RESEARCH DIRECTIVE — Multi-Religion Segment Selection (Offer Engine, Part 2)

Owner: Offer engine build team Pass window: 7 days from kickoff Output deadline: Day 7, end of day Scope: This pass DECIDES the 3–5 religion segments we launch simultaneously. It does not build the brands. It answers with data, not vibes.

1. THE QUESTION

Decide which 3–5 religion segments we launch simultaneously, in priority order, each with:

• a recommended holy site (the single location the brand is built around),
• a persona (who the buyer is, archetyped),
• a product shape (photo-placement as-is, or a modified shape: name-recitation certificate, offering photo, seasonal dua/card variant).

The v1 engine is proven on one shared shape: buyer submits a prayer in a funnel → pays → receives an AI-generated photo of their prayer card at a famous holy site. Fulfillment is image-model only. Each new segment reuses the same engine with a new location + persona + copy + price stack (FE / OTO / audio / membership).

Decision rule: segments must be scored through the rubric in Section 3. Verdicts are GO / MODIFY / NO per segment. We launch the top-scoring GO segments first. If fewer than 3 segments clear GO, the pass recommends the best MODIFYs and what needs to change in the product shape to make each launchable.

Deadline: 7 days. Day 5 = data freeze. Days 6–7 = scoring, ranking, write-up.

2. CANDIDATE SEGMENT REGISTER

For each candidate: the sites, the local "prayer delivery" mechanic (what actually gets placed, recited, or offered — this is what our fulfillment photo depicts), the prior to verify, and the kill-question that can sink the segment.

2.1 Christianity

Candidate sites:

• St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican (v1 live — benchmark, do not re-decide, use as calibration)
• Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
• Lourdes, France
• Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City
• Fatima, Portugal
• Western Wall, Jerusalem (shared mechanic with Judaism — see 2.2)

Local mechanic: a paper prayer/note physically placed or displayed at the site (candles at Lourdes, prayer notes at the Wall, written intentions), with photo confirmation. This is the exact mechanic our image model fakes — so the mechanic is the product.

Prior to verify: 8 operators run photo-confirmed placement funnels on Meta (St. Peter's, Holy Sepulchre, Lourdes, Western Wall, Guadalupe). Benchmark operator holylandprayer.com running since 2019 at $34.90 with 54K followers. Fatima had ZERO incumbent ads in a 26-query sweep = open slot. Verify all of it: recount the operators, re-pull their current prices, confirm Fatima is still empty.

Kill-question: Is Fatima still ad-empty, and if so is that open demand or no demand? (Keyword volume + CPC for "Fatima prayer" style mechanic queries answers this. Zero operators with zero search volume = dead slot, not a free one.)

2.2 Judaism

Candidate sites: Western Wall (Kotel), Jerusalem. Secondary: Rachel's Tomb, Meron (Rashbi).

Local mechanic: kvitel — a folded paper prayer note placed in the Wall's cracks. This is a real, normalized paid category: people pay scribes/shluchim to place notes on their behalf and send photo/video confirmation.

Prior to verify: official free channel exists (thekotel.org — notes digitally placed for free), yet paid tiers still work: westernwallprayers.org at $2–$18/day tiers, and two paid note-placement funnels ran on Meta. Verify both are still live and what they charge now.

Kill-question: Does the free official channel cap what buyers will pay — and does the answer differ for diaspora buyers vs. Israel-based buyers? If free placement is top-of-mind for the whole audience, the product needs a strong premium wrapper (guaranteed same-day placement, printed photo of the exact crack, certificate) or the segment scores down on demand.

2.3 Hinduism

Candidate sites: Varanasi ghats (Ganga aarti), Kashi Vishwanath, Tirupati Balaji, Vaishno Devi, Siddhivinayak.

Local mechanic: puja / chadhava (offering) performed in the buyer's name at the temple — flowers, diya, abhishek, prasad. This is the strongest commercial analog of any segment: paying for a ritual in your name is a completely normal, centuries-old transaction. Fulfillment shape likely MODIFIES from "prayer card photo" to "offering/ritual photo with the buyer's name plate" — the register keeps both shapes open and the data decides.

Prior to verify: Sri Mandir (AppsForBharat): $20M Series C in 2025, $53M total raised, 40M+ downloads, 5.2M online pujas/year, international ARPU ~$81 vs $7–9 in India. Verify current numbers, and — more important — verify whether international (diaspora) buyers are the paying cohort. Our buyer geography should mirror whoever holds that $81 ARPU.

Kill-question: Is the diaspora (US/UK/CA/AU) willing to pay Western prices ($29–$49 FE) for a photo-confirmed puja at a named temple — or is this market already owned by Sri Mandir's $20M war chest, making our wedge a niche site (Vaishno Devi, Siddhivinayak) instead of Varanasi? Answer decides site AND product shape.

