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Agents in the Mix is 5 days away.

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- Marketers walk through the real AI agents they use day-to-day, 1 by 1. Including results.
- ZERO developers needed. Leave the sessions and copy what they're doing with a real plan to test that week.

Separate sessions for each agent, from creative to implementation.
Scroll down to check the agenda. Pick the tracks that solve your problems. Creative, distribution, optimization. It's time to uncork the AI bottleneck.

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SPARKNOTES FROM THE POD

5 WAYS TO FINALLY MEASURE NEWSLETTER ROI

Adam Ryan is CEO and Co-founder of Workweek. A platform that just launched the Partner Platform. And it's solving the biggest problem in newsletter advertising: Attribution.

For 10 years, newsletters were a trust-building channel that nobody could measure. You sponsored. You hoped. Results showed up or didn't. You had no way to know why.

Adam spent 18 months building a solution. An identity graph that knows who every subscriber actually is. What company they work at. Their job title.

Then when they click your ad, Workweek ties that verified click directly to your CRM. At the account level.

So 6 months later when a deal closes, you finally see the truth. Newsletter click triggered that deal. Not your sales rep alone.

This changes everything about how B2B marketers should sponsor newsletters.

Listen to the full episode here where Adam breaks down how Workweek built an 81% identity match rate (vs industry standard 35%), why you should stop trusting newsletter metrics, and how to sponsor creators instead of vanity metrics.

1️⃣. Newsletter Open Rates And Click Rates Don't Measure What You Think They Do.

Adam's Take: "What most of them do is they've created their own algorithm on how opens and clicks should filter out the bots. Bot clicks have grown exponentially. About 98% of clicks in an email now are bots. And there's really no consistent way and no regulation around how to measure those."

You see a newsletter with 50% open rate. Sounds incredible.

But here's the problem: Different email platforms measure opens differently. So a 50% open rate on 1 platform means something completely different on another.

Plus: 98% of clicks are bots. Not actual humans.

Your newsletter sponsor shows you 1,000 clicks. 980 weren't real people.

And the platforms know this but hide it because transparency makes them look bad.

So you make budget decisions based on numbers that don't tell the full story. Then blame the channel when ROI doesn't show up.

This applies whether you're ecom, SaaS, agencies, or anything else. You're paying for clicks that may not be real.

Takeaway: Ask newsletter publishers about their click verification process. 

"How do you filter bot traffic from human clicks?" 

Different platforms measure this differently, so understanding their methodology helps you compare apples to apples. 

Best case scenario: Ask if they can tie clicks to your CRM or analytics platform so you can track actual conversions. That way you're measuring what matters to your business, not just traffic volume.

2️⃣. WHO Your Audience Is Matters Way More Than HOW MANY People You Reach.

Adam's Take: "If you're a B2B marketer, you need to care about who, not how many. You can have two decision makers buy a piece of software and make your ROI happen overnight. Those two people matter a lot more than the two thousand that can't buy your product."

Any channel can make you feel good with big numbers.

A newsletter reaches 100,000 people. A Facebook ad gets 50,000 impressions. A podcast gets 100,000 downloads.

But if you sell a specific product, only a fraction of those people will ever buy.

Ecom example: A Facebook ad reaches 100,000 people. But you sell luxury handbags. Maybe 5,000 see the ad. Of those, maybe 500 are willing to spend $500+.

You're paying for 100,000. Getting value from 500.

Meanwhile, a smaller channel reaches 8,000 people obsessed with luxury goods.

That channel gets skipped because the number looks smaller.

The rule: Quality of audience beats quantity. Every time.

10 customers who actually buy beat 10,000 who never will.

Takeaway: For any channel you're considering (newsletter, social, podcast, influencer), ask: "What percentage of this audience fits my customer profile?" 

Get demographic data. Income levels. Interests. Purchase behavior. Then calculate actual addressable reach. A channel reaching 10,000 where 40% match your customer is worth more than one reaching 100,000 where 4% match. Sponsor based on audience quality, not total reach.

3️⃣. Smaller Creators With Loyal Audiences Beat Massive Channels With Shallow Audiences.

