Jason's admin casually mentioned they'd just sent $195 to a reader named Cindy.

"Cool," Jason thought. "A lifetime membership sale."

Nope.

They'd refunded Cindy because she had a bad experience with one of The Pour Over's sponsors.

Wait—The Pour Over refunds readers when sponsors disappoint them? With their own money?

Yeah. And it's one of the smartest moves in their entire sponsorship strategy.

Let me back up. Jason runs The Pour Over, a faith-based news newsletter with 1.4 million subscribers. They send politically neutral news summaries three times a week, paired with biblical reminders. Their podcast gets 15-20k downloads per episode. They're printing money through sponsorships.

But it wasn't always this smooth.

The Valley of Despair

September 2023 hit different.

Sales were cyclical. Panic, relief, panic, relief. The team would hustle hard to book a month of ads, then coast. Then scramble again when the calendar looked bare. Standards dropped. Discounts flew. They raised prices too fast without delivering matching value.

Jason had just hired Emily as a partnerships manager—right into the valley. "She doesn't understand what suffering is," the team jokes now. "She's only been here during the good times."

Here's what was really happening: Jason had written an ad for some investment opportunity. While crafting the copy, a thought stopped him cold.

I would be so disappointed if my mom actually invested in this.

That feeling—that sick, compromised feeling—changed everything.

The Mom Test for Sponsors

If you wouldn't recommend it to someone you love, why recommend it to your readers?

The Pour Over made this their line in the sand: someone on staff has to genuinely advocate for every product they promote. Not just "this seems fine." Someone has to have bought it, used it, verified the checkout process isn't shady, confirmed the pricing is transparent.

They stopped taking freebies without vetting. One sponsor's "great deal" turned out to be $19... per unit... in a mandatory 5-unit bundle. Readers were pissed. Rightfully.

So The Pour Over instituted a guarantee: if you have a bad experience with something they recommended, they'll refund you out of their own pocket.

Does it happen often? Almost never. They have 1.4 million subscribers and it's rare.

But here's what it does do: it forces them to be selective as hell about who they work with. You're not going to promote a scammy product when your money's on the line. And readers know this. They trust the ads because The Pour Over has skin in the game.

When someone does complain and gets their refund? They stay subscribed. They trust more. They click the next ad thinking, "This is basically riskless."

The White Glove Guide (AKA How to Compete With Meta)

Every sponsor is competing with Facebook ads. Meta is easy—just throw money at Zuckerberg. Newsletter ads require effort, communication, custom copy. Even when they perform, brands default to what's familiar.

The Pour Over's solution? Remove every possible barrier.

They created what they call their "White Glove Guide." The goal: you can book an ad with one word. Just say "yes."

Here's how it works:

After vetting a brand, they write two ad copy options before the sponsor even commits. Then they send both versions with a date, a price, and an invoice. "We want to run both and see which performs better. You good with this?"

Most sponsors just say yes. All their questions are answered. If they want tweaks, fine—they collaborate. But if they want the easy button, they've got it.

After the ad runs, Emily reviews performance. If it crushed, she reaches back out: "Copy B outperformed Copy A by a lot. There are 700,000 people who haven't seen Copy B yet. Want to book another run at this price with just the winning ad?"

Who says no to that?

If an ad flops, Emily proactively reaches out before the sponsor complains: "This looks like it underperformed. Here's why we think it flopped and how we'll fix it. Want to book another at a discount?"

This is the opposite of how most creators handle sponsorships. Most wait for the sponsor to complain. Most make the sponsor do the work. The Pour Over removes friction at every step.

Why Agencies Get It Wrong

Newsletter agencies love to promise they'll handle everything—you just write, they'll sell ads and take their 40% cut.

Sounds great until you realize you're getting 60% of a much smaller pie.

Here's the problem: agencies send templated copy that's already run in twelve other newsletters. It bombs. The Pour Over tested this. Every single time a sponsor insisted on using their pre-written creative, it underperformed compared to ads The Pour Over wrote in their own voice.

Jason's firm rule: "We write our ads."

They'll collaborate. They'll incorporate sponsor feedback. But the final copy has to sound like The Pour Over, not some agency template.

If you absolutely need to fill inventory and can't find direct sponsors? Use affiliate links. Recommend products you actually like. Write genuine endorsements in your voice. Make 15% on sales but preserve your premium ad slot.

Once you start running garbage programmatic ads, you've trained your audience that your ad space is worthless.

The LMNT Partnership Model

One of their biggest sponsors is LMNT (the electrolyte company). The relationship is chef's kiss.

LMNT shares actual data—customer counts, lifetime value, attribution. They don't obsess over individual ad performance. They look at the relationship holistically and give The Pour Over one main tracking link.

In return? The Pour Over overdelivers constantly.

Testing a new Saturday email to 10,000 people? Throw an LMNT ad in there. Don't even tell them. They love the product. They love the brand. Why wouldn't they send more customers their way?

This is what happens when you build trust. The relationship becomes collaborative instead of transactional.

Jason mentioned they even proactively lowered prices for long-term sponsors when their growth slowed below projections. They'd promised certain subscriber numbers in annual contracts. When they didn't hit targets, they adjusted pricing downward.

"How could the response be anything but overwhelmingly positive?" Jason laughed.

Exactly. Most media companies would just keep charging and hope sponsors don't notice.

What About Fatigue?

Fair question. If you've been running LMNT ads for three years, doesn't effectiveness degrade?

Two things save them:

1) They constantly test new ad copy. Their writers all drink LMNT. They're always finding fresh angles. A/B testing tells them what's working. Some products (looking at you, Incogni) are harder to keep fresh. But they work at it.

2) They're growing fast. They doubled in size last year. Added 40,000 subscribers last month. Those people haven't seen three years of LMNT ads. They're seeing it for the first time and converting.

New cohorts are gold for recurring sponsors.

The Nonprofit Nuance

Faith-oriented audiences respond incredibly well to nonprofit campaigns. The Pour Over limits these to three per month (they'd fill every newsletter if they didn't) plus one big quarterly campaign.

They always donate alongside the sponsor. The vibes are weird—charge $10k for the ad, then donate to the cause—but they keep it separate. And they guarantee the campaign. If it flops, The Pour Over eats the cost rather than leaving the nonprofit holding the bag.

These ads crush. The audience wants to help. The writing is clear and direct: here's the problem, here's how to help. Done.

The Biggest Lesson

Here's what I keep coming back to from Jason's approach:

Make it easier to work with you than to work with Meta.

Remove friction. Write the copy. Send the invoice. Show results proactively. Fix problems before they complain. Build relationships, not transactions.

And here's the thing that makes all of this possible: only work with sponsors you actually believe in.

When Jason had that moment with his mom—realizing he'd be disappointed if she invested in what he was promoting—that was the turning point. Everything else flows from that standard.

You can't build this kind of sponsorship operation on garbage products. The white glove service only works when you're confident in what you're selling. The refund guarantee only makes sense when you've properly vetted sponsors.

Screw what's normal. Most creators treat sponsorships as a necessary evil—interrupt the content, cash the check, move on. Jason built a business where the ads are just as vetted as the editorial. Where sponsors become long-term partners. Where readers trust recommendations because The Pour Over has actual skin in the game.

That's not just a better sponsorship strategy. That's a better business.

Running a newsletter and want to build sustainable sponsor relationships like The Pour Over? That's exactly what we teach inside Wizard's Guild—practical sponsorship strategies from creators who've actually done $5M+ in deals. No agencies taking cuts. No templated pitches. Just real coaching on building partnerships that last.