Thirty issues in thirty days, one every day of the month. They carried 196 stories from 122 different publications, and no outlet supplied more than 13.
The biggest change was behind the scenes. For two weeks we tested two AI research lanes side by side, Claude and ChatGPT, to see whether two sources of news would make a noticeably better issue. From September 14 each issue was built from both drafts, picking the strongest stories from either. The test gave us a clear answer: many of the stories the two lanes found were the same, and the extra ones were often not relevant to you. So from September 27 Claude is our main research source. The platform can still take in news from more than one source, so we can add one again when it earns its place.
Two other changes stuck. On September 15 we dropped the one-story-per-beat rule, so a busy news day in one area can now get two stories, and some issues ran to seven or eight. On September 20 we moved to a plainer writing voice: the news first, then why it matters, in full sentences.
The confirmed list stood at 383 on August 31 and 463 on September 30. That is 92 new readers against 12 who left, a net gain of 80, or 21% in a month.
New readers arrived steadily, a few at a time, and only two days of the month had none. The best single day was September 11, with 8. The first two weeks were the busiest, with 28 and 26 sign-ups.
All 92 came through the landing page. We don’t pay for sign-ups.
Clicks doubled. Story clicks per issue went from 9.0 in August to 19.6, and the click rate rose from 2.4% to 2.6%. Most of the rise came in the second half of the month, after the changes to how each issue is edited: the weekly click rate went from 1.9% and 2.0% in the first two weeks to 3.5% and 3.3% in the next two.
The best issue was September 19, at 7.0%, led by a lab that bought 31 lightening creams off Amazon and found mercury in 25 of them. September 22 and September 28 were next, both above 5%.
57.4% of deliveries were opened across the month, against 63.8% in August. Part of that is likely a bigger list, since each new group of readers knows us a little less well than the first.
The core is loyal. Of the 408 people who opened at least one issue, 206 opened twenty or more of the thirty, and 159 opened twenty-five or more. 101 people clicked a story, and 58 of them did it in two or more issues. Our most curious reader clicked 57 times.
Regulation led. It ran 21 times, drew 104 clicks from 42 different readers, and only 2 of its stories went unclicked. Its index was 173, up from 127 in August, and 186 within slots 2 to 4, so it was not just placement. Four of the month’s ten most-clicked stories were Regulation: the Sephora lawsuit, the ruling that lets Estée Lauder pursue Walmart over fakes, the dismissed CeraVe benzene case and the mercury creams still listed online.
The Consumer moved from 69 in August to 112, and to 126 in the middle slots. Supply Side was 105, and 147 in the middle slots. Retail & Media went from 63 to 110, mostly on the days it led the issue.
Science & Ingredients came in at 84 after leading August at 171. One month at the top was not a pattern, which is why we held off on giving it more space. Deals & M&A was 79, and 103 in the middle slots. Market Watch, the most-published beat at 30 stories, was 77, and Beauty Tech was 73.
The index compares a beat’s share of clicks with its share of stories, so it still holds now that one issue can carry two stories from the same beat.
The ten stories readers followed to the source
Where a story sits mattered less this month. Slot 1 averaged 3.2 clicks a story and slot 2 averaged 3.1. Slot 3 was the best placed, at 3.93. Slots 4 and 5 sat at 2.17 and 2.33, and slot 6 at 1.88.
Longer issues still got read. Slot 7 averaged 2.27 over 15 stories. Slot 8 averaged 5.67 on only 6 stories, helped by the September 28 issue, which put 16 clicks in each of its last two. So we will let the length follow the news.
Source tier still predicts nothing about clicks. Tier 1 stories averaged 2.77 clicks and Tier 2 averaged 3.23. Tier 3 averaged 2.0 on five stories. We keep the tier rules for accuracy.
Where the clicked stories came from
The APL Dispatch is a daily brief on the business of beauty.
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