Hey, fellow growers. Ever obsess over anything so much that you don’t sleep, eat, drink water, or otherwise live your life b/c your brain is entirely focused on one thing with no room for anyone or anything else?

No? Yeah, me either….was just kidding. Ha ha.

Actually, I wasn’t kidding🫣: My pet project over the past few months has been designing and building out a self-serve advertising site for DONUT Press Media - where prospective advertisers could browse our newsletter advertising packages (+ other features we offer) and check out without actually needing to talk to a salesperson - reimagined as a retro, 8-bit Oregon Trail-style videogame experience.

Well, it finally launched this week. And I’d love for you to check it out. You can do so here (and pls be gentle lol).

-Peter

In this week’s newsletter:

• 📈 How to better frame creative to boost CTR
• 📝 Meta spend benchmarks
• 💪 A guide to crushing tough finance meetings

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DATA INSIGHT

📈 How to better frame creative to boost CTR (sometimes massively)

We were looking at dedicated email creative tests this morning - where an advertiser “takes over” an entire email, which is sent from a trusted publisher to that publisher’s own list - and it is genuinely wild how much the framing dictates performance. You can have the exact same product and offer, but if you wrap it in the wrong context, it dies faster than an unwatered houseplant in a windowless office.

The story: A simple change in framing took one of our advertisers’ campaigns from a 5% CTR to over 40%. Which still boggles the mind tbh; we’ve never seen one that high.

With a little magic, you too can juice your clicks

The insanely high-performing dedicated email was essentially a product recommendation list framed as a "Sunday Reset," instead of a standard “this is a product/offering we highly recommend” promotion (the framing of the one with the 5% CTR).

This is the two-fold explanation we landed on for why the massive delta:

• Readers expect and actually want “real” curation from a publisher, not advertiser-forced pitches (which get easily recognized and tuned out). Framing the blast as a "Sunday Reset" makes the message feel like editorial content rather than an ad. The reader opens the email expecting content from the publisher, so their guard is down. The format forces engagement, and the “authentically-curated” framing secures the click. It's the difference between a stranger handing you a flyer and a friend texting you "hey, this is actually really good."
• Timing alignment amplifies relevance. Sending a "reset" themed message on a Sunday morning aligns perfectly with the reader's actual weekend routine. You're inserting the product into an existing psychological habit rather than trying to create a new one. We tested the exact same "reset" framing on a Tuesday afternoon and the CTR dropped to 12.4%, indicating the behavioral timing is just as critical as the creative itself. You can't force a Sunday mindset on a Tuesday, no matter how good your copy is.

NEED TO KNOW

What you may have missed this week

👀🤖 (A)I see you: As brands are scrambling to measure visibility in AI search summaries, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has been assembling a framework meant to standardize how that visibility gets measured. We get multiple brands pitching “AI search visibility” services to us every day; you prob do too - but what we can’t measure, we can’t attribute or improve.

💸 Spending on Meta? You’ll want to check out this benchmark 2026 metrics report, created from new WordStream by LocaliQ benchmark data. It analyzes ~1.8k Facebook ad campaigns across industries, and will give you insight into how your click-through rate, cost per click, conversion rate, and cost per lead compare to averages.

📊 Speaking of data…This year’s CMO Survey, created in partnership with Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Deloitte, and the American Marketing Association, just dropped - and it’s quite comprehensive. See what marketing leaders think about the economy, AI, which channels to prioritize in 2026/2027, and much, much more (it’s 79 pages); dive into the survey here.

THE HELP DESK

Stuff that makes your output better and your job easier

📬 Is your email program creating pipeline, or just sending more junk into the inbox void? This practical guide covers common email marketing mistakes and how to avoid them, complete with a 30-day action plan that by the end should have your system rocking and rolling like a prime Mick Jagger.

🧌 Fee-finance-fo-fum: Turn the large angry CFO into a teddy bear by ensuring you align on what the numbers actually mean b/f a campaign launches - use this five-question executive diagnostic as a compact meeting agenda to help you slay the fire-breathing financial behemoth.

🤑 Showwww me the money! Check out cloud-based data platform Snowflake’s model for finding more revenue using AI. It has an acronym and everything.

That’s all for this week, folks! Happy growing; see you back here next Wednesday✌️.

-Peter & Scott

P.S. Meta or Google not providing the same bang for your advertising buck? At DONUT Press Media, we have 13.4M+ premium subscribers across dozens of highly engaged niche audiences. 43% have a net worth over $2M. 87% are decision-makers. If you're considering diverting some test spend to newsletters, you should definitely check us out.