apollo: market research
What it does
Section titled “What it does”apollo is your market researcher. Point it at a brand or a market and it digs up the things that actually move campaigns: who your buyer really is, the exact words they use, what your competitors are saying, how aware the market is, what proof exists, and the belief sequence that turns a stranger into a buyer.
It’s the foundation the rest of the toolkit builds on. The copywriter, the ad generator, and the page builder all produce sharper work when apollo has done its job first, which is why those skills often run it for you automatically.
When to reach for it
Section titled “When to reach for it”- You’re starting a new campaign and need to understand the landscape.
- You’re about to write copy or build a page and want it grounded in real research.
- You want to size up a competitor: their angles, offers, and funnel.
- You’re entering a market you don’t know well.
- You need to fill a specific gap (“what objections do buyers in this category have?”).
Where it runs
Section titled “Where it runs”apollo works in both environments. It needs a live web connection to research (both Cowork and the desktop app have one). It never researches “from memory”: if no web access is available, it stops and tells you rather than guessing.
How to run it
Section titled “How to run it”Just describe what you want researched:
“Research the sleep-supplement market for examplebrand.com”
Or call it by name and tell it how deep to go:
“/um-toolkit:apollo deep dive on the cold-plunge market, full intelligence”
You can steer the depth:
- Quick scan: fills one specific gap fast.
- Campaign brief: the core modules for a new campaign.
- Full intelligence: all 10 modules (best before a big build).
- Market deep dive: all 10 at maximum depth for an unfamiliar market.
What it needs from you
Section titled “What it needs from you”- A brand URL, or a clearly-named market or competitor. The more specific, the sharper the result (“examplebrand.com” beats “supplements”).
- (Optional) How deep you want it to go (see above).
It works best after you’ve onboarded your brand, but it can run cold on any URL.
What you get back
Section titled “What you get back”A structured research brief:
- Executive summary: the single most important insight first.
- Module outputs: customer intelligence, voice-of-customer language, competitor analysis, market sophistication, proof, unique mechanisms, pricing psychology, trends, and belief architecture (whichever modules you asked for).
- Research gaps: anything it couldn’t verify, flagged honestly. It never fills a gap with a guess.
- Strategic implications: what the findings mean for your campaign.
Every claim carries a source and a confidence label: [VERIFIED] (solid source), [INFERRED] (pieced together from signals), or [ESTIMATED] (best guess, flagged to confirm).
A worked example
Section titled “A worked example”You: “Research the at-home cold-plunge market for examplebrand.com, full intelligence.”
apollo: (after a few minutes of live research)
Executive summary: The market shifted in the last 18 months from “ice baths for athletes” to “recovery and mental health for busy professionals.” The strongest unaddressed objection isn’t price, it’s “where will it even fit and how hard is the upkeep?”
[VERIFIED]Voice of customer: Buyers say “I don’t want another thing to maintain” and “I tried the trash-can-and-ice version and quit in a week.”
[VERIFIED, Reddit, 3 review threads]Competitor angle gap: Top 3 competitors all lead with temperature specs; none lead with upkeep and footprint, the actual buying objection.
[INFERRED]Research gap: Couldn’t verify churn/return rates for the category.
[RESEARCH GAP: recommend pulling from your own returns data.]
That “upkeep, not price” insight is the kind of thing that becomes your lead angle in copy and ads.
Tips & gotchas
Section titled “Tips & gotchas”- It won’t invent data. A
[RESEARCH GAP]is a feature, not a failure. Give it more to go on, or accept the gap and move on. A flagged gap is far safer than a confident-but-fake number. - Specific in, specific out. A real URL or a named competitor produces much sharper research than a vague topic.
- Give it a few minutes. A full 10-module deep dive does a lot of live searching. Let it run.
- You often won’t call it directly. Skills like page builds and ad generation run apollo for you behind the scenes, so your finished asset is already research-backed.
Related skills
Section titled “Related skills”apollo feeds almost everything downstream: buyer personas, copywriting, ad creative, and page builds all read its output. Pair it with persona-architect (to turn research into 5 deep personas) and hermes (to turn it into copy).
This is the sample page for the new format. Every other skill gets a page just like it.