Meeting Agenda: Blake (Partnerships) Discovery Call

Date: Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Time: 10:00 AM PT (1 hour)
Attendees: Blake (LMNT Partnerships Manager), Uttam Kumaran, Awaish Kumar, Shivani Amar

Note: Questions below include context from Jason (IT) and Carlos (E-commerce) meetings. Pre-populated answers are marked with “(confirmed)” or highlighted with bold text to validate with Blake, especially around metric definitions and attribution methods.

POST-MEETING SUMMARY

Fill this section out after the meeting concludes - see MEETING_WORKFLOW_GUIDE.md for instructions

Key Learnings

Current State:

Add major insights about partnership program operations
Pain points discovered
Unexpected findings

Data Sources & Systems:

List of systems Blake uses
How data flows
Data quality/trust issues

Quick Wins Identified:

High-impact opportunity (e.g., automate partnership dashboard)
Automation opportunity
Reporting improvement

Answers to Key Questions

Reference question numbers from below and provide concise answers

Q1-5: Partnership Program & Structure

Q1: Active partners → A: Fill in after meeting
Q2: Tribe segmentation → A: Fill in after meeting

Q6-8: Data Sources & Reporting

Q6: Systems used → A: Shopify (confirmed), Source Medium (confirmed, has data quality issues per Carlos), Refersion (confirmed), others TBD
Q7: Attribution method → A: GA4 last-click → Source Medium, UTM source/medium format (e.g., “andrewhuberman / sponsor”), validate with Blake

Q14-19: Metrics & KPIs

Q18: CAC definition → A: Need to align with Carlos’s 3 different definitions
Q17: ROAS vs MER → A: Validate if using MER like Carlos

(Continue for other question groups as needed)

Decisions Made

Decision about tool/process
Alignment on metric definitions

Follow-Up Needed

Blake: Action item (Due: Date)
Brainforge: Follow-up task (Due: Date)

Meeting Objectives

Understand health partnership program and influencer ecosystem
Review partnership attribution and revenue tracking
Explore partnership performance spreadsheet and data sources
Identify challenges in measuring partnership ROI
Document partnership KPIs and metric definitions
Understand integration with Shopify and e-commerce data

Demos/Walkthroughs Requested

Partnership ecosystem overview
- Walk through the 100+ partners tracked in your dashboard
- “Tribe” segmentation (Health Leader, Information Seeker, Performance Executive, Industrial Athlete, Wellness, etc.)
- Partnership structure and tiers
- Compensation models
Partnership performance spreadsheet walkthrough
- How data is collected and maintained
- Metrics tracked per partner (Monthly Revenue, ROAS, CAC, YTD performance)
- Time spent maintaining this massive spreadsheet
- How you prioritize which partners to review
Attribution tracking
- How partnership traffic/sales are tracked
- Source/Medium naming convention (e.g., “andrewhuberman / sponsor”)
- Integration with Shopify analytics and Carlos’s dashboard
- Monthly vs. YTD vs. Annual Booked Spend tracking
Top partnerships & outliers
- Huberman ( $85 K / m o n t h,$ 1.2M YTD, $2.2M annual) - what makes this so successful?
- Other top performers (Nicki Entenmann $7.6 K, A r n o l d$ 5K, Lex Fridman $5.5 K, D r . L y o n$ 4.9K)
- Partners with revenue marked “Inactive” - what does that mean?
- Discontinued partnerships - lessons learned
Agency & relationship management
- Multiple agencies (Moonbeam, Scicomm Media, Adhesive Media, etc.)
- “Relationship Energy” tracking - how measured?
- “Fortification Monthly Summary” notes
- Partner landing page types (Generic, Testimonial, Custom)

