• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, December 9, 2008

While many in the advertising/marketing industry can't seem to get enough news about their business (good for MediaPost), a weekly email sent by the New York Times on the subject doesn't appear to be getting much traction. On a panel about email publishing, Mike Foley, associate product manager for email at the Times, said only "a few thousand" people are subscribers to the newsletter.

Of course, that hardly means it's unprofitable -- the more targeted an email, the greater potential for higher CPMs, while production costs can be modest.

And Foley acknowledged that one reason it's tough to build a subscriber base for the myriad of newsletters the Times sends out is people have to jump through so many hoops to sign up. Potential stop signs come from the need for registration to establish a member ID, not to mention the sheer difficulty in finding where to sign up on the Times Web site.

"It’s a hurdle to get people to sign up for emails," Foley said.