---
kind: research
domain: Marketing campaigns
description: Validates campaign strategy, creative briefs, and brand guidelines against current marketing practice and accessibility standards
detect:
  glob:
    - ".aiwg/marketing/*.md"
    - ".aiwg/campaigns/**/*.md"
    - ".aiwg/marketing/brand-profile.md"
    - ".aiwg/marketing/audience-personas/**/*.md"
  minCount: 1
focus_areas:
  - campaign-strategy
  - channel-performance
  - brand-consistency
  - accessibility
  - audience-targeting
  - measurement-and-attribution
  - legal-compliance
sources:
  preferred:
    - industry-reports
    - vendor-docs
    - practitioner-blogs
    - conference-talks
    - standards-bodies
  exclude:
    - seo-spam
    - ai-content-farms
    - paid-listicles
recency_default_months: 12
---

# Marketing Research Contributor

When the marketing kit is in use (detected via marketing or campaign
artifacts under `.aiwg/marketing/` or `.aiwg/campaigns/`),
`best-practices-audit` should weight its research toward sources with
authority on marketing, advertising, and accessibility — and should
prefer recent practitioner experience over older general theory.

## What This Contributor Configures

### Focus Areas

| Area | Typical artifact |
|------|------------------|
| `campaign-strategy` | campaign briefs, audience-strategy memos |
| `channel-performance` | per-channel performance digests, measurement reports |
| `brand-consistency` | brand profile, voice guides, style references |
| `accessibility` | WCAG audits, alt-text guidelines, color-contrast checks |
| `audience-targeting` | persona docs, segmentation strategy |
| `measurement-and-attribution` | attribution model docs, dashboard configs |
| `legal-compliance` | claim review docs, privacy notices, regional disclosure rules |

### Source Preferences

**Preferred**:

- `industry-reports` — Forrester / Gartner / IAB Tech Lab / Ad Age research,
  CMI annual reports
- `vendor-docs` — Meta/Google/LinkedIn/TikTok ads platform docs (vendors
  are authoritative for their own ad products)
- `practitioner-blogs` — vetted blogs with named authors and visible track
  records (Avinash Kaushik, Rand Fishkin, etc.); the GRADE gate downgrades
  unsigned content
- `conference-talks` — ANA Masters of Marketing, Cannes Lions sessions
- `standards-bodies` — IAB Tech Lab specs, WCAG (for accessibility),
  GDPR/CCPA reference texts

**Excluded**:

- `seo-spam` — content-farm articles
- `ai-content-farms` — autogenerated marketing-tip listicles with no
  identifiable author
- `paid-listicles` — sponsored "best of" rankings disguised as editorial

### Recency Default

12 months. Marketing platforms change quickly — ad-product capabilities,
attribution rules, and platform algorithm behaviors shift on quarterly
cadences. A 12-month window keeps practitioner findings current; the
audit will tighten further (3–6 months) when validating claims about a
specific platform's current ad UI or API.

For brand-strategy, accessibility, and legal-compliance findings, the
audit should automatically widen to 24–36 months when the substantive
basis (e.g. WCAG 2.2, an established legal requirement) is stable.

## Anti-Pattern Reminders

- Do not over-trust vendor docs about their competitors' products.
  Cross-reference vendor claims about platform-vs-platform comparisons
  against independent industry reports.
- Do not pull stale marketing wisdom from the canon — "best practices"
  from 5+ years ago about platform-specific tactics are usually wrong
  now. The 12-month default exists for this reason.
- Do not surface paid listicles even when they appear to confirm a
  finding — they're advertorials, not editorial. The exclusion list
  protects audit integrity.