Adam's Take: "Don't be afraid to go put money into a channel or creator that doesn't have scale. The density of those people matters a lot more than the scale."

You have 2 options for any marketing channel.

Option A: A massive platform with 200,000 subscribers. But only 2% are your customers.

Option B: A smaller creator with 15,000 subscribers. But 30% are your customers.

Option A feels safer. Bigger reach. Easier to defend to your CFO.

But Option B drives actual revenue.

Why? The smaller creator has real trust. Their audience actually cares. They're selective about partnerships.

The massive platform optimized for growth. They take any advertiser. The audience is shallow.

This applies to ecom, B2B, agencies, anyone. Smaller creators with engaged audiences convert better.

Takeaway: Build a list of smaller channels with engaged audiences in your space. 

Offer test sponsorships. 

Track results. Compare: The massive channel with 1,000 clicks but 20 actual conversions vs the smaller channel with 200 clicks but 80 actual conversions.

Scale spending to the winners, not the biggest names.

4️⃣. You Need To Track Marketing All The Way To Revenue. Not Just Traffic.

Adam's Take: "We were able to create an identity graph because of our professional networking platform. Today, 81% of our newsletter subscribers, we can actually identify who they are and what company they work at. Most companies in this space are closer to 35%."

Current marketing tracking is broken across channels.

Someone clicks your ad. Maybe they buy. Maybe they don't. You have no way to know if that click actually drove a conversion.

So you sponsor a channel. Get clicks. Have no idea if those clicks became customers.

Six months later you're wondering if the channel worked.

The solution: Track all the way to purchase and revenue.

So you can see: Click ➡️ Purchase ➡️Revenue.

You see the full journey. Not just traffic.

Whether you're using newsletters, social, email, or anything else, you need this. You need to know which channels actually drive conversions, not just traffic.

Takeaway: For any channel you're investing in, set up tracking from click to conversion to revenue before the campaign starts. 

Ask: "Can you tie clicks to purchases in my analytics or CRM?" 

Then optimize for conversion metrics: clicks to conversions, not just clicks. You'll stop wasting money on vanity metrics and start investing in channels that actually drive revenue.

5️⃣. Good Content Attracts A Specific Type of Reader. Measure The Right People, Not The Total Reach.

Adam's Take: "The belief that we had is that folks like yourself are appealing and attracting a certain type of reader or listener that are decision makers in companies. And we care about who those people are. The reality is it's not about playing the how many game, of like, look at all this scale we have. If you write the best content, you're actually appealing to a certain type of person. The who matters more than the how many."

Adam didn't start Workweek by chasing big numbers.

He started with a belief: Good content attracts the right people.

So instead of measuring "how many people see this," he wanted to measure "who are the people seeing this."

Because if you're writing good content, you're naturally attracting your ICP. You don't need 100,000 people. You need the right 1,000.

That insight led to the identity graph. To verified metrics. To measuring who, not how many.

The lesson: Your content and your channel already attract a certain type of person. The question is whether you're measuring them.

Takeaway: Ask any channel you're considering: 

"Who is your audience? Can you tell me about the people actually engaging?"

Don't lead with reach numbers. Lead with audience quality.

If a creator can describe their engaged audience in detail (their problems, their roles, their interests), that's a signal they know who they're attracting. If they just talk about total numbers, they're optimizing for the wrong thing.

Sponsored by Gamma

P.S. Who's at NY Tech Week? Specifically, who was at Gammarama last night? Tell me everything. I have FOMO.

From what I'm hearing: Hammerstein Ballroom. Malcolm Gladwell. Mike Birbiglia. Bobbi Brown. Chris Paul. An open pitch competition. All hosted by Gamma, the AI presentation tool 100M+ people use to skip the blank deck problem.
And...150 pizzas to watch Game 1 of Knicks/Spurs??

I'm jealous. Spill. Please.

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🏅 EVENT OF THE WEEK

Too many sponsorships phone it in. Slap on a jersey patch. Get ignored.

Great 1s make you stop, pull out your phone, and tell someone.

On 6/25, come hang with me as we learn the strategies that make the difference between the 2.

With brands who have real stories to share. 🏆

IN A MEME

We are done with that, but Chicago is nice in June.

Your friend,

Daniel