a cold partnership email showed up pitching free access to an AI music tool plus a commission on anything i sold to my audience. before i wrote back, i ran the tool and the agency through my claude, and it told me more than either email did.
the two-email tell
the first email offered a flat 30% affiliate commission. the follow-up quietly walked that back to "product exploration and feedback," paid work dangled as a maybe, later. claude noticed. that shift in messaging alone is a tell: no money now, maybe later (if even), phrased to sound like an upgrade.
but the real test came next, and it's the one i now run on anything that lands in my inbox with an offer attached.
email one says paid. email two says maybe.
the review-footprint test
claude searched the tool by name plus "review." then looked at what's actually there. if every result is an SEO blog or an affiliate roundup, and there's nothing on social media sites, reddit, trustpilot, g2, etc. that absence is your telltale. real users leave a footprint somewhere. a tool with zero organic footprint has either no real users yet, or the users who tried it had nothing good to say and nowhere to say it.
then ran the same search on the agency sending the offer, found a scam-tracking site flagging the exact domain as low-trust, and someone who had already publicly warned that this same email was scam-adjacent.
real users leave a footprint somewhere unpaid.
what i actually did with it
i logged the whole vetting pass, the two-email pattern, the review-footprint check, the peer warning, then sent a clean, polite decline. no installer opened, no files downloaded, no reply beyond the decline itself. the entire cost of finding out was one search and about five minutes.
the same test now runs on anything that arrives dressed as an opportunity:
a collab pitch,
a "free tool" offer,
a sponsorship DM.
one search for reviews, one search for the sender, and a look at what other people in your specific niche have already said. your peers are usually your fastest, most honest scam filter, faster than any review site.
one search. five minutes. decline or proceed.
run it yourself
next cold offer that lands in your inbox, don't reply first.
search the tool,
search the sender,
then search your own niche for anyone who's already been burned.
five minutes, and you'll know more than either email told you.
what's the worst "partnership" email you've ever gotten?
hit reply, i want to hear the pitch.
want a system like this built into your own brand? that's exactly what the front-door call is for: Brand Playbook Buildout, 60 minutes, we teach the system, relate it to what you're building, and figure out if it's worth building out together.
SEE YOU ON THE NEXT ONE
- AUNY 🧡
( i’m back. hi )