Campaign Grader · by ActUpon
Paste your ad. Get a grade out of 100 and the exact lines to fix.
Find the lines that lose you sales before you pay for the clicks. Campaign Grader reads your ad, email or landing page against 100 principles from the direct-response masters, quotes the weak lines, names the rule each one breaks and writes a better line to put in its place.
3 free reviews · No card · About a minute each
Before you spend
You are about to pay to find out your copy is weak.
Every click costs money, and weak copy fails in ways a fresh pair of eyes would spot in a minute. At 11pm before a launch, you don’t have a fresh pair of eyes.
Clicks, but no sales
The ad gets attention and the page loses it. The usual cause is a promise that changes between the two. The ad says a free audit, the page opens with a software pitch.
Principle 10 · Keep the promise continuousEmails nobody answers
People open it, then nothing. The first line is hard to get into and the ask is buried in paragraph four. Campaign Grader finds where the reader stops.
Principle 74 · Easy first sentence19 · Clear next stepYou can’t see it anymore
You have read your own page forty times. A reader who sees it once spots the gaps at once. Campaign Grader reads it the way that reader does, then shows you where.
Principle 2 · Use the customer’s languageSee it work
Watch a landing page get graded.
This is a sample on made-up copy for a plumber. A real report works the same way on yours, and every quoted line is checked against your text before you see it.
Welcome to Northside Plumbing1
The best solution for all your plumbing needs.2
Trusted by thousands of happy customers.3
Limited time offer — act now!4
Submit5Landing page D
The ad makes one promise and the page forgets it. Five fixes, most valuable first.
- Market50
- Message46
- Proof38
- Offer66
- Testing & economics42
- Trust40
- Journey52
- “Welcome to Northside Plumbing”Principle 10 · Keep the ad and landing-page promise continuous.Your ad promised a waived call-out fee. The page opens with a welcome and never mentions it, so the visitor wonders if they landed in the right place.Rewrite: Burst pipe? Call-out fee waived today. A Northside plumber can be at your door within [number] minutes.ReplaSplit · Run the original and this rewrite against each other on your own WordPress page and see which earns more.
- “The best solution for all your plumbing needs.”Principle 5 · Specificity beats unsupported hype.No reader believes “best” or “all”. It names no result and no reason to believe it.Rewrite: Fixed price quoted before we start, and every job comes with a [number]-month warranty.
- “Trusted by thousands of happy customers.”Principle 77 · Concrete numbers require credible sources.A big number with no source reads as hype, and it sits far from any proof.Rewrite: “[Customer quote about a specific job].” [Name], [suburb]
- “Limited time offer — act now!”Principle 21 · Use urgency only when timing is real.No deadline and no reason, so it reads as pressure. Urgency only works when it is real.Rewrite: Call-out fee waived until [date]. [Number] same-day slots left.
- “Submit”Principle 19 · Make the next step unmistakable.A button that says “Submit” does not tell a stressed visitor what happens next.Rewrite: Send my emergency request. We call you back in [number] minutes.ReplaPop · Popups, bars and inline forms with targeting rules, so the next step is the first thing a visitor sees.
Do this first: open the page with the promise the ad made.
How it works
Three steps, about a minute.
1 · Paste it or link it
Drop in the text, or give it the address of a public page and it reads the page for you. Ads, landing pages, emails and sales letters all work, so you can use it as an ad copy checker, a landing page analyzer, an email subject line tester or a headline analyzer. Add the goal if you like, such as “book a demo”.
2 · Wait about a minute
Your copy is checked against all 100 principles. There is nothing to set up and nothing to configure.
3 · Fix the top line first
Your report ends with the one change to make first. Copy the rewrites you like straight into your ad, page or email.
- A score out of 100and a letter grade for the whole piece.
- Seven area scoresmarket, message, proof, offer, testing, trust and journey.
- 5 to 10 fixeseach with the exact quote, the rule it breaks and a rewrite to paste.
- Eight expert verdictswhat Hopkins, Caples, Ogilvy, Halbert, Schwartz, Collier, Sugarman and Kennedy would change first.