2.4 Islam

Candidate sites: none clean. Masjid al-Haram/Kaaba is the only site with global pull and it is access-locked. Secondary consideration: Umrah-season dua framing, Green Dome (Madinah), or non-site-specific "dua at the Haram" framing.

Local mechanic: no paid intercession concept in the faith — paying someone to pray for you is doctrinally awkward. Informal services exist for having a name/dua recited in the Haram, but access is fully controlled by Saudi authorities, and image-model depiction of the Kaaba/Masjid al-Haram is itself a sensitivity (depiction norms, plus the model will fight photorealistic Haram interiors).

Prior to verify: informal name-recitation services exist and charge — find them, price them, check their age and ad presence. Verify whether any run paid Meta funnels at all.

Kill-question: Is there a product shape that monetizes WITHOUT paid intercession — e.g., a name-recitation certificate, an Umrah-season dua gift for a family member performing Umrah — and does any incumbent already run it profitably? If no shape clears the doctrine line credibly, this is a NO with the kill-question answered, not a maybe.

2.5 Sikhism

Candidate sites: Golden Temple (Harmandir Sahib), Amritsar. Secondary: none with equivalent pull.

Local mechanic: seva — volunteering/offering at the langar and temple. Culturally, paying someone to perform seva for you inverts the concept (seva is done by the devotee, not purchased on their behalf). Paid "prayer delivery" reads awkward at best, offensive at worst.

Prior to verify: check whether ANY paid placement service exists at all for Sikh sites, and how the community reacted to any past attempt (forums, news). Absence of operators + hostile community reaction = closed category.

Kill-question: Is there ANY monetizable shape (e.g., langar sponsorship in a named donor's honor — which IS a real, normalized paid act) that keeps the buyer's prayer meaningful without buying intercession? If langar-sponsorship-photo is the only viable shape, score it as MODIFY with that shape and let the rubric decide.

2.6 Buddhism

Candidate sites: Wat Phra That Doi Suthep / Wat Pho / Wat Arun (Thailand), Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic (Sri Lanka), Kinkaku-ji / Meiji Jingu ema tradition (Japan — note Meiji is Shinto; ema plaques are the mechanic), Mahabodhi Temple (Bodh Gaya, India).

Local mechanic: temple offering — light/candle offerings (Thailand), flower/food offerings (Sri Lanka), ema — wooden wish plaques purchased and hung at shrines (Japan). Ema is the closest analog to our exact product: you buy a plaque, write your wish, it gets displayed at the site. That IS prayer-card-as-a-product, already native to the culture.

Prior to verify: no incumbent operators known. Sweep for any paid remote-offering services (Thai temple light offerings, Sri Lankan online offerings, Japanese online ema) — absence in the priors means the register starts empty and the sweep must be thorough, not assumed.

Kill-question: Which single site has Western-buyer awareness + demand WITHOUT image-model blowback — and is the buyer a Westerner with affinity (Buddhist-curious traveler) or a diaspora Buddhist? Wrong buyer assumption = dead funnel even at a perfect site. Keyword data (Section 4) decides.

3. SCORING RUBRIC

Score each segment 1–5 on six axes. Cultural fit and demand are double-weighted (×2). Max = 30.

Verdict bands:

• GO: ≥ 20 / 30
• MODIFY: 14–19 / 30 — launchable only with the product-shape change named in the write-up
• NO: < 14 / 30 — kill-question answered in one paragraph, archive it

Scoring discipline: every score of 1 or 5 must cite the data point that produced it (query, ad count, price, operator name). A 5 without a citation is re-scored as a 3.

4. REQUIRED DATA PER SEGMENT

Collect ALL of the following per segment. Data freeze Day 5.

4.1 Keyword + CPC data (mechanic-level, not religion-level)

Pull via Keywords Everywhere / Google Keyword Planner for each of these query families, per segment:

• Christianity: "have a prayer said at the holy sepulchre", "prayer at the western wall", "candle at lourdes", "fatima prayer request", "vatican prayer petition"
• Judaism: "western wall note", "kvitel online", "send a note to the western wall", "western wall prayer request"
• Hinduism: "online puja booking", "chadhava online", "varanasi ganga aarti offering", "tirupati online puja", "siddhivinayak puja booking", "vaishno devi puja online"
• Islam: "dua request online", "have my name recited in the haram", "umrah dua gift"
• Sikhism: "golden temple langar sponsorship", "seva donation online"
• Buddhism: "temple light offering online", "ema plaque online", "buddhist temple offering online"

Record per query: monthly volume (global + US + key diaspora geos), CPC, trend direction (12-month). Religion-name queries ("hinduism beliefs") do NOT count — only mechanic queries.

