Use AI as a constructive critic: Five validation prompts for marketers
These prompts are based on the How AI Maturity Levels Transform Your Marketing Work Week webinar, published on the AI Lab by ActiveCampaign.
Get the quick-start guide
What will I accomplish with this guide? By the end, you’ll have run five validation prompts across the work you already do (strategy, decisions, content, data, and budget) and walked away with risks, blind spots, and second opinions you didn’t have before. The flow comes from Pam Didner’s “validate” pillar in the webinar: the rung most marketers skip and the one that compounds the value of every other AI use.
Before you start, you’ll need:
- A working ChatGPT, Claude, or Active Intelligence account that accepts file uploads
- At least one piece of recent work to validate: a marketing plan, a tool decision memo, a blog draft, a campaign analysis, or a budget proposal
- Your own KPIs and the assumptions behind them (even rough notes are fine)
- 30 minutes to run the prompts and another 30 to triage what comes back
Quick reference
- Total time: ~60 minutes per artifact you validate
- Tools needed: ChatGPT, Claude, or Active Intelligence
- Key output: A list of risks, blind spots, alternative KPIs, and unintended consequences you can either act on or set aside with confidence
Watch this section
For full context on the following topics, watch these sections of the webinar:
- Why marketers under-use validation — [16:45]–[17:40]
- Pam’s five validation moments — [15:14]–[17:08]
- “Constructive critic” framing — [17:49]–[18:01]
The workflow
Phase 1: Validate your marketing strategy
After this phase, you’ll have: a list of gaps in your current marketing plan you can decide whether to address.
- Upload your marketing plan or strategy doc: the model needs the actual document, not a summary.
- Ask the blind-spot question: “Read my marketing plan. What am I not seeing?” Pam’s exact framing: short, direct, and useful.
- Triage the response: decide which gaps are real risks, which are noise, and which are already covered elsewhere. You’re not obligated to act on everything.
If you already have a marketing strategy created, can you say something like ‘what am I not seeing?’ That by itself is a prompt.
Phase 2: Validate a decision before you commit
After this phase, you’ll have: a written list of potential risks and unintended consequences for a decision you’re about to make.
- Write down the decision you’re about to make: “I’m going to implement [TOOL] because of [REASONS]” or “I’m shifting [BUDGET] from paid ads to email marketing.”
- Ask for the risks you can’t see: “What are some potential risks I can’t see?” or “What if I did [Y] instead of [X]? What are the unintended consequences I need to be aware of?”
- Pressure-test the response with a follow-up: “Which of these risks is most likely to actually happen, and what early signal would tell me it’s happening?”
Phase 3: Validate content before it ships
After this phase, you’ll have: an on-brand draft scored against your messaging, plus an improved version.
- Upload your draft: blog post, email, landing page copy, social caption.
- Upload your brand and messaging guidelines: the model needs the rules to check the draft against them.
- Ask the on-brand question: “Tell me how I can make this draft more on-brand and on-message based on the uploaded guidelines.”
- Apply the changes that hold up to your judgment: keep your point of view. The model is a critic, not a co-author.
Phase 4: Validate your data and analysis
After this phase, you’ll have: a list of inconsistencies and second-opinion insights from analysis you’ve already done.
- Upload the analysis you or your agency produced: dashboards, decks, or written analyses.
- Ask the inconsistency question: “Show me any inconsistencies in this analysis. Where do the numbers contradict each other or the narrative?”
- Ask for an alternative read: “Give me a different perspective on what this data is telling me.”
- Validate your KPIs themselves: “What other KPIs could reflect marketing success for this campaign?” Pam’s rule: you don’t have to adopt them, but you should have considered them.
Phase 5: Validate budget and process trade-offs
After this phase, you’ll have: a written second opinion on a budget reallocation or workflow change before you commit it.
- State the trade-off clearly: “I’m shifting [AMOUNT] from [CHANNEL A] to [CHANNEL B]. Here’s my reasoning: [REASONING].”
- Ask the counterfactual question: “What if I did [Y] instead? What are the second-order consequences I should anticipate?”
- Ask the workflow version: “I’m changing [PROCESS] from [OLD WAY] to [NEW WAY]. Where could this break? What downstream teams will feel it first?”
- Compare the AI’s response against your own gut read: if you both flag the same risk, take it seriously. If only the AI flags it, decide whether the risk is real or noise.
Related
More data from the AI Lab.