Prompts for Active Intelligence reporting and campaign creation
These prompts are based on the Insider Tips That Work — Live Building Autonomous Marketing webinar, published on the AI Lab by ActiveCampaign.
Get the prompt template
How to use these prompts
These prompts are pulled from the Active Intelligence walk-through Luis Fernando Castillon ran during the webinar. Use with: ActiveCampaign Active Intelligence; that applies to every prompt below unless noted. Copy, paste, and swap in details where you see [BRACKETS]. Every AI model behaves a little differently, so review the first output and refine from there.
Prompt 1: General campaign performance overview
Best for: A first-look summary you can drop into a leadership meeting, with key metrics and a “what’s working / what to improve” callout.
Why this prompt: Luis ran this when his weekly leadership update was due and he didn’t have time to rebuild the reporting spreadsheet from scratch. He needed a top-line view in the next ten minutes, not the next hour, and the prompt returned both metrics and a key-insights section he could paste into a deck.
Primary prompt
How have my campaigns been performing? Give me a general overview of campaign performance with key metrics like total emails sent, open rate, and click rate, plus key insights on what’s working and what to improve.
Variables to fill in:
- None for the base version. It pulls from your full campaign history.
What to expect: A summary card with totals for sends, open rate, click rate, and a short paragraph of key insights. Luis described it as taking 10–30 seconds: enough time to grab a glass of water, not enough to get back into spreadsheet work.
Follow-up prompt:
Now show me a visualization of performance for the most recent campaigns. Include open rate vs. click rate and call out which campaigns over- or under-performed.
Prompt 2: Open-rate trend over time
Best for: Spotting the moment a change you made started moving the metric, whether that’s a segmentation rollout, a subject-line shift, or list-cleaning.
Why this prompt: Luis used the trend chart to show Jim, the founder, exactly when the segmentation work began paying off. A flat number says “we improved.” A trend line says “here’s the week we turned it on, and here’s the curve since.”
Primary prompt
What’s the open rate trend in the last few months? Visualize it over time.
Variables to fill in:
- last few months: swap to a specific window (e.g., last 90 days, since June 2025) when you’re investigating a known change.
What to expect: A time-series chart with open rate on the y‑axis and dates on the x‑axis. Look for inflection points; they’re where Active Intelligence will tie back to specific campaigns or segment changes.
Follow-up prompt
At the inflection point in this chart, what changed? Show the campaigns that ran around that date and any tagging or segmentation changes.
Prompt 3: Compare segments side by side
Best for: Showing leadership which audience is responding best, and getting recommendations specific to each segment instead of one-size-fits-all advice.
Why this prompt: Once Parrish had separate tags for car-accident and dog-bite contacts, Luis needed to know whether the segmentation work was actually paying off per segment, not just on the aggregate. The compare prompt returns a chart, written analysis, and segment-specific optimizations, which is the part Luis pasted into Jim’s review.
Primary prompt
Compare performance and engagement of our [SEGMENT_A] segment and [SEGMENT_B] segment. Show how each campaign is performing in each segment, and recommend optimizations for each.
Variables to fill in:
- [SEGMENT_A]: your first audience grouping. Parrish used car accident.
- [SEGMENT_B]: your second audience grouping. Parrish used dog bite.
What to expect: A chart of the two segments side by side, plus a written analysis with recommendations specific to each, not generic best-practice advice.
Follow-up prompt:
For the underperforming segment, what subject lines and content topics are most likely to lift open rate? Pull from past sends that worked.
Prompt 4: Build a new campaign from your top performers
Best for: Drafting a new send that uses the elements your past campaigns already proved, instead of starting from a blank canvas.
Why this prompt: This is the “optimization loop” Luis described. Once Active Intelligence knows which past campaigns won, it can write the next one with those elements baked in. Luis used it for warm-up sends to leads, then edited subject line, preheader, and body before sending.
Primary prompt:
What were some of my top performing campaigns in the past few months, and why did they perform so well? Include open and click rates.
Variables to fill in:
- past few months: narrow to a specific window (last 60 days, Q1 2026) when you want the freshest signals.
What to expect: A short ranked list of top performers with their metrics and a one-line “why it worked” per campaign.
Follow-up prompt:
Create a campaign to [GOAL] that uses these insights in its content. Include subject line, preheader, and body copy I can edit.
Replace [GOAL] with the job the email needs to do, e.g., warm up leads, re-engage inactive contacts, promote our [TOPIC] consultation.
Prompt 5: Targeted subject-line guidance
Best for: Getting subject lines tuned to one segment’s content type, not generic best-practice lists.
Why this prompt: Luis used this when he wanted subject lines specifically for car-accident content, not generic “tips for legal email.” The prompt returned categories (educational, informational, problem-focused, local Virginia-specific) plus best-practice notes for legal marketing in particular.
Primary prompt:
What are the best subject lines for the kind of content we share, focused on [SEGMENT] potential clients?
Variables to fill in:
- [SEGMENT]: name the segment in your own taxonomy. Parrish used car accident.
What to expect: Subject-line examples grouped by category, plus notes on what works for your industry. Active Intelligence pulls the categorization from your past send patterns and the segment’s content history.
Follow-up prompt:
Now show me the worst-performing subject lines we’ve used for this segment and what to avoid in future sends.
Tips for better results
- Be specific. Luis’s results improved every time he named a segment, a date range, or a content type instead of asking a general question. “Compare X and Y over the last 90 days” beats “how are we doing.”
- Save what works. Build a prompt library as you go. The questions that returned useful answers this month are almost always your starting points next month, and both presenters made the same recommendation.
- Use it daily, not monthly. “The more you use it, the more valuable it becomes,” Luis told the audience. Treat Active Intelligence as a daily question-and-answer habit rather than a quarterly reporting ritual.
- Iterate before you act. The first response is rarely the final one. Ask the follow-up. Refine the date range. Drill into the segment. Treat the first answer as a starting point, not a deliverable.
- Share the wins with leadership. Mamie’s recommendation: when Active Intelligence surfaces a result you wouldn’t have found in a spreadsheet, paste it into a meeting. The credibility you build there earns you the budget for the next program.
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