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Substack’s influencer marketing era has arrived

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Sydney Bradley

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Substack isn't just for writers anymore. It's also for influencer marketers.

The newsletter platform has become an increasingly important social media tool for brands looking to find creators to work with and to reach potential customers.

"Substack is one of the most exciting channels out there right now," said Anna Doré, Rothy's vice president of brand and communications. Doré is featured in Business Insider's 2026 list of 14 innovative influencer marketers.

Before influencers, there were magazines and blogs. Substack, where people can write — while also sharing visual content like photos and videos — marries the media's past with its present.

Rothy's, known for its comfortable, washable flats, is doubling down on the platform.

"In this AI-driven algorithm world where we're all being served the same content on the feed, we more than ever are going to be looking to great tastemakers," Doré said. "We're looking for the gatekeepers to tell us what we should care about in this world."

Here are 5 examples of how Rothy's has leveraged Substack in its marketing:

• Emily Sundberg, who writes the popular business newsletter Feed Me, shared on her Substack that she stashed a pair of Rothy's flats on her wedding day. Rothy's later partnered with Sundberg on sponsoring a pizza party for Feed Me's readers.
• Erika Veurink, who writes the fashion newsletter Long Live, wrote an article for New York Magazine featuring Rothy's shoes that went viral. Rothy's later reached out, inking a long-term relationship with the writer that resulted in a vintage pop-up experience for Veurink's readers at a Rothy's location in New York City — drawing in over 200 people and increasing the store's foot traffic by 75% that day.
• Denna Nazem had mentioned Rothy's in her travel-focused newsletter, Strictly the Good Stuff. Spotting this, Rothy's reached out and later worked with Nazem on an IRL event around the launch of a new Rothy's collection at Nordstrom. Doré said that Nordstrom followed in Rothy's footsteps and later partnered with Nazem again after seeing the results.
• To promote Rothy's 10th anniversary, the brand partnered with five Substack creators — including Veurink and others like Hunter Harris, Rose Anderson, Noora Raj Brown, and Plum Sykes — to write essays about their own personal growth.
• Rothy's also launched its own Substack. It isn't busy blogging, but the brand does repost its influencer partners frequently to Substack's Notes feed.

"People follow these Substack writers because they are in the know," Doré said.

It's not only Rothy's dabbling with Substack.

Sophia Sesto, Poppi's vice president of culture, has been eyeing the platform as a tool for strategically partnering with creators. Substack has replaced the blog for some creators and is where they share more personal anecdotes for their most loyal followers. That helps Poppi plan future collaborations, Sesto said.

"You can know more about the creators you're working with," she said, such as learning that they love to travel to a destination every year, and then coordinate a Poppi bar for that trip — planting the brand into that creator's content.

Other brands are looking to Substack as a channel for their own content. The Knot Worldwide, which owns several wedding planning platforms, is "bullish" on expanding into Substack, said Kiara Kempski, the company's vice president of global consumer marketing.

"We're actually starting up our own Substack from The Knot," Kempski said. "Our editors are moving over there and creating owned content for us and building that out."

Substack welcomes influencer marketing

Several brands have taken the same leap and launched their own Substack publications, such as Rare Beauty, The RealReal, Tory Burch, and even the dating app Hinge.

Substack has its arms wide open. Bring on the brands!

Substack cofounder Chris Best announced in June that the company was launching a native brand sponsorship program, highlighting work already underway on the platform, such as Sundberg's partnership with Hinge.

This week, the platform is expanding the program to introduce new sponsorship formats. One option would allow brands to gift a one-month subscription, giving readers access to a writer's content behind the paywall. Another option is for brands to sponsor a creator's single post, making it free for anyone to read.

Brands can "earn real standing instead of shouting through feeds and swipes," Dan Robbins, who joined Substack as head of brand sponsorships this year, wrote in a blog post on Thursday.

Substack wants brands to see its newsletters as a "space to go deep, to say thank you, and to back communities that will grow your business," Robbins said.

Sydney Bradley

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Sydney Bradley has been covering media and tech for Business Insider since 2020. She breaks news and writes extensively about Instagram and Facebook, as well as new social media startups, dating apps, the creator economy, venture capital, and tech culture.She regularly contributes to BI's "After Hours" series, where our reporters dive into the social scenes shaping tech, media, and finance.Sydney's reporting on Instagram was nominated as a finalist for the 2021 Los Angeles Press Club National Entertainment Journalism Awards.She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in American Studies. You can follow Sydney's work on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram at @sydneykbradley.Have a tip? You can also contact her via encrypted messaging app Signal (@sydneykbradley.123), encrypted email ([email protected]), or standard email ([email protected]). Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.

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