Reuben Shoub
Table Of Contents
There is no doubt that GenAI is here to stay for the foreseeable future. What is uncertain is how many of today's marketing professionals will have augmented themselves or moved to another profession in the coming years. The reason I say this is because there is no standing still when it comes to a generation-transforming technology. For marketers and many other professionals, that is exactly what GenAI is. The question that marketing agency leaders need to ask themselves is how their employees can augment themselves with GenAI instead of being afraid of it.
One area where all professionals (myself included) should invest more time to maximize the benefits of GenAI is in the area of prompt engineering. From a content creation perspective, prompt engineering is the difference between if a user received 24K or fool's gold quality results.
According to the 2024 Semrush AI Content Marketing report, nearly half of AI users (49%) create multi-step, complex AI prompts for content generation. Marketers are starting to realize that GenAI is an art and science. While it is clear that agencies with quality prompts will likely be more efficient at providing compelling content for client projects, there is another opportunity for GenAI prompt engineering excellence, and that is in project management.
In an orchestra that delivers a crowd-satisfying performance, the soloists that wow attendees usually receive more attention and praise from the audience than the conductor. The same is true in marketing, where the best project team members who wow clients with their results often get more attention than the project manager conducting seamless team coordination. This is not to say that the project manager isn't important, but they likely are underappreciated, just like the marketing agency office manager.
By turning to GenAI and more intricate prompt engineering, there is an opportunity for project managers to add more value and efficiency to their own role and their entire team. This type of action may not make them receive parallel attention to the soloists, but likely more senior management recognition for just how valuable they are to company success.
What Does GenAI Prompt Engineering for an Agency Project Manager Look Like?
Let's unpack this across the three main types of marketing agencies where this applies –
Standalone Agency PMs — Large Agencies
In large agencies where project managers focus exclusively on orchestrating campaigns, prompt engineering becomes a major multiplier to company operational excellence. These PMs can create sophisticated prompts that generate comprehensive project timelines with built-in contingencies based on historical data.
By using GenAI to help draft resource allocation plans that account for team strengths and workload balance, they can better predict and manage risks to achieve campaign objectives.
Hybrid AM & PM Roles — Mid-size Agencies
For mid-size agencies where account managers (AM) wear multiple hats, prompt engineering offers a critical lifeline in managing client relationships and project delivery. These hybrid roles can leverage AI to switch contexts quickly between client-facing communication and internal project directives. They often create client-specific communication templates that maintain a consistent voice while saving precious time. When developing customized project briefs, account managers can translate client wishes into clear team instructions without the typical back-and-forth that eats up hours.
The beauty here is that prompt engineering empowers AMs to maintain personal connections with clients while automating the mechanical aspects of project management. It's not about replacing the human touch—it's about creating more time for it.
Everyone is a PM — Small Agencies
In boutique agencies where everyone has to be a project manager, prompt engineering is a must-have more than mid-size agencies. Team members can create prompts that help maintain consistency across deliverables despite limited oversight. When agency members build quality assurance processes tailored to each client's brand guidelines and preferences, they're ensuring consistency without needing a dedicated project manager.
Turning GenAI Project Management Prompts into Competitive Advantage
The agencies pulling ahead in 2025 aren't just using GenAI—they're systematically augmenting their teams.
To use specialized GenAI prompt engineering as a point of differentiation, agencies should consider implementing prompt libraries comprising categorized collections of proven prompts for different project stages, client types, and deliverables. This could prevent wasted resources reinventing the wheel and establishes institutional knowledge that grows over time.
Agencies could also hold prompt optimization brainstorming meetings to foster collaborative innovation. Additionally, regular standing team meetings should be used to review and refine prompts based on the results to the answers to these crucial questions about projects: What worked? What didn't? How can prompts be improved?
These types of sessions turn isolated successes into agency-wide advantages.
Client-specific prompt development could become a secret weapon for agencies with major accounts. For important clients, developing custom prompt sets that incorporate their terminology, preferences, and historical feedback could create a level of customization that feels magical to clients but is actually systematic on the agency side.
Prompt engineering training also represents a significant opportunity. Agency leaders should consider investing in formal training that pays dividends when everyone develops this skill, not just your designated "AI person." The agencies that will see the biggest gains will make this a standard part of their professional development.
Lastly, it is important to measure the impact of improved prompts on project profitability, timeline adherence, and client satisfaction. This can help to justify the continued investment in prompt engineering skills. When agencies can demonstrate that better prompts lead to better margins, they create a virtuous cycle of improvement and a specialized competitive edge that could attract new marketing talent and clients.
GenAI isn't replacing project managers— it is one of multiple important technologies like end-to-end-agency management solutions that are redefining what great project management looks like.