Questions to Ask

Partnership Program Overview

I see 100+ partners tracked in your dashboard - how many are currently active?
- “Signed” vs. “Out (Waitlist)” vs. “Discontinued” status
- Growth trajectory over 2025
Walk me through the “Tribe” segmentation I see:
- Health Leader (Huberman, Dr. Lyon, Mark Hyman, Dr. Galpin)
- Information Seeker (Lex Fridman, 1440, The Skimm, Kara and Nate)
- Performance Executive (Dan Go, Sahil Bloom, Mark Manson)
- Industrial Athlete (construction, military, trades content)
- Wellness (general wellness influencers)
- Diet & Nutrition (keto, carnivore, nutrition-focused)
- Athletes (strength, adventure, etc.)
- Salty Mama (mom influencers)
- How did you develop these categories?
Channel breakdown I see:
- Podcast (dominant)
- YouTube
- Meta (Instagram/Facebook)
- Email (newsletters)
- How does performance differ by channel type?
How do partnerships get structured?
- I see “Annual Booked Spend” ranging from $1 K t o$ 2.2M (Huberman)
- Flat fees vs. revenue share
- Contract start/end dates - typical duration?
Partnership lifecycle:
- What does “Out (Waitlist)” mean?
- Why are some marked “Discontinued”?
- How long from first conversation to “Signed”?

Current Data Sources & Reporting

Walk me through your partnership performance spreadsheet:
- Where does each data point come from?
- What’s manual vs. automated?
- How often is it updated?
What systems/tools do you use?
- Shopify analytics (confirmed as core platform - Jason/Carlos meetings)
- Source Medium (confirmed - Carlos uses Looker dashboards)
  - Carlos mentioned data quality issues requiring manual validation
  - Found calculation errors in reports
- Refersion (affiliate platform - Jason meeting mentioned this)
- Any other affiliate platforms?
- Custom tracking tools?
How do you attribute revenue to specific partnerships?
- UTM parameters (critical - Carlos mentioned breaking UTM structure causes attribution issues)
  - Can you show us your UTM naming convention?
- Source/Medium format (Carlos confirmed: e.g., “andrewhuberman / sponsor”)
  - This flows through GA4 last-click attribution into Source Medium
- Promo codes
- Unique landing pages/URLs (e.g., drinklmnt.com/huberman)
- Attribution model: Source Medium uses GA4 last-click attribution (Carlos meeting)
  - Is this sufficient for partnership attribution or do you face challenges?
Monthly reporting process:
- What metrics do you report?
- How long does it take to compile?
- Who consumes the reports?

Attribution & Tracking Challenges

What’s working well with current attribution?
What’s not working or feels inaccurate?
How do you handle multi-touch attribution?
- Customer sees Huberman podcast, then clicks Skimm newsletter ad
- Who gets credit?
How far back can you track historical partnership performance?
Are there partners where attribution is particularly challenging?

Key Metrics & KPIs

I see these metrics tracked for each partner:
- Monthly Net Revenue (primary sort)
- Revenue vs. Previous Month (% change)
- Monthly ROAS
- Monthly CAC
- Monthly Spend
- YTD Net Revenue, ROAS, CAC, Spend
- Annual Booked Spend
- Where does each data point come from?
How are you tracking sessions per partner?
- I don’t see sessions in the Top Partner Monthly export
- Is there another tab with funnel metrics?
- Source Medium integration?
Revenue Attribution:
- Is this last-click revenue?
- What’s the attribution window?
- How is this connected to Shopify data?
- Source/Medium naming (e.g., “andrewhuberman / sponsor”) - UTM params?
ROAS Calculation:
- What costs are included in “spend”?
- Flat fees, production costs, agency fees?
- Are partner gifts/samples included?
- Carlos uses MER (Marketing Efficiency Ratio) as “true guiding light” because attribution isn’t perfect
  - MER = total E-com revenue / all spend
  - Do you calculate MER for partnerships vs. attributed ROAS?
  - Any discrepancies between the two?
CAC Calculation:
- IMPORTANT: Carlos mentioned 3 different CAC definitions exist at LMNT - which one do you use?
  - Blended CAC = total performance spend / new customers across all channels (Carlos’s preferred)
  - Channel-specific CAC
  - Partnership-specific CAC
- Only new customers or blended?
- Does this match up with Carlos’s dashboard?
- How do you identify “new customers” from partnership traffic?
What KPIs are you measured on?
- Total partnership revenue targets
- Efficiency metrics (ROAS, CAC thresholds)
- Partner portfolio growth
- Relationship quality metrics?

