Publisher Sourcing, Vetting and Terms Negotiation

No introduction leaves this desk on the strength of a media kit. A publisher enters your programme only after we have seen 30 days of placement-level data behind the summary, raw referrer and device mix rather than a screenshot of a dashboard, and after a paid test placement priced at the publisher's real rate, which we disclose to you. We take a fee from you and nothing from the other side. No override, no rate card resale, no volume rebate, because a matchmaker paid by both ends is a network with better manners. What we check before you meet anyone: Declared geography against the ASN and device distribution in the logs. The share of sessions arriving from datacentre ranges. The interval between click and registration, where a distribution stacked under two seconds means forced clicks rather than an audience. Whether a newsletter's open rate survives a list-cleaning check. For a Telegram or Discord community, whether the admin also runs a paid signals product on the same members, which changes what a recommendation from them is worth and whether you want it at all. The terms, which matter more than the introduction: We negotiate the deal, not just the meeting. For exchange and wallet advertisers that means arguing about the duration of the revenue share rather than the percentage, because a 25 percent lifetime share and a 45 percent twelve-month share are nowhere near the same deal once your retention curve is in the model. It means a validation window that matches your refund and chargeback reality, clawback language that cannot be applied backwards into a settled period, an agreed sub-ID namespace so neither side is guessing in month four, and payment terms a publisher outside your banking jurisdiction can actually accept. An Indian publisher invoicing a foreign advertiser is exporting a service; with a letter of undertaking on file that invoice carries no GST, and getting it wrong at the start costs the publisher 18 percent and costs you the partner. How the engagement is shaped: A thesis first, about which audiences plausibly convert for what you sell and at what payout you can afford them. Then sourcing against that thesis, which is slow, personal, and mostly consists of being told no. Then vetting, a paid test, then terms, then a handover pack per publisher: contacts, agreed rates, tracking parameters, the log evidence, and our note on where that relationship is fragile. What is not included: We do not run the placements after they are signed and we do not hold your budget. Creative and landing pages sit outside this scope. We do not sell you a list; a document of contacts with no signed terms behind it is not a deliverable and we will not produce one on request. Who this is not for: Advertisers who want partner count to rise this quarter. Anyone who wants us to approach a publisher we have already introduced to a direct competitor, which we decline for the life of that relationship, and you get the same protection. Programmes that cannot pay for a test placement, since asking a publisher for free trial traffic is the quickest route to being given the inventory nobody else bought.