The rich card your brand missed
🙂 Some brands are getting a rich card. others are getting skipped entirely, Media buyer index of the week, and more!
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In this newsletter, you’ll find:
🙂Some brands are getting a rich card. others are getting skipped entirely.
📊 Snapchat and AppLovin are posting the strongest returns, at budgets too small to matter
🏆 Ad of the day
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🙂Some brands are getting a rich card. others are getting skipped entirely.
Microsoft’s roadmap for Copilot introduces Rich Answer Cards, replacing plain AI responses with interactive cards for categories like weather, sports, finance, places, products, images, video and news. That sounds like a visual update. It’s actually a different retrieval system.
A citation and a rich card aren’t competing for the same thing.
One rewards good written content.
The other depends on structured data.
These are two different visibility contests
A page can rank well, earn AI citations and still never appear inside a Rich Answer Card.
Why?
Because the card isn’t built by summarizing your content. It’s built by pulling structured information such as price, availability, ratings or location directly into a predefined format.
Strong copy alone won’t qualify a page for a card if the underlying structured fields don’t exist.
Audit the pages that should qualify
Start with the parts of your business most likely to appear in Microsoft’s supported categories.
Product pages, store locations, reviews, pricing information and anything containing live or frequently updated information are the obvious places to look.
Then ask a simple question.
Is this information available as structured data, or is it only described in paragraphs?
A product page can explain everything perfectly for a human reader while providing almost nothing a rich card can actually display.
Visibility is becoming more than a content problem
This shift matters because AI search is expanding beyond generated text.
Some answers will continue rewarding strong written content. Others will increasingly depend on structured information that never appears inside the copy itself.
That’s why AirOps’ State of AEO 2026 looks beyond traditional citation tracking, covering how structured signals, third-party mentions and evolving AI retrieval patterns are changing visibility across platforms. You can get the State of AEO Report.
The next generation of AI search won’t have one winner for every query. Some brands will win the citation. Others will win the card. The brands preparing for both will be much harder to ignore.
📊 Snapchat and AppLovin are posting the strongest returns, at budgets too small to matter
Last week’s media buyer index split cleanly between platforms absorbing the most spend and platforms generating the best returns, a familiar pattern, but the gap between the two widened enough this week to make reallocation a more urgent conversation than usual.
The Breakdown:
CPC - AppLovin, TikTok, YouTube, and Google all saw click costs fall while Snapchat and Microsoft pushed higher, where CPCs dropped sharply alongside negative CvR like TikTok and AppLovin, hold budgets flat and refresh creative before treating lower costs as a scaling opportunity.
CAC - Meta, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, and Microsoft all improved while TikTok and AppLovin worsened, on platforms where CAC improved alongside positive ROAS like Snapchat and Microsoft, test a 15–20% budget increase this week and track whether gains hold at higher spend.
ROAS - Snapchat led at +11.55% and AppLovin posted +8.49% while TikTok (-2.91%) slipped, both Snapchat and AppLovin are posting top-tier returns at under 2% budget share each; open dedicated test budgets on both before the auction reprices the efficiency.
Meta holds 55.16% of spend with barely positive ROAS at +0.01%, three consecutive weeks of holding share without a meaningful return signal is a slow bleed, not a stable base. Snapchat at 0.77% posted +11.55% ROAS and +28.18% CvR simultaneously.
Redirect 10–15% of Meta’s incremental budget into Snapchat and AppLovin this week, set CAC ceilings on both, and review mid-cycle before committing to a full shift.
🏆 Ad of the Day
What Works:
Benefit Leads Fast - “Boost your mood and energy” gives the creative an immediate functional promise, while the large headline creates strong thumb-stop potential and keeps the value proposition easy to process.
Ingredients Create Proof - The exploded nuts and cinnamon visually reinforce what is inside the product, making the formula feel tangible while the focus and energy callouts connect ingredients to clear outcomes.
Offer Drives Action - The bold “Get 20% OFF” button creates clear CTA hierarchy, while the contrasting blue treatment makes the offer feel prominent without overpowering the product itself.
Show the ingredients physically surrounding the product, then attach one outcome to each side. This makes functional claims easier to believe and improves product communication quickly.
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