red-team: would my buyer actually convert?
What it does
Section titled “What it does”red-team is your hostile buyer simulator. It doesn’t review your page like an expert critic; it reviews it like a specific, skeptical, in-market buyer who is one objection away from closing the tab.
It builds 4-6 buyer personas from your actual ICP (the one burned by a competitor last year, the one who needs to convince their spouse, the one comparison-shopping with five tabs open) and walks each through your asset top to bottom asking one question: would I convert? Then it reports every reason they would not.
Three universal auditors run alongside them: one maps every promise to its proof and flags the orphans, one tracks which objections the page addresses versus ignores, and one follows the buyer’s questions section by section. The result is a prioritized list of why your buyer would walk, ranked by severity, with a fix for each.
When to reach for it
Section titled “When to reach for it”- You’ve built a page or ad and want to pressure-test it before traffic hits.
- Conversions are softer than expected and you can’t tell why.
- You want to find every hole in your copy before you do.
- You’re about to hand an asset to a client and want confidence it holds up.
- You type “destroy this page” or “what’s wrong with this.”
Where it runs
Section titled “Where it runs”red-team works in both environments. It’s a reasoning-based review with no live web search or connections, and runs the same either way.
How to run it
Section titled “How to run it”Drop the asset in and ask for a teardown.
“Red team this page: examplebrand.com/landing”
Or call it by name:
“/um-toolkit:red-team this ad copy” (then paste the copy)
Pass a URL, a local file path, a block of ad copy, or an image prompt you haven’t generated yet. Paste or attach an image and it routes to the ad creative reviewer.
What it needs from you
Section titled “What it needs from you”- The asset to review: paste it, attach it, or give the path.
- (Helpful but not required) Your brand set up with personas. The more it knows about your ICP, the sharper the attacks. Without one it falls back to universal conversion-mechanics review: useful, less targeted.
What you get back
Section titled “What you get back”A ranked list of conversion killers by severity (P0 = ship blocker, P1 = high priority, P2 = worth fixing). Each entry names the specific buyer who would walk and why, the exact location on the page where they made that decision, and the specific fix that would have converted them: not “make it punchier” but “add a partner-shareable summary above the fold.”
No vibes, no vague notes. This is a conversion-focused review, not a design or compliance checker: it won’t flag em dashes, design-system violations, or animation issues. Those live in the review panel.
A worked example
Section titled “A worked example”You: “Red team this landing page: examplebrand.com/offer”
red-team: (after 4 persona attacks + 3 auditors)
P0 (ship blocker): The Comparison-Shopper walks at the pricing section. The price has no comparison anchor, so a buyer with three competitor tabs open has nothing to orient against. Fix: add a one-row comparison callout above the price so it reads as a conclusion.
P1: The Burned-by-Competitor reads “sounds just like the last one” past every section. The hero reuses four of the top competitor’s five phrases, so a buyer who tried that competitor sees the same product with a new logo. Fix: lead section two with a structurally different mechanism.
P1: Promise-Proof Auditor flags “results in 30 days” as an orphan promise. The guarantee sits at the bottom with no proof validating it. Fix: move a customer story with a specific timeline below the claim, or cut the claim.
(Illustrative output format, not real findings.)
Tips & gotchas
Section titled “Tips & gotchas”- It is intentionally harsh. Praise is off-limits by design; the only positive signals are factual notes like “the page has a 60-day refund policy.” Softened critique doesn’t help you ship.
- It focuses on buyer psychology, not design rules. Pair it with the review panel: red-team for the kill-or-ship check, panel for design, copy, and structure.
- The better your brand profile, the sharper the attack. Attacks built around your actual ICP land harder than generic ones.
- If the score doesn’t move after a round of fixes, that’s a signal. It usually means the page type or angle is wrong, not the copy.
Related skills
Section titled “Related skills”- unicorn-page-review-panel: the 15-expert craft panel scoring design, copy, structure, and mechanics. Suggested sequence: build, red-team, fix the gaps, then run the panel.
- page-architect and hermes: the page builder and copywriter that produce the assets you’d run through red-team.
- apollo and the ad generators: red-team works on their outputs too, catching spec gaps and weak hooks before you generate.