Howdy Readers đĽ°Â
In this newsletter, youâll find:
đˇď¸ Five checks to run on every âwasâ price before black friday
đ Google, Microsoft and OpenAI introduce AI content controls as ChatGPT ads trail Google Search
đ Ad of the day
If youâre new to ScaleUP then a hearty welcome to you. Youâve reached the right place along with 50k+ CEOs, CMOS, and marketers. Letâs get into it, shall we? Oh! Before you forget, if someone forwarded this newsletter to you, don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss out!
Together with New Engen
Before you spend more reaching the same people
Spending more on Meta without seeing more growth? Your ads may be reaching the same people again.
In a Meta study across 94 marketing mix models, 66% of people reached by partnership ads hadnât seen the advertiserâs regular ads in the same audience.
Grapevine, now part of New Engen, helps you reach beyond that overlap with whitelisted ads from its publisher handles across beauty, wellness, menâs, parenting, finance, and pets.
Leave creator sourcing, briefs, and payments to Grapevine.
Get distinct statics and UGC produced and posted through its publisher handles.
Keep control of your ad spend while Grapevine supports testing and optimization.
Just Food for Dogs increased Grapevineâs share of its paid media from 15% to 45% in six months.
Your team gets more creative to test without more production to manage.
đˇď¸ Five checks to run on every âwasâ price before black friday
Only 22% of consumers now believe advertised discounts represent real savings, according to Simon-Kucher, down from 46%. Regulators seem to share the doubt. On October 26, the FTC and 20 states sued Dollar General, alleging shelf prices across more than 21,000 stores often didnât match what shoppers paid at the register.
An online store faces the same two questions. Is the âwasâ price honest? Does the price shown match the price charged? Run these five checks in one afternoon.
Check 1: Count your claims.
Export every product with a compare-at price, plus every banner, email, and ad stating a percentage off. A 400-product store usually carries 80 to 150 claims in Q4.
Check 2: Date the reference price
For each product, find how many of the last 90 days it actually sold at the âwasâ price. Your price change log or order history has it.
Flag anything sold at the higher price for under half that window. That cutoff is my judgment. Many state rules ask whether the reference price was genuinely offered, so confirm the standard for your markets with counsel.
Check 3: Walk 20 carts.
Add 20 discounted products to cart, one at a time, on desktop and mobile. Write down the price on the product page, in the cart, and at final checkout.
The usual breaks: codes that donât stack as advertised, sale prices that expire at midnight in another time zone, and bundles that price differently once in the cart.
Check 4: Price the risk.
Say 30 of your 120 claims fail Check 2, and those 30 products will drive $60,000 in holiday revenue. Drop the âwasâ price, keep the sale price, and you lose only a badge. Revenue stays at $60,000. Keep the weak claims, and you carry complaints, chargebacks, and refunds you canât forecast. These figures are illustrative.
Check 5: Rewrite what fails.s
Swap âwas $80, now $56â for wording you can stand behind, such as âholiday price $56.â The shopper still sees the deal, and youâve removed the one line a regulator or an annoyed customer could challenge.
Lock it in
Add one rule for the team: no price claim goes live without a line of evidence showing the dates the reference price was charged. Keep it in a shared sheet next to the promo calendar, and review it before every email send and every new ad set.
Start here
Checks 1 and 3 take about two hours together, and they catch the mismatches shoppers spot first.
đ Google, Microsoft and OpenAI introduce AI content controls as ChatGPT ads trail Google search
Major developments in AI search and advertising are reshaping how publishers control their content and how advertisers measure performance, with new AI training restrictions and research revealing significant differences between ChatGPT and Google Search ads.
The Breakdown:
Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI plan to support a shared robots.txt control, allowing publishers to opt out of AI training across participating providers without configuring separate crawler rules.
Microsoft will introduce separate AI training and grounding controls from February 2027, while Google plans to honor the shared signal in early 2027, also affecting Gemini Apps grounding.
ChatGPT ad visits generated $0.89 in revenue versus $2.45 from Google Search ads, according to an October 2026 working paper analyzing 102 advertiser websites.
ChatGPT ads converted at 0.37%, compared with 1.17% for paid search, while researchers estimated a revenue-equivalent ChatGPT click price of approximately $0.26.
Publishers are gaining greater control over AI content usage, while early advertising data suggests ChatGPT still trails Google Search in direct-response performance. For marketers, managing AI visibility and evaluating advertising returns are becoming increasingly important, although the ad findings remain preliminary.
đ Ad of the day
What Works:
Format Creates Curiosity - The beauty-filled gumball machine is an immediate pattern interrupt, turning familiar products into collectibles and giving the creative strong thumb-stop power without needing a hard-sell headline.
Range Signals Discovery - Multiple recognizable beauty products packed together communicate variety and discovery, making the ad feel like a curated haul while strengthening cross-brand appeal and browsing intent.
Pink Builds Cohesion - The monochromatic pink treatment ties different brands into one visual system, lowering cognitive load while keeping the overall creative playful, premium, and highly memorable in-feed.
When selling variety, donât just show a lineup. Put products inside a familiar discovery mechanic like a vending machine, capsule to,y or beauty drawer.
Advertise with Us
Wanna put out your message in front of over 50,000 best marketers and decision makers?
We are concerned about everything DTC and its winning strategies. If you liked what you read, why not join the 50k+ marketers from 13k+ DTC brands who have already subscribed? Just follow this.
At ScaleUP, we care about our readers and want to provide the best possible experience. That's why we always look for ways to improve our content and connect with our audience. If you'd like to stay in touch, be sure to follow us EVERYWHEREđĽ°
Thanks for your support :) We'll be back again with more such content đĽł