How Fantasy Life Increased Click-Through Rates by 200% After Switching to beehiiv

Overview

• Brand: Fantasy Life (Matthew Berry’s Fantasy Life)
• CEO: Eliot Crist
• Platform switched from: Klaviyo
• Platform switched to: beehiiv
• Audience size: 300,000+ subscribers
• Primary outcome: +100% open rates, +200% click-through rates, lower unsubscribes

The Backstory

Fantasy Life is built around delivering fantasy football and betting content that’s both entertaining and useful: rankings, waiver wire moves, trades, and daily updates that help readers win their leagues.

As the newsletter scaled, the team realized their existing system (Klaviyo) wasn’t giving them what they needed as a newsletter-first business: deeper analytics, better tracking, cleaner templating, and stronger segmentation.

The Challenge

Fantasy Life’s core challenge was simple:

They needed better data to make better decisions.

Not just broad performance metrics—but clarity on:

• what content was driving engagement,
• which cohorts were responding best,
• and how to tighten the user experience without guessing.

Why beehiiv

Fantasy Life switched to beehiiv primarily for newsletter-native analytics and segmentation, plus a workflow that reduced operational friction.

What mattered most:

• 3D analytics to understand how each email performs
• Audience segmentation to tailor content and measure cohorts
• Templates + editorial workflow that’s faster to ship
• A platform built for creators/operators who need speed and clarity

Eliot’s core takeaway: beehiiv wasn’t just a sending tool—it was a performance and decision-making system.

How Fantasy Life Monetizes

Fantasy Life monetizes in two main ways:

1. Title sponsors + integrated segments
2. Affiliate + content partnerships (sportsbooks, DFS platforms, etc.)
3. Performance-based placements integrated into the content (not banner-style)

What They Implemented on beehiiv

Fantasy Life leaned into three core levers:

1) Analytics that actually guide decisions

• Clear email-by-email performance
• Better visibility into what links/content earn clicks
• Easier performance comparisons over time

2) Advanced segmentation

• Build cohorts based on behaviors, attributes, and events
• Understand which readers engage with which content types
• Send targeted blasts when needed (instead of one-size-fits-all)

3) Engagement loops (polls + feedback)

• Lightweight interaction to learn what readers want more of
• Faster signal gathering without heavy surveys

Results

After switching to beehiiv, Fantasy Life reported:

• Open rates up 100%
• Click-through rates up 200%
• Unsubscribes decreased
• Deliverability improved significantly

They also highlighted internal operational improvement: growing from no full-time staff to a team of five, while keeping execution tight.

Favorite beehiiv Features

1) beehiiv is innovative

Fast shipping cadence of new features + responsiveness to feedback.

2) beehiiv is easy to use

Less time spent fighting the tool, more time spent improving the content and business.

3) beehiiv feels personal

Founder access + “partner” energy rather than vendor energy.

Key Takeaways

• Bigger newsletters don’t need more complexity, they need clearer visibility
• CTR gains usually come from: better segmentation + better content insight, not gimmicks
• Newsletter businesses monetize best when ads/affiliate placements are native to the reading experience
• beehiiv’s advantage here is making optimization feel fast and obvious, not buried in dashboards

Fantasy Life switched from Klaviyo to beehiiv to get better analytics, stronger segmentation, and a more creator-friendly workflow.

With opens up 100% and CTR up 200%, the newsletter became more measurable, more optimizable, and more scalable, while maintaining a clean reader experience at 300,000+ subscribers.