How to write a campaign brief that works

The brief is a sentence or two describing who to reach. It drives the entire search, so it is worth getting right.

The pattern that works

Name a role, a kind of company, and usually a place:

• "Operations managers at freight brokerages in the Midwest"
• "Practice managers at multi-location dental groups in Texas"
• "Finance leads at Shopify stores doing over $5M"

What fails

• "Companies that need better reporting" — names an outcome, not a person. Nothing to search on.
• "SaaS" — far too broad to rank meaningfully.
• "Decision makers" — not a job title anyone holds.

If the brief cannot be resolved you will see "Couldn't interpret the brief — try rephrasing who to target" or a prompt to fill in your ICP.

Being more specific

You can name seniority, company size, technology, geography, and trigger events ("recently opened a second location").

If something is a preference rather than a hard requirement, say so. The system can rank on a preference instead of filtering out everyone who misses it — which is usually what you actually want.

Iterate

Two or three passes to a good audience is normal, and rebuilding an existing campaign is free and unlimited. Widen the geography, add adjacent titles, drop the constraint that is killing the count, and search again.

Updated on: 17/08/2026