Manu Cinca — Stacked Marketer, Turning Marketers' Reading Time Into an Advertising and Education Business

A specialist media business that grew to about USD 700,000 in annual revenue

Stacked Marketer, launched by Manu Cinca (real name Emanuel Cinca) in 2018, is a newsletter that condenses the news and practical information digital marketers need. It grew into a specialist media business that gathers readers with a free newsletter and earns revenue from corporate advertising spend and readers' purchases of educational content.

An April 10, 2024 Indie Bites interview introduced the business as a 'USD 700,000 ARR newsletter.' The actual 2023 revenue disclosed in the same month's Newsletter Circle interview was USD 715,000. Considering that advertising was the main revenue driver, it is more accurate to understand this case as a newsletter media business with about USD 700,000 in annual revenue at the time.

A marketer who sold other people's products starts building his own

Cinca came to the newsletter business after working as a professional poker player, in software development, and in affiliate marketing. After gaining experience in the affiliate marketing industry, he wanted a product he owned himself and could decide the direction of. In 2018, upon discovering the finance newsletter Morning Brew, he fleshed out the idea of creating a marketing-focused media outlet in a similar format.

For the first experiment, he used Google Docs and a simple subscription page. He emailed 10–15 friends for a week, then opened it to social media and communities. The initial goal was 1,000 readers and one paying sponsor; once active subscribers passed 2,000, he confirmed advertiser interest.

Initial subscribers came from existing industry connections. Recommendations from acquaintances in marketing communities helped him grow to about 500–600, and paid and free mentions from blog and email list operators pushed him past 1,000. He later used cross-promotions with other newsletters and a reader referral program, and recalled that the Facebook ads he tried early on performed poorly.

At first it targeted affiliate marketers, but in practice its audience broadened as marketers from various fields read it. At the heart of the product was editing that helped readers grasp industry changes in a short time. The company’s “newsletter read in seven minutes” promise was designed to reduce the time readers spent navigating multiple sites and social media to find information.

The writing style was also deliberately designed. Although it is a newsletter made by multiple people, it maintained a tone as if speaking to a single reader and used the identity “Crew” to mean the team. At the end, it included something light and positive so that the experience of reading professional information did not become too dry.

Scaling through advertising-driven reader acquisition and newsletter acquisitions

After it grew in scale, paid advertising became the main growth driver. At the time of the 2024 interview, about 70% of new subscribers came from paid advertising, and the key channels were Meta Ads and the newsletter recommendation network SparkLoop. Cinca focused on acquiring readers who actually open, click, respond, and purchase, rather than on sign-ups alone.

In 2023, it also used the approach of acquiring two other newsletters. One confirmed example is Psychology of Marketing, which had more than 25,000 active subscribers when it was introduced in April 2023. It acquired the newsletter created by original founder Abhishek Shah and broadened its content range into the adjacent field of consumer psychology alongside marketing news.

After expanding, it divided the roles of each product. Stacked Marketer covered industry news, Psychology of Marketing covered the psychological principles of consumer behavior, and Tactics covered marketing methods that could be applied immediately. In a 2024 reorganization, it combined these with the educational product Stacked Marketer Pro and organized them for use on a single site.

A revenue structure connecting free readers and paying advertisers

The revenue mix disclosed in April 2023 was about 90% sponsorship and about 10% membership. The model was to secure a professional readership with free information and then sell advertising to companies seeking to reach them. Rather than acquiring paid subscribers in large numbers, the priority was to gather readers likely to purchase marketing tools and services.

In advertising sales, it emphasizes readers’ job roles and purchasing authority. Official advertising materials state that about 70% of readers are at manager level or above, and 79% are final purchase decision-makers or have strong influence. For advertisers, the value was access to practitioners who execute related budgets, and the company cites Mailchimp, Semrush, Salesforce, HubSpot, and others as examples of advertising collaborations.

Advertising products were also segmented by placement and purpose. The primary sponsor receives a header logo and an approximately 150-word native ad, while shorter secondary ads or brief sponsor mentions are also sold. It even offers dedicated emails featuring only one advertiser, accommodating different needs such as brand awareness and lead generation.

Paid education is the second revenue stream sold directly to readers. Stacked Marketer Pro bundles courses and in-depth content on copywriting, Google Ads, Meta Ads, email marketing, and more into a single membership. It is a connected structure that sells education to readers who want to learn more deeply about and solve the problems they encounter in the newsletter, and a 2024 overhaul significantly improved the learning platform and user experience.

Operations Backed by a 15-Person Team and External Investment

In a 2024 Newsletter Circle interview, Stacked Marketer was described as a business involving 15 people. In addition to newsletter production and ad sales, operating the website and membership services was necessary, and technology partner Refact improved the process of moving content from editorial tools to the site and email platform. An operational system that reduced repetitive manual work and publishing errors also became part of the product.

In October 2023, it raised EUR 250,000 at a pre-money valuation of EUR 3 million. Manu Cinca explained that the funds were used to accelerate the execution of long-term plans. The money was allocated to improving the website and user experience, content production, and advertising campaigns, while also leaving reserve funds for additional acquisition opportunities.

The practice of disclosing financial and operational information was also used in the business. The annual report included not only revenue and profit but also content performance and advertising-related information, and Cinca said the report built trust with readers and advertisers. He explained that during fundraising, too, it was easier to start conversations because the other party already knew the company's performance and operating methods.

Profitability and Reader Quality Matter More Than Subscriber Numbers

As the scale of acquiring readers through paid channels grew, fake signups and measurement errors emerged as operational challenges. Refact said it had actually implemented tools to prevent bot attacks and fraudulent signups. Cinca also emphasized filtering out automatically recorded email opens and bot clicks and cleaning up unresponsive subscribers.

The January 2025 Creator in Public year-by-year recap covering follow-up performance presented 2024 revenue as USD 517,500 and reported that the company cut staff and costs amid rising reader acquisition costs and limited advertising demand. This figure is based on a secondary source that reworked the annual report. As checked in October 2026, the official report's original URL redirected to the homepage, so it could not be directly compared with the original; therefore, its level of evidence needs to be distinguished from the revenue figure confirmed in the 2024 interview.

The official site, checked on October 5, 2026, shows that it continues to run three newsletters. The main newsletter is listed as publishing on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while Psychology of Marketing publishes on Thursday and Tactics on Saturday. Tactics' current focus is actionable AI uses, and its publishing frequency and topics are also changing.

The notable decision in this case was that it validated from the start both why readers would read and why advertisers would pay. The later expansion led to a phase of simultaneously managing not only editorial quality but also audience acquisition costs, ad sales, educational products, and team operations. Stacked Marketer shows both the process by which a small email experiment develops into a professional media company and the accompanying growing operational burden.