The Post-Christmas Advantage

Howdy readers 🥰

In this newsletter, you’ll find:

😮 Why TV Warms Social

🤖 AI Ads and Performance Data Are Getting Clearer

🏆 Ad of the Day

If you’re new to ScaleUP, then a hearty welcome! You and 50k+ CEOs, CMOS, and marketers have reached the right place. Let’s 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 Insense

HACK: Turn One Creator Drop Into Weeks of Q5 Ads

This is the scramble phase of Q5, the moment when every ad dies at once and performance hinges on how fast you can ship fresh creatives. Doing nothing means pouring budget into creatives that stopped converting yesterday. 

With Insense, one creator drop gives you enough raw footage to fuel an entire round of testing without blowing up your team’s bandwidth.

• 20+ raw assets per creator, you can turn into countless variations.
• Fast 14-day turnaround so you stay ahead of Q5 spend.
• Lifetime usage rights, so every winning cut keeps earning for months.

That’s why 2,000+ brands like Quip, Revolut, and Matys rely on Insense to scale UGC without killing bandwidth.

Book a free strategy call by December 19th and get $200 for your first campaign!

😮 Why TV Warms Social

The loudest advertising mistake brands make is assuming January behaves like December. It doesn’t.

The week after Christmas is not a continuation of BFCM. It’s a reset. Feeds thin out. Deal fatigue sets in. People stop shopping for others and start recalibrating for themselves. That shift creates something rare in modern marketing: an attention vacuum.

Most brands miss it because they keep fighting inside the same feed dynamics, same creative pacing, same CPM logic. The smarter move is to redirect pressure, not increase it.

This is where CTV quietly becomes one of the most efficient trust accelerators in the stack.

Not because it converts directly. Because it changes how everything else converts.

Why post-Christmas behavior favors the TV screen

After December 25th, consumption shifts from active scrolling to passive viewing. People sit. They watch. They half-scroll while the TV runs in the background. This matters because attention quality changes.

On social, you are interrupting. On TV, you are accompanying. CTV benefits from three structural advantages in this window:

First, attention density is higher. Fewer ads compete for mental space, and longer sessions mean repeated exposure without fatigue.

Second, TV still carries legitimate weight. A brand seen on a television screen feels established before it ever earns a click, reducing skepticism later in the funnel.

Third, second-screen behavior bridges the gap. Viewers often see a brand on TV, then recognize it days later in a Reel or search result. Familiarity does the heavy lifting before performance media ever asks for action.

How the post-Christmas stack actually compounds

CTV’s role is not persuasion. It is recognition.

You use it to seed brand presence so that paid social stops feeling like a cold introduction and starts feeling like a reminder. Social then does what it does best: resolve one objection at a time with short, specific proof.

The overlap is where the lift happens.

Execution matters here. You want simplicity, speed, and control, not bloated TV buying processes. That’s where platforms like Tatari.tv fit naturally into the post-holiday play, letting brands launch and manage CTV quickly without opaque programmatic layers. You can schedule a free demo here.

The real takeaway

December is about volume. January is about positioning.

When feeds quiet down, the brands that win are the ones that reallocate attention, not chase it harder. Shift part of your spend to CTV post-Christmas, build trust in a low-noise environment, then let social convert in warmer conditions.

The brands that understand this don’t fight the calendar. They use it.

🤖 AI Ads and Performance Data Are Getting Clearer

Google and Apple both released clarifications that close long-standing gaps for marketers and site owners. Google explained how keyword match types work with AI Overview ads, while Apple updated Safari to support Core Web Vitals measurement. 

The Breakdown:

1. Broad Match Powers AI Overview Ads - Google confirmed that exact and phrase match keywords are not eligible to serve ads inside AI Overviews. Only broad match or keywordless targeting can trigger those placements.

The presence of an exact match keyword no longer prevents a broad match keyword from triggering ads within AI Overviews. Ads can appear either above or below an AI Overview or within it, but not both in the same auction.

2. Safari Closes a Measurement Gap - Safari 26.2 now supports Largest Contentful Paint ( a Core Web Vital and ranking signal) and Interaction to Next Paint ( measures how quickly a site responds to user interactions), via the Performance API, allowing site owners to collect real user performance data from Safari visitors. 

These metrics can now be captured through platforms such as GA4, Adobe Analytics, and real-user monitoring tools. Chrome-based public datasets like PageSpeed Insights remain unchanged. 

AI-driven ad placements and browser performance data are becoming more transparent. Teams now have clearer rules on how ads qualify for AI surfaces and better visibility into real user experience on Apple devices.

🏆 Ad of the Day

What Works:

1. Emotion First - The smile does more work than the product. It sells the feeling coffee creates, not the object itself, making the mug feel like a shortcut to warmth, comfort, and a better morning mood.

2. Gift Reframe - Calling it “The Gift of Better Coffee” shifts focus from hardware to experience. You’re not gifting a cup, you’re gifting a daily upgrade, which feels more thoughtful and personal.

3. Quiet Branding - Simple Modern sits small and calm at the bottom. That restraint signals confidence and quality, letting the lifestyle do the persuasion instead of shouting features or discounts.

This works because it sells a feeling people recognize instantly. It turns a simple product into an emotional habit upgrade, making the purchase feel obvious, warm, and gift-worthy without trying too hard.

Advertise with Us

Wanna put out your message in front of over 50,000 best marketers and decision makers?

Find our Partner Kit here🤝

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 EVERYWHERE🥰

Thanks for your support :) We'll be back again with more such content 🥳