Are Newsletter Sponsorships Finally Getting Their Performance Era?

How Wellput is helping brands test newsletters with less guesswork.

Newsletter sponsorships are not new, but for many brands, they have historically lived in what we like to call “pay for placement and hope it works” bucket. You find a newsletter that seems like a good audience fit, pay for the placement, send over creative, and then wait to see if the traffic performs.

The right newsletter can make your month. And with the surge of Substack, beehiiv, and creator-led newsletters, there are more niche, highly engaged audiences than ever sitting outside of traditional media companies. Journalists, creators, category experts, and operators are building their own loyal readerships, which is incredibly exciting for brands, but also a little messy.

• How do you find the right newsletters?

• How do you know what is worth paying for?

• And how do you prove the placement did more than drive a few clicks from a nice-looking audience?

Enter Wellput who is trying to make that process easier to test, measure, and optimize.

We sat down with Samantha Knotts, the Director of Partner Enablement to chat through how the platform works and what partnership managers should know before bringing this opportunity to their brands.

What is Wellput?

Wellput is a newsletter sponsorship platform that helps brands test qualified newsletters through a CPC model, while optimizing toward performance goals like CPA or ROAS.

Instead of brands having to source newsletters one by one, negotiate pricing, manage creative, and chase reporting, Wellput matches brands with relevant newsletter publishers in its network.

Brands provide their target audience, campaign goals, and creative assets. Then newsletter publishers can review available campaigns and choose which brands they want to feature.

Why does this matter for affiliate?

Because this is another example of affiliate moving into channels that have traditionally been difficult to measure cleanly.

For publicists, this matters because newsletters are already very aligned with the work we already do. Whether we’re talking Substack, Beehiiv or other, newsletters are audience-driven, trust-based, content-first, and often run by creators, journalists, experts, and niche publishers like two affiliate / performance PR girlies trying to help you make sense of the wild wild west world of affliate marketing. ; )

The difference is that now, brands may have a better way to test those audiences without putting all of their budget behind one expensive sponsorship and hoping for the best.

How does Wellput measure performance?

Wellput runs on a CPC model, but the click itself is not the only thing they care about. They are also looking at what happens once that reader lands on the brand’s site. Did they bounce immediately, or did they click to learn more? Did they take another step that shows they were actually interested?

That matters because not all clicks are created equal. A newsletter can drive traffic, but Wellput is trying to identify which newsletters are driving readers who are actually engaging with the brand after the click.

What types of brands are a fit?

Wellput tends to work well for what Samantha referred to as B2P brands, or business-to-professional brands.

Think products professionals broadly use, like AI tools, productivity tools, software platforms, or other services with wide professional appeal.

Consumer brands can also work, but the economics matter. Wellput generally looks for brands with:

• An AOV around $100 or higher for one-time purchases

• A subscription model if the AOV is lower

• A clear customer journey

• A landing page built to convert

• Enough data access to understand post-click engagement

So, if your brand sells a $12 product exclusively in-store and the landing page is basically “find us at Kroger,” this may not be your cup of tea.

That does not mean CPG is automatically out, but the offer, price point, subscription potential, and conversion path need to make sense.

What should brands know before testing?

The minimum test budget is $5,000.

Wellput’s standard model is CPC, but the platform is also beginning to introduce CPA opportunities for brands that are a strong fit.

For CPA consideration, Wellput looks at a few things:

• Whether the brand resembles a category that has performed well before

• Whether the landing page is optimized for conversion

• Whether the brand can share early landing page engagement data

That last piece matters because it helps Wellput optimize faster and identify which newsletters are viable.

The takeaway for publicists

Newsletter sponsorships are not replacing traditional media placements. Podcasting, streaming audio, and CTV are not replacing them either.

But the story here is affiliate and partnerships are expanding and affiliate is becoming a way for brands to test emerging media channels, support niche publishers, and measure whether those audiences actually move the needle.

The more these channels become trackable, the more opportunities performance teams have to bring smart, creative, measurable partnership ideas to their brands.

Want to chat with Wellput? Drop Samantha a line and tell her AFP sent you!

Email: sknotts@wellput.io
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthataylorknotts/

INDUSTRY NEWS 🗞️🔥

Yesterday emails hit affiliate manager inboxes from Capital One with the SL: Review Needed: Phia Extension Faking Clicks. 👀

If you aren’t familiar with Phia as a partner, they say that they are an, an “AI-powered shopping experience that helps users make smarter fashion investments.”

It is a Chrome extension whose purpose is to help users find the lowest prices (including secondhand ones) for items you’re browsing online.

• While you’re shopping, you can click a “Should I Buy This?” button in your browser, and Phia will compare the item you’re viewing to real-time listings across both retail and secondhand marketplaces.

• It pulls in deals from 150+ secondhand platforms (e.g. The RealReal, eBay, Poshmark, etc.).

• It also provides price alerts, resale value insights, and “smart insights” on brand performance (i.e. how well a brand holds its value over time)

• The extension is free to use.

Now, Capital One’s argument was:

“Phia’s Safari iOS extension opens a background tab without user interaction, redirects through your affiliate links, and attributes purchases to Phia. This occurs when a user visits certain pages on your site. Our mutual shoppers are affected as they lose the rewards they earned. Publishers like us are having material revenue taken. And, advertisers like you are losing money to fake clicks.”

So naturally we asked, “Have you talked to Phia about this??” And no, they hadn’t because their priority was contacting advertisers and partners who are being impacted first.

Kris wanted Phia to weigh in, but the response felt…meh. Shared below”

Thanks so much for sharing this! I understand why the claims would raise questions, and appreciate the chance to look into it directly.

”I want to reassure you that Phia has been reviewed and verified as compliant across the affiliate networks we work with. We stay closely aligned with our network account managers and regularly review our technology against affiliate, cookie, and attribution policies. To date, we have passed those reviews and have not received any findings indicating non-compliant behavior. Our most recent network compliance approvals have all been within the last six weeks alone.

As I’m sure you understand, Capital One is a competitor in the space and may be seeing traffic shift as Phia continues to grow, but we take any feedback from our partners seriously and already escalated it internally for immediate review. We've shared the report with our engineering team and are conducting a thorough investigation to confirm there are no technical issues or unintended behavior happening. We shipped our latest update to resolve outstanding bugs at one pm today, and will verify full compliance again with our affiliate network partners to ensure the highest quality standards are maintained. Since a significant portion of our user engagement comes directly through the Phia app, our priority always ensuring our affiliate logic operates correctly and in full compliance, and we have no problem with addressing any feedback to continue to strengthen this approach.

We value this partnership and take partner trust very seriously. I want to make sure you feel completely confident in Phia’s ability to continue driving your team high quality demand.”

Hearing All Sides

Always love when fraud is flagged & to ensure we are taking the best next steps, hearing both partners, talking with brands, looking into affiliate program data will help us understand what comes next.

Has this affected you & your team at all? Let us know!