Partnership Performance Analysis

Huberman Scale: $85, 640/ m o n t h,$ 1.2M YTD, $2.2M annual booked
- This is 10x larger than your next partner
- What makes this partnership so successful?
- How do you manage this relationship differently?
- Integration with custom landing page (drinklmnt.com/huberman)?
- Notes mention “H2 agreement, MSA, and LMNT Science interest”
How do you identify top-performing partnerships?
- I see you sort by “Monthly Net Revenue”
- Do you also look at ROAS, CAC, trend (% change MoM)?
- Regular review cadence
What patterns have you noticed across Tribes?
- Health Leader vs. Information Seeker vs. Performance Executive
- Podcast vs. YouTube vs. Meta vs. Email performance
- Influencer vs. Media company differences
Example: The Skimm had high sessions but low conversion (from Oct report)
- How do you make decisions about partnerships like this?
- Is it about brand awareness vs. direct sales?
- Do you have session/conversion data for all partners?
Partnership saturation tracking:
- I see some partners marked “Out (Waitlist)”
- How do you decide when to pause vs. reactivate?
- Optimal campaign frequency by partner type?
Content Usage Rights: I see tracking for Organic, Paid, None, All
- What does each mean?
- How does this impact performance or cost?
Landing Page Types: Generic, Testimonial, Custom
- What’s the difference?
- Does landing page type correlate with performance?
- Who gets custom pages? (Huberman, Arnold, Lex, Dr. Lyon have them)

Partnership Types Deep Dive

Sponsored Content (podcasts, newsletters)
- How are these structured?
- Performance benchmarks
- Production/creative process
Affiliate Program
- How many affiliates?
- Commission structure
- Top affiliates
Brand Campaigns (mentioned in Oct report for 12oz Sparkling)
- How are brand vs. performance campaigns tracked differently?

Funnel & Conversion Analysis

From the Oct 2025 report, first-time vs. returning customer ratio dropped from 70/30 to 60/40
- What does this tell you about audience saturation?
- How are you adjusting partnership strategy?
How do you track the full funnel per partner?
- Impressions/reach (if available)
- Sessions
- Product page views
- Add to cart
- Checkout
- Purchase
Where in the funnel do different partner types perform best/worst?

Data Quality & Challenges

What’s the most frustrating part of partnership reporting?
- Carlos spends 10-15 hours/month on manual data compilation - is it similar for you?
Where do you feel data is least reliable?
- Carlos found Source Medium calculation errors requiring manual validation
- Do you cross-reference Source Medium against platform exports?
- How often do you find discrepancies?
What questions can’t you answer today?
How do you validate partnership attribution accuracy?
- Carlos validates monthly (sometimes more) when discrepancies found
- What’s your QA process?
- 90-95% confidence in Source Medium or lower?

Integration with E-commerce

How does partnership data flow into Carlos’s e-commerce dashboard?
- I see “Partnerships” as a line item in Shopify dashboard: $25.7M budget (2026)
- Does your 100+ partner tracking roll up into this single line?
- CRITICAL: How do you reconcile between your detailed tracking and Carlos’s aggregate?
  - Carlos spends 10-15 hours/month compiling dashboard from 10+ sources
  - Does he pull partnership data from you or Source Medium?
  - Any discrepancies between your numbers and his?
Source/Medium naming convention:
- CONFIRMED: Format like “andrewhuberman / sponsor” (Carlos meeting)
- CONFIRMED: Captured via UTM parameters in source/medium structure
- Flows through GA4 → Source Medium → Carlos’s dashboard
- CRITICAL: Changing UTM structure breaks attribution (Carlos warning)
  - How do you ensure UTM consistency across 100+ partners?
  - Any governance/documentation for UTM creation?
How do you separate partnership-driven sales from organic?
- Attribution windows (what’s the standard window?)
- Overlapping touchpoints
- Carlos is working with MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling) vendor to solve cross-channel attribution
  - Example: Meta ad leads to Amazon purchase (can’t attribute properly with last-click)
  - Are partnerships facing similar multi-touch attribution challenges?
  - Have you been involved in MMM discussions?
Do partnerships drive subscription (INSIDER) sign-ups differently than one-time purchases?
- Huberman’s audience vs. other partners
- AOV differences by partner type
How do you track customer lifetime value by partnership source?
- Do you have cohort data by partner?
- First order → repeat purchase tracking

Competitive & Industry Context

How does LMNT’s partnership approach compare to competitors?
- Athletic Greens
- Other DTC health/supplement brands
What partnership innovations are you exploring for 2026?