4.2 Meta Ad Library sweep

Minimum 10 queries per segment, e.g.:

• Christianity: "holy land prayer", "prayer at holy sepulchre", "lourdes candle", "fatima prayer", "vatican prayer card", "guadalupe prayer", "western wall prayer christian", plus 3–4 operator-name queries (holylandprayer.com and variants)
• Judaism: "western wall note", "kvitel", "wall prayer request", "jerusalem prayer" + variants
• Hinduism: "online puja", "puja booking", "chadhava", "sri mandir", "temple offering online" + variants
• Islam: "dua request", "haram prayer", "umrah gift" + variants
• Sikhism: "golden temple seva", "langar donation" + variants
• Buddhism: "temple offering", "ema plaque", "thai temple offering" + variants

Record per ad found: operator name/domain, days running, price point visible in creative, funnel claim (physical vs. digital fulfillment).

4.3 Existing operators + prices

For every operator found: domain, age (Wayback/first-seen), FE price, OTO/upsell if visible, fulfillment claim language, geo targeting signals.

4.4 Benchmark apps/platforms + ARPU

• Sri Mandir / AppsForBharat: current funding, downloads, puja volume, India vs. diaspora ARPU split
• thekotel.org and westernwallprayers.org: current pricing tiers
• Any Buddhist/Sikh/Islamic equivalents surfaced by the sweep
• App-store sweep: top 20 prayer/puja apps per religion — model (free/paid/subscription), price points, review counts

4.5 Site access control + seasonal calendar

Per candidate site: controlling body (temple trust, waqf, Saudi authorities, Vatican, municipal), whether the controller runs its own paid channel, and the annual demand calendar:

• Islam: Ramadan, Umrah season peaks
• Hinduism: Navratri, Kumbh (2026 cycle status), Diwali, Shravan
• Christianity: Lent/Easter, Christmas, Lourdes feast days (Feb 11), Guadalupe feast day (Dec 12), Fatima apparition anniversaries (May 13, Oct 13)
• Judaism: Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur (kvitel season peak), Passover
• Buddhism: Vesak, Thai New Year (Songkran), Japanese New Year (hatsumode/ema season)

4.6 Market price points

Local comparable prices in market: puja booking ranges, kvitel tier ranges, candle/certificate ranges, so each segment's FE price can be anchored to local comps, not copied from the v1 $34.90.

4.7 Community sentiment (what actual believers say)

Per segment: find 3–5 forum/community threads (r/Judaism, r/hinduism, r/islam, r/sikh, r/Buddhism, r/Christianity, Quora, app-store reviews) where believers discuss paying for remote placement/offering. Record: is paying normalized, controversial, or offensive — quote-level evidence, one line each.

5. OUTPUT FORMAT

The researcher returns ONE document with:

5.1 Ranked table:

5.2 Per-GO-segment mini-spec (MODIFY segments get one only if we'd plausibly launch the modified shape):

• Site (one location, named)
• Persona archetype (e.g., "US Catholic woman 45–65, buying for a sick relative"; "Hindu diaspora professional, festival-driven gifting")
• Product shape (photo-placement as v1, or the modified shape with the exact change named)
• FE price anchored to local comps found in 4.6 (state the anchor: "$29.90 vs westernwallprayers.org $18/day top tier" style)
• Language (English, Hindi/Sanskrit terms, Hebrew terms, etc. — match how the market actually talks)
• Seasonal launch window from 4.5

5.3 Simultaneous-launch sequencing: the 3–5 segments that go first, in order, with the reasoning (which pairs share ad-account risk profiles, which have calendar windows aligning, which validate product-shape variations cheapest first). One paragraph of justification per ordering decision.

6. SOURCES TO USE

• Meta Ad Library — operator discovery, ad age, creative/price mining
• Keywords Everywhere / Google Keyword Planner — mechanic keyword volume + CPC + trends
• App stores (Apple App Store, Google Play) — prayer/puja apps, pricing models, review counts, ARPU signals
• Market reports — AppsForBharat funding coverage, religious-tech / devotional-tech market reports, 2025–2026
• Community forums — Reddit, Quora, Facebook groups, app reviews — what actual believers say about paying for remote placement/offering
• Wayback Machine — operator age verification, dead-operator discovery
• Operator sites directly — current pricing tiers, fulfillment claim language

7. RULES

1. Verify priors before trusting them. Every prior in Section 2 gets re-verified against live sources this pass. A prior that fails verification is downgraded to "unverified" and the score reflects the verified data only.
2. "Not found" ≠ "not there." Any zero-result claim (e.g., "no operators in Buddhism") must state the exact queries run and their sources. A sweep that missed is not a market that's empty.
3. Every NO verdict answers the kill-question. Not a vibe, not "it feels awkward" — the kill-question gets answered with a data point or a named attempt + outcome. A NO without an answered kill-question is returned for rework.
4. Mechanic-level demand only. Religion-name keywords don't count toward the demand axis. "Hinduism" as a word proves nothing; "online puja booking" does.
5. No hedges in the output. Each verdict is a decision input. The write-up states what we launch, what we modify, and what we kill — with the numbers that decided each.
6. Price anchors are local. FE prices in mini-specs cite the local comp they're anchored to, from data collected in 4.6.