- Five new headlinesone each for benefit, problem, news, proof and curiosity.
- A saved reportreread it any time, or save it as a PDF.
Where the 100 principles come from
Built on what eight of the best direct-response marketers proved.
Every grade comes from the same 100 principles. They were worked out over about a century by eight of the most influential direct-response marketers, who sold through mail, print and letters, counted every response and wrote down what held up. Campaign Grader checks your copy against what they found.
What makes Campaign Grader different
It does not ask an AI for an opinion. It makes the AI apply rules that have been tested for years.
- Tested principles, not taste. The rules behind every grade are well known and have been checked against real sales for decades.
- The same rules every time. Your ad and your email are measured against the same 100 principles, so the grades mean something from one piece to the next.
- Every fix names its rule. You see which principle a line breaks, so you can check the reasoning and disagree with it.
Go deeper
The reasoning behind every principle is in the book.
The principles come from Ink & Signal: The Direct Response Marketing Playbook, a 48-page guide that explains where each one comes from and how to use it. Campaign Grader shows you the principle that applies to each fix. The book tells you why it works.
When a fix needs a tool
Your report points to the problem. These tools help you fix it.
Some fixes are a better sentence. Others need something that tests, captures, follows up or measures. When a fix is of that kind, your report points to the tool built for it.
ReplaSplit
Run the original and this rewrite against each other on your own WordPress page and see which earns more.
No. 3 · Treat every major claim as a testable hypothesis.No. 8 · Let the headline select the right reader.Ask about early access →ReplaPop
Popups, bars and inline forms with targeting rules, so the next step is the first thing a visitor sees.
No. 19 · Make the next step unmistakable.Ask about early access →ReplaMail
Campaigns and automations you own: the follow-up emails, the welcome series, the review request.
No. 31 · Build trust before asking for a larger commitment.No. 45 · Follow-up is part of the offer experience.See ReplaMail →Answello
An AI receptionist that answers the calls you miss and texts you who rang.
No. 18 · Reduce time to the first useful result.No. 84 · Convenience can be a primary benefit.See Answello →ReplaRank
Track where you and your competitors rank for the searches your buyers actually type.
No. 1 · Start with a market that already wants progress.No. 59 · Alternatives reveal positioning.See ReplaRank →Kortli
Short links with A/B testing, one per ad or email, so each one shows what it earned.
No. 37 · Clicks are signals, not business outcomes.No. 53 · Attribution is a model, not reality.See Kortli →ReplaStats
Cookieless analytics: which page and which source every visit and response came from.
No. 36 · Measure revenue quality, not only lead volume.No. 37 · Clicks are signals, not business outcomes.See ReplaStats →ReplaChat
Live chat that collects the exact words buyers use and the objections they raise while they decide.
No. 2 · Use the customer’s language before inventing campaign language.No. 15 · Research objections before writing rebuttals.See ReplaChat →Blind Spot Audit
Scored audits of your positioning, marketing, sales and customer base. About ten minutes each, from $67.
No. 16 · Strengthen the offer before decorating the copy.No. 57 · The best audience is often defined by situation.Run an audit →Who it is for
Who it helps, and where it stops.
It helps if
- You write or approve your own ads, pages and emails.
- You run a small business, freelance, or work at an agency with client copy to check.
- You would rather fix a weak line now than learn about it from your ad spend.
It is not for you if
- You want a tool to write the whole campaign. Campaign Grader edits what you wrote and rewrites the weak lines.
- You want a promised result. No tool can promise sales, and this one does not.
- You need feedback on design, images or targeting. It reads words only.
A grade is an editor’s opinion. Treat each fix as an idea to test: run the original against the rewrite, then keep whichever earns more. Need help setting up the test? ActUpon can run it with you.
Pricing
Start free. Pay only if it earns its keep.
Use your three free reviews on your next ad, your landing page and your launch email. If you keep finding fixes worth making, Solo gives you 40 reviews a month and Studio 200.
Free
$0
For trying it on your next ad.
