As mentioned in recent posts, there are many  new profiles coming on line, usually referencing the virus as a reason to sign up. That could mean lots of POT's who are totally new to sugar and are not very experienced in arrangements or how to navigate SD vetting on the site.  
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My over all approach has always been a soft-sell strategy, meaning I generally don't initiate contact first. If she messages or favortites me, I can reasonably assume she at least glanced at my profile and saw my pics.  Note that there are POT's (usually the scammers or pros) who do a search and go down the list checking the favorite box without looking at profiles. My assumption is they are tagging any profile that shows a certain income, net worth, or age. But let's not consider those for this discussion.  
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So my strategy does not work well with new profiles, say less than a week old. The hottest POT's are usually slammed in the first 24 - 48 hours with incoming messages from creepy guys offering "$$$$ for anal," or some other unrealistic deal, or lame one line or one-word messages ("Hey") that get ignored. If I send a message during that time, it will likely stay unread or be quickly dismissed as from another creep.  
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Waiting for a while does two things. First it lets me see that her profile lasted more than a few days and wasn't presumably deleted by SA as an obvious scam or pro. Second, it gives her a chance to sort through the mass of "noise" in her mailbox and get a better sense of who the worthwhile POT SD's might be.  Or it means she hooked up and bailed before I ever had a chance to make a pitch. I'd say I get a response to flagging a new profile as a favorite about one time in 30. Not a very good conversion rate.  
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So what do the rest of you do to get noticed by a newb without being cast as another creep?  
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Life is good.
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The Cat

I'm pretty new to the SA site but not TER. However, I do think I have a pretty good nose for fake profiles and I try to error on the side of caution.

I do notice how long someone has been on the site and how long since an SB has been active.

Like you, I stay away from new profiles. I want to know if she knows what's up.

Also, I try to look for signs of craziness or signs of being desperate, or is she just looking for a cash machine or someone to offset growing alcohol, drug, shopping, gambling, or debt obsessions.

I don't need drama in my life so if there are any signs of nonsense, narcissism, or personality disorders, I steer clear. Some may say that the above things can work in your favor but mental health issues are no joke.

As I said, I'm pretty new to the SB/SD scene. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months/year. Maybe there will be more competition on the site and the ratio will grow in the SD's favor.

It's my belief, though I have no evidence, that the majority of these chicks never consummate a deal.  The have these dreams and fantasies and that reality never emerges.  They really don't need or want the money that badly, so after a while they give up.  

You bring up an interesting observation, or perhaps a better word is "opportunity".  
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When the crisis finally subsides and businesses start to reopen, the colleges and trade schools will also open their doors to the new semester/quarter.  As wise SD's, we already know that new school enrollment season generally corresponds with an increase in new profiles. As students leave their summer jobs, or move out of their parents homes to be closer to the campus, they often turn to the sugar bowl to get supplementary funds.  
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But what will happen when the crisis ends AND the new school enrollment period starts at the same time (perhaps June to August-ish)?  The same students who would normally look for sugar for help with housing, tuition, fun money, etc., could be joined by those students who were not able to work during the summer or who's parents had to blow some of the college funds on family housing and food during the lockdown.  
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Motivated by desperation or just a desire to have more fun after being secluded, we could see a huge new supply of POT's in the fall.  And with that increase in supply, perhaps a drop in prices without a drop (maybe even an increase) in quality?  
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I did a back of envelope math exercise several months ago that looked at population demographics by age. My unscientific (thank you, Google),  very rough estimates were that in a state the size of California there were around 2,500 females turning 18 EVERY month. That is a potential sugar pool of 30,000 18 year olds a year. Add in the possible increase of 19-35 year olds who also jump into the bowl for post-crisis reasons and I'm sure you will agree, that...
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Life is good.
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The Cat

Good points made in the preceding 3 posts.  I'd like to add that I always jump on the new profiles in my area right away!  I am selective of course.  They have to be hot, young, nearby, and say something to indicate they have a brain of some sort and are not BSC. It's true that some are dreamers who will never consummate.  But here's the thing:  a few are real gems.  and I don't mind sifting through tons of dirt to find a diamond! My current longest running SB is a sweet thing I scooped up when she was 19 in this manner, before anybody else had ruined her with odd behavior or ruined her expectation$.  I LOVE being a SB's first SD!  My approach with the newbies is always low key and focuses on honesty and respect.  I can generally eliminate the ones who are never going to pan out pretty easily.  Very often I get nice replies telling me I'm the first one to contact them who was NOT creepy or scammy.

As has been said many times before, the Sugar Bowl is a numbers game.  But the numbers are in the SDs' favor.  General consensus by those who have done the research is that the SB's outnumber us by 5 to 1.  So it's a buyers market. Right now the market is skewed by many new and existing SB profiles who understandably only want online arrangements.  How many of them remain for real meetup arrangements after the quarantine is lifted remains to be seen, but I agree there may well be a big influx of potential newbies.  I am trying to position myself to take advantage of this bounty by exchanging messages with quite a few new SBs online as well as staying in touch with my previous regulars. The problem of course is that most of them are asking for me to send them money in exchange for pictures, a request I politely decline.  but this can be a good thing. It filters out the ones who are just on here for online $.  The ones who keep conversing even after I've declined to send any $ may very well turn out to be keepers.

My approach is mostly similar. I’ll filter SB’s on a few key criteria (my main demographic) I’ll look at new profiles, but will not send a message right away unless the SB includes things that tick some of the boxes. Will hide any I’ll never reply to or that are obvious fakes. Speaking of fakes, there have been a slew of profiles in my area that reference feet in the user name, headline or their very short about me section. I usually wait about a week before sending my first message. By filtering by last on and creation date can see those who signed up and never came back.  

When I do send a message, I have a few things that I tend to put in to emphasize what I want and bring in something related to their profile to show I read it and we have something to start a conversation. When I’m not having any luck in my main demographic I’ll remove some filters but get even more picky about who I send a message to.  

If I’m feeling a need for BCD because the SB’s I’m talking to are going slow, I’ll do text searches and have a different message. With the virus many SBs are going very slow and many want to wait to meet. Tried the let’s meet in the park route but only two were interested and one was NCNS. Had some quick BCD success over the last three weeks, but not giving up on my normal demographic.

In addition to an increase in new SB’s have also noticed many that have been inactive for months coming back on when I also filter by unviewed (think the site clears this after 4 or 6 months?). Like with new SB’s will wait to see if the returning SB’s come on for a few days or just took a look.

Yup, I use most of these techniques too.  It's weird how many new profiles I've seen that mention they have pretty feet!  Why? I mean, tell me you have a pretty pussy and you've got my attention!  I've also noticed SA tells me a profile is unviewed when I know for certain I already viewed it, but quite some time ago.  Don't know whether it's 4-6 months, but if they are automatically clearing that info it would explain what I had only perceived as a random glitch in their famously glitchy system.