Your Inbox Strategy Is Broken

📬 The Deliverability Stack that wins the noisiest weeks of the Year, Google expands Demand Gen with AI and Smarter Targeting, and more!

Howdy readers đŸ„°

In this newsletter, you’ll find:

📬  Your Inbox Strategy Is Broken

📈 Google Expands Demand Gen With AI and Smarter Targeting

🏆 Ad of the Day

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Together with Nebius

Your Next Campaign > Your Next Cloud Invoice

Your ad budget shouldn’t be paying for someone else’s GPU delays. Yet every week on AWS or Azure, surprise invoices pile up while models idle in queues, burning the runway you need for growth.

With Nebius, you’ll see this right away:

  • Free migration & 3 months free, savings start immediately
  • 30–50 % lower GPU spend with consistent $2/hr pricing
  • Training large models up to 50 % quicker with instant scaling

Teams like Recraft and Captions already run production workloads on Nebius, citing stable clusters, quick support, and zero launch delays, proof that the platform can handle serious scale without hidden fees.

Switch to Nebius and lock in your free months before your next cloud bill hits!

📬  Your Inbox Strategy Is Broken

You’re not competing with other brands this BFCM. You’re competing with Gmail itself. Your best campaign is worthless if it lands in Promotions tab purgatory at 4:03 pm with 27 other emails.

And during peak weeks, inbox algorithms punish even tiny engagement drops.

This isn’t about open rates. It’s about reputation equity, and you’ve likely already spent most of yours. So how do you fix it? 

You don’t “optimize subject lines.” You reroute your entire inbox topology.

🔬 The Strategic Stack: Preheat + Map + Precision Send

Welcome to Inbox Topology Routing, a 3-layered protocol designed for peak-period email survival:

1. Signal Preheat (3 steps, 3 days before launch)

  • Day 1: Send a plain-text “Quick question” from a real sender name. Prompt for replies.
  • Day 2: A micro-offer with a deep link click (e.g., early gift guide, secret landing page).
  • Day 3: Drop an ICS calendar link for VIP early access.

Each touch generates high-rank engagement signals: replies, clicks, calendar intent.

2. Sender Graph Mapping

Track engagement by domain: Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook. Build a Sender Graph showing % of opens, clicks, and replies per provider. Stagger sends during high-engagement windows specific to each inbox provider (e.g., Gmail: 8–9:30am, Yahoo: 5:30–7pm).

3. Final Campaign Deployment (With Seed Monitoring)

Monitor Inbox Grade Δ, where your email lands before vs. after preheat.

Use seed accounts (including mobile devices) to grade placement: Primary, Promo, Spam, Delayed.

đŸ§Ș The 10-Day Deliverability Pilot (Your Team Can Run This Week)

Day 1–3: Preheat sequence

Day 4–5: Sender Graph analysis

Day 6–7: Smart cohort segmentation

Day 8–10: BFCM Campaign drop

📈 Success Benchmark:

+8–12pt Gmail Primary lift, +20% click-through in high-engagement segments, 0% domain throttling across providers.

None of this works if your list is cold, noisy, or discount-chasers only.

Your preheat sequence is only as strong as the people receiving it. That’s where TrafficGrid flips the game. It feeds your list with high-attention, reply-prone, link-clicking subscribers, the exact behaviors that train inbox algorithms to trust you.

🧹 Deliverability Is a Multiplicative Engine, or a Silent Killer

This BFCM, don’t rely on hope. Rely on a topology. Map it. Preheat it. Reroute it.

And let TrafficGrid power the engagement layer that actually gets you seen. You can book your free strategy call and get deliverability that drives revenue, not silence.

📈 Google Expands Demand Gen With AI and Smarter Targeting

Google’s latest Demand Gen Drops update introduces a wave of automation and creative tools for advertisers. From new customer acquisition goals to AI-powered video generation, the update aims to make campaign management more efficient and performance-driven across YouTube and Google’s ad network.

The Breakdown:

1. Advanced customer acquisition goals - Advertisers now get three new bidding options: New Customer Value, High Value New Customer, and New Customer Only, allowing smarter segmentation between new, high-value, and existing customers. Early data shows an 11.5% rise in new customer ratios with a 3% lower acquisition cost.

2. AI-generated video creation for YouTube - Google AI can now transform existing image and text assets into professional-quality videos in vertical and horizontal formats, allowing brands to expand reach without extra production costs. The videos are optimized for YouTube engagement, helping campaigns perform better across visual formats.

3. Smarter bidding and app engagement - A new Target CPC bidding update makes performance tracking consistent across platforms, simplifying campaign optimization. Meanwhile, Web to App Connect now supports deep linking on iOS, driving more users directly into apps. 

4. Dynamic product displays from Merchant Center - Demand Gen campaigns connected to Google Merchant Center can now auto-generate product visuals within ads, bringing shoppable experiences to display campaigns.

This update strengthens Google’s Demand Gen suite as a full-funnel performance tool, combining personalization, automation, and commerce integration. Advertisers can now create faster, richer campaigns across YouTube and display with less effort, while driving more qualified engagement. 

đŸŽ„ Ad of the Day

What Works:

1. Native ‘Notes App’ Aesthetic -  The ad mimics an iPhone note, instantly relatable and pattern-breaking in a feed full of polished graphics. It feels personal, like a text from a friend, not a brand pitch. Use native UI aesthetics to lower ad defenses; authenticity scrolls further than polish.

2. POV Framing for Immersive Empath - “POV: You solved almost all your problems
” reframes the copy from pitch to personal moment. It makes the viewer the protagonist of the solution. Use POV framing to collapse the distance between brand and consumer; it feels like an inside joke, not an ad.

3. Functional Credibility Underneath the Fun - Amid humor, the product still claims authority: “personally fit to your body and sleep position.” It’s a trust anchor disguised inside casual storytelling. Wrap proof points in play, facts land smoother when they feel conversational.

This ad wins by blending humor, authenticity, and subtle proof. It doesn’t “sell” better sleep, it shares the experience of fixing your life one note at a time.

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