The "Last-Click" Attribution Trap is Holding Us All Back!
Before I get into it, I want to thank Matt McGarry and the team at GrowLetter for putting on the New Media Summit last week in Austin. It was a great event, and I got to see so many Wellput newsletter publishers and partners there. Thank you!
Let’s dive in!
Here’s the truth: 80% of the time, newsletter sponsorship campaigns "fail" because you're staring at the wrong metric in the funnel.
Only 2 out of 10 newsletter sponsorships will hit bottom-funnel performance goals during a test. If marketers stop there, they’re ignoring the massive, invisible impact happening just above the sale.
The "Invisible" Wins That Don't Show Up as Sales and ROAS (Immediately)
When a high-quality newsletter puts a brand in front of a motivated reader, they don't always buy right now. Instead, they:
Explore the landing page.
Give their email address for a discount code.
Get dropped into the brand’s retargeting pool.
Add three things to their cart and get distracted.
In any other world, this is a wild success. The brand has a prime prospect who knows who they are and is ready to be converted by their email flows or retargeting ads.
But if the performance marketer’s dashboard only shows "Last Click Sales," this person doesn't exist. They see a big fat zero, and they cancel the campaign. The publisher is confused, and the brand is left with a dried-up top-of-funnel.
The Affiliate Marketer’s Prisoner’s Dilemma
This is the classic game theory trap of our industry.
In the short term, performance marketers "win" by only paying for last-click sales. They ignore the partners who "only" drove awareness or intent. But play that game long enough, and everyone loses.
But when smart marketers stop playing that game and instead reward the channels that actually build their audience, those channels start priming their top-of-funnel engine.
The brands winning in 2026 have figured this out. They aren't playing a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. They’re building a system:
Targeting: Finding high-discretionary spenders in long-form newsletters (where real people actually read).
Focus: Sending them to a dedicated landing page designed to move the prospect from awareness to intent, capture an email, or get the sale.
Nurture: Using email, Meta, Search, or LLMs to close the deal.
I’ve built six companies now, and I’ve exited two. And currently, my team and I are bootstrapping Wellput with our own cash—so believe me, I know that asking performance marketers to ignore last-click attribution and instead focus on upper-funnel signals may be viewed as lighting cash on fire. But I also know that if marketers judge a channel like newsletter sponsorships purely on last-click attribution, they are missing the forest for the trees.
I'm also excited about the convergence of affiliate marketing, influencer marketing, and performance PR. For the first time, affiliate marketers and their agencies are starting to value upper-funnel signals. They're willing to pay flat-fee or CPC pricing models for channels that fill the top of the funnel.
So Stop Asking "Did It Convert Today?"
Shift your gaze. Make the invisible visible.
Instead of obsessing over CPA and ROAS, look at what happens right after the click.
How long did they stay on site?
How many pages did they view?
Did they give you an email?
Did they add to cart?
Did your retargeting and branded search volume spike 48 hours later?
Start Designing Landing Pages Custom-Built For Upper-Funnel Channels
Instead of asking for the sale immediately, focus on building intent.
Offer social proof.
Capture an email address.
Remove navigation bars and offer one clear call-to-action.
If you measure awareness channels like they’re bottom-of-funnel search ads, you will chronically underinvest in the very thing that fills your funnel. And that is a math problem you can't afford.
Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear from you with your thoughts on these topics.
If you haven’t seen it already, check out the great Dustin Howe’s review of Wellput here: https://dustinhowes.com/wellput-newsletter-sponsorships-for-brands/
If you want to revisit any past editions, you can find the full archive here:
View the Newsletter Sponsorship Insider archive
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