Email Marketing Case Study: Deliverability Issues & New Automation Strategy

After identifying a downward trend in email performance for two brands, I uncovered that the organization had an issue with inbox deliverability. Two brands had 40% and 60% of their sends landing in spam which was the result of years of misuse/not following best practices.

Over the course of a year, I created a strategy to migrate ESPs from Oracle Responsys to Listrak which included a new dedicated IP for each brand, a warm-up plan, and strategy that emphasized best practices and automated campaigns.

We also were able to rely more heavily on automated campaigns to do the heavy lifting. We built out journeys based on various touch points, critical moments in a customer journey, and overall goals which ultimately led to automated campaigns making up 60-80% of Email Marketing revenue for the company. This meant less effort from the team to execute daily campaigns and more time spent on strategy and more valuable execution.

This strategy led to a solid 99-100% inbox placement for both brands, 100,000 customers re-engaged, improved engagement metrics, and increased conversion rates.

Customer Acquisition Case Study: Identifying CAC:LTV Goals & Eliminating Internal Bias

Digital customer acquisition channels were relatively foreign to an organization that I was working with so I started out by reviewing Custer Acquisition Costs (CAC) compared to Lifetime Value (LTV) by channel and product. This brand had 3,500+ SKUs and the organization was advertising on Google and Facebook but didn't have a grasp on how those channels were contributing to their two key KPIs. There was also internal bias at play because the company's typical demographic fit that of a male in the age range of 50-60+. The internal team didn't believe digital channels would identify high-value customers given their typical demographic info.

I conducted an analysis that compared CAC and LTV for each of their digital channels by platform (Facebook, Google), campaign, adset, and first product purchased. In comparing the data for their digital channels with that of their traditional channels (print, direct mail, catalog, and TV), we found that Facebook carousel ads actually delivered new customers at a cheaper cost than traditional channels and led to LTVs that were 25% higher than the traditional channels. We also identified the core products of their large catalog and identified that only a handful of products were driving these results which helped us to focus spend on those products and drive more volume at lower CPAs since we weren't wasting spend on the thousands of other SKUs.

This strategy allowed the brand to invest its dollars where it would have the biggest impact which led to unprecedented LTVs aligned with customer investment.

Search Engine optimization (SEO) Case Study: Combatting Google Penalties & Deploying Best Practices

A brand had been penalized by the Google Penguin update in 2012 due to link-farming and never fully recovered. I was tasked with revamping the entire SEO strategy which included technical, on-site, and off-site SEO. After reviewing what keywords were currently adding value to their business and identifying opportunities to expand, I deployed a three-pronged approach:

1. Technical SEO: fix the basics and improve the website

This brand had neglected many of the core basics for a healthy, SEO-friendly website. We had to get to work on optimizing titles, meta data, rewriting product descriptions, removing duplicate content, optimizing image titles, and more. Once the basics were optimized, we focused on a data-centric approach to improving the websites. We used many tools to identify paint points in the user journey and A/B test solutions. Ultimately, these efforts led to improved conversion rates which signaled to Google that this was a credible, strong website that was meeting the needs of the visitors.

1. On-Site SEO: developing a content strategy to fit the goals of the website

This brand we deploying content based on ideas that weren't driven by keyword goals, customer needs, or any type of data. I developed an internal process centered around each of those that led to stronger articles that supported the goal of the brand. We partnered with industry authorities and internal experts to develop strong content which could be seen in the improved ranking in Google, much of which won the featured snippet spot for key topics.

1. Off-Site SEO: link building and social partnerships

To show value to Google as well as their customer base, I deployed a link building strategy and influencer program to drive brand awareness, referral traffic, and social credibility. The brand was able to partner with new brand ambassadors who would produce authentic and honest content on their social channels, share coupon codes with their followers, and host their own pages on our website for users to shop their favorite products. Link building occurred naturally as this content was shared across platforms. We also partnered with credible news sources, publications, etc. in the industry to supply guest content which was published with relevant backlinks to the brand's websites. With an emphasis on domain authority, we were able to produce high-quality content to garner authoritative backlinks.

In the course of year, this strategy doubled the brand's traffic from organic search and led to an incremental $2.7M in revenue.