- 3 reviews, once
- The full report, nothing held back
- No card, no time limit
Solo
$19 / month
For founders and freelance copywriters.
- 40 reviews a month, about 48¢ each if you use them all
- Saved reports and PDF export
- Yearly plan includes the book
Studio
$59 / month
For agencies and teams reviewing client work.
- 200 reviews a month, about 30¢ each if you use them all
- Saved reports and PDF export
- Yearly plan includes the book
The small print, in plain words. Pay by card or crypto. Use the same email address you sign in with, or your plan will not switch on. It starts within a minute. You can cancel any time and your plan runs to the end of the period you paid for. If your first payment was a mistake, write to hello@inkandsignal.co within 14 days and we refund it. Yearly plans include the Ink & Signal book as a free bonus, with the download link on your thank-you page and inside your account. After you pay, your thank-you page offers the Ink & Signal Workbook as an extra for $27 (normally $47): 14 famous ads taken apart, plus a fillable worksheet for every chapter. Already own the book? Your download page has a first-year Solo price for you.
Hard to do it all yourself?
Fixes are easy to list. Carrying them out is where most people get stuck.
Rewriting the page, setting up the test, fixing the follow-up and tracking what happens takes time most owners don’t have. That is the work ActUpon does.
ActUpon: consulting paid on results
ActUpon is a consulting partner built around one idea: results, not reports. On our performance work, if we don’t hit the target we agree on together, we don’t get paid. No retainer traps and no 200-page decks.
Questions
What people ask before they paste.
Is this another AI that writes my ads?
No. It edits what you wrote. It marks the lines that lose you sales, names the rule each one breaks and offers a rewrite, and you choose which fixes to take. The campaign stays yours.
How is this different from asking a general AI chatbot?
A chatbot gives you an opinion, and a different one each time. Campaign Grader makes the AI apply the same 100 well-known, long-tested direct-response principles to every piece, so the grades are consistent and every fix names the rule it comes from.
Can it make things up?
Every line it quotes is checked against your copy word for word before you see it, and any fix whose quote cannot be found is dropped. The wording of each principle comes from the Ink & Signal book, never from the AI. Rewrites never invent facts: where a better line needs a number or a name, it leaves a [placeholder] for you to fill in.
Where do the 100 principles come from?
They come from the Ink & Signal playbook, which gathers the working lessons of eight classic direct-response marketers: Hopkins, Caples, Ogilvy, Halbert, Schwartz, Collier, Sugarman and Kennedy. The book explains the reasoning behind each principle, and every yearly plan includes it.
Is the book really included?
Yes. Both yearly plans, Solo and Studio, include the Ink & Signal book as a free bonus. The download link is on your thank-you page and inside your account. After you pay, your thank-you page also offers the Ink & Signal Workbook as an extra for $27 (normally $47).
What can I paste?
Ads, landing and sales pages, emails (subject line included) and sales letters, up to about 25,000 characters, so it works as an ad copy checker, landing page analyzer, email subject line tester or headline analyzer. For a page, give its public address and Campaign Grader reads it for you. It writes its report in the language of your copy.
Does a high score mean it will sell?
No. A grade is an editor’s opinion of how well the copy follows the principles, not a forecast. It cannot see your audience, your price or your numbers. Use it to decide what to test, then let real results decide.
What happens to my copy?
It is stored in your account so you can reread your reports, and it is sent to an AI model to be reviewed. Nobody else sees it. Check any facts, prices and claims in a rewrite before you publish.
Can I cancel?
Yes, any time. Your plan runs to the end of the period you paid for. If your first payment was a mistake, write to hello@inkandsignal.co within 14 days and we refund it.
What if I can’t carry out the fixes myself?
ActUpon, the consulting firm behind Campaign Grader, works on performance engagements where we are paid when the number moves. If you would like a person to go through your campaign with you, start a conversation.
Grade the copy you were about to publish.
It takes about a minute and the first three reviews are free. If the grade is good, you know the copy follows the rules. If it is not, you found out before the clicks did.
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Want someone to carry out the fixes with you? ActUpon is paid on results.