Marketing platform LiveIntent released the results of a new internal study today that shows increases in revenue for some publishers via their online newsletters during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data was aggregated from the performance of 2,500 publishers and brands that work with LiveIntent from early June. It was then compared to the period right before the nation went into quarantine.

The results show an increase in revenue growth, thanks to an upward swing in email opens and ad engagement.

“When publishers embrace email and invest in it as a channel for consumption and monetize it, they are investing in a channel they own that performs with real people. That helps advertisers interested in solving the cross-device conundrum,” Kerel Cooper, senior vice president of global marketing at LiveIntent, told Publishers Daily.

The data shows publisher newsletters within the shopping, home and garden, style and fashion and business categories are experiencing the biggest increase in opens from readers. The first three categories experienced a more than 20% increase in opens, while business saw a 15%+ increase.

Ad categories reporting impressive increases in their performance through newsletters during quarantine include arts and entertainment with a 58% growth in CTR, business with a 51% growth in CTR and family and parenting with a 450% increase in CTR.

This increase in activity has led to an increase in revenue for publishers. They have seen a 103% revenue bump across shopping, 55% across home and garden and 31% across business.

“Our readers have opted-in to our newsletters because they are invested in the authentic and highly relevant content we deliver within the astrology space. Now, during this crisis, we’re seeing our investment in this channel blossoming,” Joshua Jaffe at Horoscope.com told Publishers Daily. “We’re utilizing email during this time to bring both new and different content from our site to our users, in order to offer them guidance amid the uncertainty.”

LiveIntent notes tthe increase in revenue comes from higher spend from advertisers hoping to reach a contained audience. In fact, the data showed food and drink advertisers have increased the amount of people they are paying to reach by 670%, while pet advertisers have increased that amount by 870% during the period LiveIntent studied.

“As the industry continues to grapple with the ramifications of the changing nature of third-party data, email represents an owned channel for each publisher with their audiences. It is a vault of first-party relationships in an era where first-party data will rule the day,” said Cooper. “A robust email offering may very well be the bridge to the future for publishers that will have to survive in a world where third-party solutions no longer are effective.”