How to optimise a media campaign with AI

Where to run this

A prompt-led guide, no skill installation required. Use these prompts directly in your AI workspace whenever a campaign has a clear performance problem.

Upload first

• ☐Original approved brief
• ☐Approved media plan
• ☐Campaign setup details (structure, objective, optimisation event, bidding, audiences, exclusions, keywords, placements, creative, tracking, attribution, flight dates, frequency controls)
• ☐Campaign change history
• ☐The most granular performance data available (ad set/keyword/placement/creative/device/time-of-day level, not just campaign totals)
• ☐Revenue or client outcome data, only if optimising ROAS or ROI

Steps

1. 01

   Understand the approach before you start

   Do this

   Problem, then Diagnosis, then Action, then Validation. The goal is not twenty recommendations, it's identifying the single most likely cause and recommending no more than three focused actions. Every prompt below uses the same closed set of action labels, so the output is always something you can act on, not a paragraph you have to interpret: KEEP, SCALE, REDUCE, PAUSE, EXPAND, REFRESH, EXCLUDE, TEST, FIX MEASUREMENT, INVESTIGATE, NEED EVIDENCE, REJECT, AGREE. Every diagnosis maps back to one of six real levers: Traffic Cost (CPM/CPC, auction competition, bid strategy, budget allocation), Audience (relevance, size, saturation, overlap, exclusions), Creative (fatigue, messaging, CTA, format mix), Inventory (placements, publishers, search terms, keywords, SSP mix, supply path), Conversion Journey (landing page, form completion, checkout, product availability, offer), and Measurement (conversion accuracy, attribution, revenue tracking, missing or duplicate events).

2. 02

   This works across self-serve and managed-service, the platform doesn't change the logic

   Do this

   Self-serve and walled gardens: Google Search, Performance Max, Demand Gen, YouTube, Shopping, App Campaigns, Meta, TikTok, DV360, The Trade Desk, StackAdapt, and other self-service platforms. Managed-service partners: MiQ, Taboola, Criteo, Quantcast, OpenX, Magnite, Teads, Channel Factory, and others. The platform may differ, the sequence doesn't: confirm objective, validate data, diagnose the issue, identify the lever, take action, validate the result.

3. 03

   The quality of the output is directly proportional to what you give it

   Do this

   Without the approved brief, media plan, setup details, change history and granular performance data, you'll get a directional answer, not a diagnostic one. If planning or setup information is missing, the honest output is LIMITED DIAGNOSIS ONLY, not a confident guess. If there isn't enough evidence to determine a cause at all, the honest output is NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE. Never let a missing value get treated as zero, and never assume attribution models, reporting windows or revenue definitions match across sources just because the numbers sit next to each other.

4. 04

   Before touching ROAS or ROI, confirm what your revenue number actually is

   Do this

   ROAS and ROI cannot be optimised accurately without a real revenue source, and the type of revenue data changes what you're actually allowed to claim. No revenue data: don't optimise ROAS or ROI at all, optimise CPA, CVR and lead quality instead. Platform revenue only: you can optimise Platform ROAS, but never label it Business ROI, they are not the same number. CRM revenue: you can genuinely optimise Business Revenue and Business ROAS. Profit, margin or lifetime-value data: you can optimise real Profitability and ROI. If you can't place your revenue source into one of these categories, the honest answer is NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE, not a platform ROAS presented as if it were business ROI.

5. 05

   Pick the metric that's actually underperforming

   Pick the metric that's actually underperformingCPMCTRCPCCVRCPAROAS / ROIReachFrequency

   CPM has increased

   What to check

   • —Increased competition
   • —Audience saturation
   • —Premium inventory concentration
   • —Restrictive targeting
   • —Viewability requirements
   • —Bid strategy changes

   Diagnostic

   Copy prompt

   My CPM has increased. Platform: [PLATFORM] Objective: [OBJECTIVE] Current CPM: [CURRENT CPM] Previous CPM: [PREVIOUS CPM] Budget: [BUDGET] Audience: [AUDIENCE] Recent Changes: [CHANGES] Attached: Brief, Media Plan, Setup Details, Change History, Performance Data. Identify: 1. What changed? 2. Most likely cause? 3. Primary optimisation lever? 4. Top 3 actions? 5. Validation method? Provide no more than 3 actions.

6. 06

   Reviewing a managed-service partner's own recommendations

   Review the attached optimisation recommendations from [PARTNER].
   
   Objective: [OBJECTIVE]
   Primary KPI: [KPI]
   Current Performance: [SUMMARY]
   
   For every recommendation provide: 1. Recommendation 2. Problem being solved 3. Evidence supplied 4. Evidence missing 5. Risk 6. Verdict.
   
   Use only: AGREE, TEST, INVESTIGATE, NEED EVIDENCE, REJECT.
   
   Recommend no more than 3 actions for implementation.

   Do this

   This is for when a partner sends you their own optimisation suggestions, don't implement them on trust, run them through this first.

7. 07

   A weekly optimisation review, not just a reactive fix

   Review the attached campaign performance.
   
   Platform: [PLATFORM]
   Objective: [OBJECTIVE]
   Primary KPI: [KPI]
   Target: [TARGET]
   
   Attached: Brief, Media Plan, Setup Details, Change History, Performance Data.
   
   Identify: 1. What changed? 2. Most likely cause? 3. Primary optimisation lever? 4. What should remain unchanged? 5. Top 3 actions? 6. Validation method?
   
   Provide no more than 3 actions.

8. 08

   Golden rules, worth keeping in view

   Do this

   Diagnose before acting. Use the approved brief to understand intended strategy, setup details to understand what was actually activated, and granular data to understand where the change occurred. Use real revenue data before optimising ROAS or ROI, and never confuse platform ROAS with business ROI. Fix measurement before optimising media when measurement is unreliable, a media fix built on broken tracking fixes nothing. Focus on the single biggest controllable lever, not every lever at once. Recommend no more than three actions, and validate the result before making another major change. If evidence is missing, say NEED EVIDENCE. If a diagnosis genuinely isn't possible from what you have, say NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE, don't guess past it.