow into a flagship product.
d.labsʼs view: editorial channels need editorial tools
Over the past several months, we researched and interviewed many Arc XP publishers. The feedback was consistent: workflows were broken, integrations piled up, copy-paste hacks became routine, and there was no editorial-first system to rely on. Those insights directly shaped Embrin — our purpose-built Editorial Studio for Arc XP to solve exactly those problems.
- A newsletter-native layer that sits inside Arc XP
- No RSS hacks, no copy-paste exports
- A unified templating engine, built-in A/B testing, native ad slots
- Seamless interoperability with CMS, ESP, and paywall systems
Built natively into Arc XP, Embrin syncs directly with Composer and WebSked so that editors can go from story selection to polished newsletter in minutes.
For developers, that means less integration overhead, fewer points of failure, and a cleaner architecture.
For editors, it means staying in flow, owning their product, and spending time curating instead of fighting tools.
Newsletters deserve the same attention as the homepage or the flagship app you already built. With Embrin, they finally have the infrastructure to match.
