CHEEX × Growth Unit · Brand Workshop

What worked
in 2026

The ten highest-earning emails of the year, fully browsable — click any one to open it exactly as subscribers saw it.

Prepared for the brand and design teams · 30 August 2026

01 — The short version

Four things the numbers say

Then we stop talking about numbers and look at the work.

No format
owns the top

The top three are a Hot Drop, a Dedicated and a Content Newsletter. All three can win.

10 / 10

Top emails lead with a film or a person in the subject line. None of them is about CHEEX.

3–6

Films per email. More doesn't make it better, fewer removes the sense of choice.

One still
per film

Always 560 px, always the same grid. This is the visual constant across every format.

02 — The work

Ten emails, ranked by revenue

Click any card to open the full email. Toggle desktop and mobile inside the viewer.

Direct revenue per campaign, all segments combined, January to July 2026. Emails pulled from Mautic as sent — links are disabled, tracking removed.

03 — What repeats

Four visual patterns

Present in all ten. This is the visual language we already have, whether it was designed or just grew.

✨ 🔥 👄

An emoji before every film title

Content Newsletters prefix each film with an emoji, in a fixed order. Nobody else in the category does this.

Stills, not designed covers

Every image is a frame from the film. Fast to produce, but it makes the emails interchangeable.

The offer is a graphic

Discount and trial live inside a rendered image at the bottom. Invisible when images are blocked, and not editable without design.

Alt text only from June on

Emails up to May carry none. With images off, half the top ten is a blank email.

Three questions for you
  1. Is the emoji order intentional? If it is, it belongs in the brand book.
  2. Do we stay with stills, or design real covers for the biggest sends?
  3. Should the offer become a text block instead of an image?

04 — Our formats

Four shapes, four jobs

What we send today, what each one is for, and what it is made of.

Content Newsletter

The workhorse · weekly
  • One theme, three to four films
  • Emoji prefix per film
  • Angle copy above the grid
  • Offer in the preheader, per segment
35 campaigns · 6 of the top 10

Hot Drops

The pick · irregular
  • Four films, no connecting theme
  • Framed as “what's running now”
  • Shortest copy of all formats
8 campaigns · strongest single send of 2026

Performer of the Month

The status frame · monthly
  • One person, several films
  • Name in the subject line
  • Its own coupon code
8 campaigns · the title carries it, not the person

Dedicated

The occasion · as needed
  • One couple, one release, one playlist
  • More images than any other format
  • Tells a story instead of listing
6 campaigns · 3 of the top 10

Revenue-wise the four sit close together. The difference is the job they do — and what they cost to produce.

05 — Inspiration

Four formats worth stealing

From 55 emails we collected from ERIKALUST and Lustery. Not a critique of ours — ideas for additional formats.

The Lust Edit

ERIKALUST · twice in eight weeks

A 400-word essay about something the reader recognises in herself. No discount, no price, no offer anywhere. Only the last paragraph turns towards the product, then one film from the archive.

“Being desired is intimate. It is directional. Being visible is ambient and impersonal. A scan, not a recognition.”

Why it matters here: our own best-converting email of the year was “What do you desire but never say out loud?” — the same move, just shorter.

A paragraph per film, not per email

Lustery · in 23 of 29 emails

Lustery writes three or four sentences next to every couple: who they are, where they live, what happens in the scene. We write one paragraph above the grid; our film tiles carry only a title.

“Kindry and Gus live in Wales and England respectively, meaning the long-distance lovers are always looking for their next chance to connect.”

Named recurring sections

ERIKALUST · throughout

Almost every format there has a returning name: The Lust Edit, Lust Fact, Curator's Picks, Lust from the archives. Every send feels like an issue of a series.

Only two of our formats have a name — Hot Drops and Performer of the Month. Both are in the top ten.

The open house

ERIKALUST · International Female Orgasm Day

The whole platform opened for 24 hours, free, no payment details. The discount follow-up came three days later, tied to the same occasion. The occasion carries the generosity — it doesn't read as a price cut.

For what it's worth: visually our emails are the strongest of the three. ERIKALUST and Lustery both look like newsletter builders. CHEEX doesn't. We wouldn't change that.

Proposed run of show

90 minutes

10 min

What worked

Skim the summary and the ten emails together.

30 min

Visual patterns

Open a few emails full-screen, work through the three questions.

20 min

Our four formats

Job, building blocks, production cost. What is missing, what is too much?

25 min

Inspiration

Four ideas from the category. What fits CHEEX, what doesn't?

5 min

Loose ends

No decisions needed. We collect what's worth following up.