Hello, Autonomous Marketing.
How AI Lab was conceived, strategized, and operated to (re)establish ActiveCampaign as a leader in the AI age.
I’ve never seen a 90% open rate on a 10,000 person list. That’s insanity.
The result
Audience
77,000email subscribers to a new publication built to win over AI-skeptical marketers.
New customers
4 in 10new form submissions came from brand-new prospects.
More creativity, faster
Minutesfor AI workflows to turn every story into a full promo kit.
Crawl, walk, run.
ActiveCampaign first came to Gate Check Studios with a different challenge: spin up the “ACHQ” content workstream to help it increase its market presence in the franchise marketing sector. We moved quickly, sourcing and interviewing 13 leading marketers in 14 weeks.
Gate Check was then asked to tackle a bigger initiative: establishing the category of “Autonomous Marketing,” a move from ActiveCampaign’s email marketing past into its current capabilities as an AI marketing tool.
Tired of competitors claiming different parts of the marketing landscape, ActiveCampaign was ready to make its move. It hired Gate Check Studios to make it happen.
The result was part category creation part marketing strategy: Shifting to Autonomous Marketing required rethinking what “good” marketing looked like for ActiveCampaign, both in how it was done and what was made. A bit meta, but we made the publication itself an experimentation ground for Autonomous Marketing as a discipline. Here’s what we did.
First, the plan.
- Scoped and strategized a new publication, The Autonomous Marketer: tone, editorial mission, calendar, cadence, and rollout.
Then, everything at once.
- Conceived, assigned, and edited the content, including detailed AI tutorials, webinars, and distribution support.
- The Autonomous Marketer / AI Lab publication and newsletter, 50+ stories
- The webinar program: nine full production cycles, co-hosting three
- Five gated reports with landing pages
- “Bridge” content tying thought leadership to product: checklists, prompt libraries, playbooks, deep links
- The editorial framework the publication runs on: story types, asset requirements, voice standards
- 15+ freelance writers on AI Lab, 25+ across all AC programs, all sourced, assigned, edited, and paid by Gate Check Studios. No extra paperwork for AC.
New publication: AI Lab
Early returns were strong, so at renewal ActiveCampaign expanded the program and launched AI Lab as its own publication.
Speed with quality
From strategy to the first Autonomous Marketer story in a month.
Unlike other vendors, where you spend the time briefing them in and hoping it comes back to spec… you’ve actually been the time accelerator.
Building the right audience
AI had enough hype. We ran 50+ interviews with marketers getting a measurable, material benefit from AI, so every post was actionable and accessible.
Finding the way to talk about AI that was differentiated… a lot of those how questions have come through your partnership.
Defining and owning the category
Gated explainer assets, interactive quizzes, and reinforcing editorial, all in service of “Autonomous Marketing.”
We launched this media publication. And it’s because of Sean. He helped concept it, concept the angle, and did all of the execution.
AI marketing operations
AI workflows that take original reporting and thought leadership and repurpose it into gated assets, growing the email list and moving readers down the funnel, with production cut to $4.50.
The reporting
Every story started with a practitioner who had a result to show, and went through Sean’s edit before it shipped.
practitioners interviewed, each with actionable marketing advice for ActiveCampaign’s ICP of small businesses.
margin notes from Sean on writers’ drafts. A few of them:
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Sean @ Gate Check Studioson a writer’s draftStructure
This is great, but let’s pull this up to the intro. Show me the mountaintop early so the reader knows why they’re following along.
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Sean @ Gate Check Studioson a writer’s draftPayoff
This doesn’t tell me what it “unlocks!” The benefits are basically “we go faster.” How faster? Cost savings? More posts? More traffic?
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Sean @ Gate Check Studioson a writer’s draftCredibility
I need a tiny bit of credibility proof here. Books sold? Impressive customers? Win over a skeptical reader.
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Sean @ Gate Check Studioson a writer’s draftSpecificity
This is very hand-wavy. How did he do this? What were some of the adjustments and changes?
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Sean @ Gate Check Studioson a writer’s draftAccuracy
Is this an overstatement? Has her work been cited and used outside of her client base? If so: great! Show me. If not, let’s dial it back.
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Sean @ Gate Check Studioson a writer’s draftReader
Include roughly how many locations and where. It helps the reader map their business onto the advice here.
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Sean @ Gate Check Studioson a writer’s draftAside
A great Fall Out Boy song title.
AI Workflows
Once a draft is fully edited, it enters the enrichment process. An editor agent checks voice, facts, and brand. Our “Librarian” agent checks for cross-linking opportunities and then all of the distribution assets are sent to Drive to be edited again.