Agency & Vendor Management

I see multiple agencies managing partnerships:
- Moonbeam (Lex Fridman, Matt Walker, Dr. Lyon, etc.)
- Scicomm Media (Huberman, Dr. Galpin)
- Adhesive Media (Industrial athlete content)
- Night (Travel/adventure content)
- Ent Agency, Epic Agency, Glossary Artists, Queen Consult, etc.
- How do you manage so many agency relationships?
- Do agencies have different reporting standards?
“Relationship Energy” field - what does this mean?
- How do you measure it?
- Who tracks it?
“LLM Status” field - what is this?
- Is this related to AI/large language models?
- How does it relate to partnerships?
“Fortification Monthly Summary” - what’s tracked here?
- Examples: “Maintain. Create custom landing page.”
- “Blake to develop 360 partner proposal with Dr. Lyon”

Partner Asset Management

Asset tracking: “Partner Assets requested?” “Partner Assets received?”
- What types of assets?
- Who creates them?
- How does this impact performance?
Content Shoot Priority: Yes/No/Backup
- What determines priority?
- How often do content shoots happen?

Ideal State Vision

If you could see all partnership data in one dashboard, what would it include?
- Partner performance scorecard
- Trend analysis and forecasting (currently manual MoM % calculations?)
- Cohort analysis by acquisition source
- LTV by partner
What analyses would help you optimize the partnership portfolio?
- By Tribe, by Channel, by Agency?
What would help you negotiate better partnership terms?
How would you like to identify which partnerships to scale vs. pause?

Future Roadmap

What’s on your partnerships roadmap for 2026?
- I see Annual Booked Spend totals - aggregate targets?
- New partnership types
- Expansion of existing relationships
How will partnership data needs evolve?

Data Infrastructure & Technical Questions

Access & permissions:
- Team uses SSO via Google Workspace (Jason meeting)
- API credentials stored in LastPass
- Do you have any unique access needs for partnership tools?
Data warehouse & reporting:
- We’re evaluating centralized data warehouse options (Snowflake vs. BigQuery)
- Currently using massive spreadsheet - would you want automated dashboards?
- What BI tools have you used? (Looker, Tableau, Mode, Metabase, etc.)
ETL & data integration:
- We’re evaluating ETL tools (Fivetran, Airbyte, Stitch)
- What partnership data sources need automated pulls?
  - Shopify API
  - Source Medium
  - Refersion (affiliates)
  - Ad platforms
  - Others?
NetSuite migration (Q4 2026):
- Phil/Finance leading this (Jason meeting)
- Will partnership revenue tracking change?
- Any concerns about data continuity?
Forecasting & projections:
- Carlos wants to shift from “target-setting” to true bottoms-up forecasts
- How do you currently forecast partnership revenue?
- What inputs would help? (traffic, conversion rate, AOV by partner type?)

Resources Mentioned/Requested

To be filled out during/after meeting

Action Items

To be filled out during/after meeting

Blake

Brainforge (Uttam/Awaish)

Shivani

Notes

Space for additional notes during the meeting

Key Insights

Attribution Model Opportunities

Quick Win Ideas

Partnership Segments to Analyze

Health Leader (Huberman $85 K / m o, D r . L y o n$ 4.9K, Mark Hyman, Dr. Galpin, etc.)
Information Seekers (Lex Fridman $5.5K, 1440, The Skimm, Kara and Nate)
Performance Executives (Dan Go, Sahil Bloom, Mark Manson, Arnold $5K)
Industrial Athlete (construction, military, trades - unique LMNT segment)
Wellness (general wellness influencers)
Diet & Nutrition (keto, carnivore, nutrition focus)
Athletes (strength, adventure, endurance)
Salty Mama (mom/family influencers)

Agency Relationships

Moonbeam (largest portfolio - Lex, Matt Walker, Dr. Lyon, etc.)
Scicomm Media (Huberman, Dr. Galpin - science-focused)
Adhesive Media (Industrial Athlete content)
Night (travel/adventure creators)
Ent Agency (Meta creators)
Multiple others (Epic, Glossary Artists, Queen Consult, etc.)

Brainforge Knowledge

Explorer

2025-12-16_blake_partnerships