Refresh the Face not the Content
🧠 Because Your Ads Aren’t Tired. Your Creators Are, TikTok & YouTube Expand Utility With DM Lead Gen and CTV Upgrades, and more!
Howdy Readers 🥰
In this newsletter, you’ll find:
🧠 Your Ads Aren’t Tired. Your Creators Are
📲 TikTok & YouTube Expand Utility With DM Lead Gen and CTV Upgrades
🏆 Ad of the Day
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🧠 Your Ads Aren’t Tired. Your Creators Are.
You’ve reworked the hook, tested seven edits, swapped soundtracks, and tried every angle. Yet performance still dips. The truth most marketers won’t say? It’s not your creativity that’s burning out, it’s your creator’s face that the audience is tired of.
Audiences Remember Faces Faster Than Brands
Even your best ad will fade with cold audiences over time. It’s not the copy they skip, it’s the repetition. If they’ve seen the same creator four times this week, your ad’s already in their mental “ignore” folder. It’s not always the creative that fatigues. Sometimes, it’s just the face that sticks around too long.
Repetition Fatigue Destroys Performance Without Obvious Warning Signs
When you rely too heavily on just two or three creators:
Ad frequency builds subconscious resistance to the same visuals repeatedly
Clickthrough rates drop, even if hooks are still compelling
Retargeting loses its bite because trust feels artificially force.
Data from A/B tests starts becoming noisy instead of clean
You assume your offer or editing style is the problem. But really, you’ve just exhausted your creator’s face equity.
Refresh the Messenger, Not Just the Message
You don’t always need new content, you need fresh human context.
Rotate creators frequently, like you rotate ad variants in tests.
Map creators to specific audience psychographics and niche profiles.
Track performance by creator lifespan, not just total impressions served.
Faces Now Matter More Than Hooks. Your top-performing ad next quarter might not look new at all. It could just feature a creator your audience hasn’t tuned out yet. Elite performance marketers get this instinctively: creative doesn’t flop because content gets dull, it flops when faces do.
📲 TikTok & YouTube Expand Utility With DM Lead Gen and CTV Upgrades
TikTok and YouTube just dropped notable updates aimed at boosting lead generation and streamlining content experiences. TikTok’s Promote ads can now drive users to third-party messaging apps, while YouTube enhances its connected TV (CTV) app, upload process, and Shorts tools.
The Breakdown:
1. TikTok Now Supports Third-Party DM Apps - TikTok’s Promote ads now allow businesses to drive leads to WhatsApp, Messenger, LINE, or Zalo. This expands beyond TikTok's own inbox, enabling campaigns to target users with their preferred messaging platform.
2. YouTube Adds Smart TV “Top Channels” and Shortcuts - YouTube’s CTV app now features quick links to top-watched channels, recent searches, and popular music video categories. It also includes a new Podcasts tab, acknowledging that up to 40% of YouTube podcast views happen via CTV.
3. New Upload Progress Display in YouTube App - YouTube creators on mobile and tablet can now view upload status, complete with arrow icons and percentage progress,, directly from their channel page. Filter chips let creators quickly manage which videos are visible during uploads.
TikTok’s new DM goals unlock more flexible lead generation pipelines across preferred platforms, aligning with the trend toward direct, 1:1 customer engagement. Meanwhile, YouTube is streamlining both content consumption and creation, especially on CTV.
🏆 Ad of the Day
What Works:
The ad taps directly into goal motivation, runners care deeply about pacing and timing. "Run Your Marathon On Pace" gives a sense of control and mastery, two huge emotional levers in athletic communities.
The wristband is shown clearly with a focus on numbers and pacing marks, making it obvious what it does without heavy explanation. The direct arrow pointing to the product and supporting icons beside it streamline cognitive load, users process the utility in 2 seconds or less, which is critical in fast-scroll social feeds.
The blue gradient background signals calm confidence, while red accents (especially the thin swoosh curve) create a subtle sense of urgency and energy, perfect for marathon runners. The bold, all-caps headline in white offers strong contrast for easy readability and implies urgency and action without feeling overwhelming.
Broader Insights:
This ad smartly mirrors the mindset of a marathoner, focused, efficient, and achievement-driven, using quick clarity, motivating color psychology, and minimal friction to make the product instantly desirable.
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