How to Become a Better Prompter

A collection of slides from an internal prompting presentation I gave...

Author

Alex Cooper
May 22, 2025

Hey guys,

Prompt engineering is the number one skill creative strategists need to learn in 2025.

Whether you're a strategist, editor, designer, or media buyer - your job is going to revolve around how good you are at prompting by the end of 2025, if not sooner.

I recently did an internal prompting training at Adcrate, so the following is a collection of information from that deck, exclusively for you guys on my email list.

Let's get into it…

The 6 Key Elements of an Effective Prompt

Here's how to structure prompts that actually work:

  1. Identity - Tell the AI who it should be (expert copywriter, creative director with high EQ, etc.)

  2. Task - Clearly define what you want it to do (analyze reviews, generate headlines, create scripts)

  3. Examples - Show good AND bad examples with explanations of why they work or don't (this is crucial)

  4. Context - Provide background information about your brand, audience, and product

  5. Output Format - Specify how you want the response structured (bullet points, scripts, etc.)

  6. Tone - Define how you want the AI to communicate (explorative, straight-to-the-point, etc.)

The most important elements are the examples and context. AI doesn't inherently understand what makes a good ad - you need to teach it what good looks like for YOUR brand.

Pro Tip: Context Dumping

One of my favorite hacks is something called "context dumping." Instead of trying to explain what makes a good ad, just paste in transcripts from YouTube videos, blog posts, or documents that explain it well.

For example, if I'm working on static ad headlines, I'll grab the transcript from of a fe YouTube videos on static ads and paste it at the bottom of my prompt. This gives the AI real expertise to work with.

Prompting Hacks

These simple prompts can instantly improve the quality of AI outputs:

  1. For each output, tell it that it was a 4/10, and you need a 10/10 - impress me.

  2. Raise the stakes by adding "if this does not [INSERT GOAL], I will get fired. It is that important"

  3. Ask “Now rewrite this as if it's version 10 after 9 rounds of expert feedback”

  4. At the end of your initial prompt, add in this sentence: “Before you give your response, what questions do you have that would help you give a better response?”

  5. For each output, ask, “How could you improve that?” Keep asking this question over and over.

  6. Once you’re happy with your final output, ask “What would have I had had to ask in my initial prompt to get to this output?”

  7. Tell it to act as an expert. E.g. "Act as a world class direct response copywriter" or "write like you're being paid $1,000,000 to do this"

Build a Prompt Library

This is where things get really powerful. Instead of starting from scratch every time, build a collection of your best prompts:

  1. Create a shared document - Use Notion, Google Docs, or whatever your team uses

  2. Categorize by task - Organize prompts by what they help with (headlines, scripting, customer analysis etc.)

  3. Iterate and improve - Continuously refine your prompts based on what works

Imagine if everyone on your team contributed just one good prompt per week - within months, you'd have an incredible resource that gives you a massive advantage.

Actionable Next Steps

  1. Start prompting - Look at your existing processes and work out which parts can be turned into prompts. Research is a great place to start for creative strategy

  2. Build a prompt library - Save your best prompts and share them with your team

  3. Try building a custom GPT or Claude Project - Create an AI assistant specifically trained on your brand knowledge

If you want to test your prompting skills, check out the Gandalf game, where you have to prompt your way through increasingly difficult challenges.

For those of that want to dive deeper, check out these resources:

I'm going to be sharing a lot more about this topic in the coming weeks and months. If you've been experimenting with AI for your ad creative, I'd love to hear about your experience.

Before I wrap up, here are a couple of important announcements:

GIVEAWAY: Here’s a free AI workflow :)

I built an AI workflow in Poppy that helps you recreate any video ad script or static ad brief instantly.

I call it the Copycat agent and it’s produced multiple winning ads for us so far.

You can even train it on your data (this is when this workflow becomes lethal).

Check out the link to the workflow here.

And if you’re new to Poppy, you can sign up for an account here.

And one more thing…

I’m speaking at the Make Ads That Convert webinar next week!

If you’re interested in the intersection between AI and creative, you won’t want to miss out on these two sessions:

  • How to use AI to conduct research - 2pm ET on Tuesday

  • How to become great at prompting - 1pm ET on Wednesday

You can sign up here. Looking forward to seeing you over there!

See you next week,

Alex