OPERATIONS

In the past 20 years, marketing and communications have evolved, adding layers of complexity to plan execution. Naturally, I've embraced marketing operations as a key area of expertise.

My inherent organizational skills and experience in startup and growth-stage environments have fostered a resilient "do what has to be done" attitude. I believe everyone on a marketing or communications team should grasp marketing operations and contribute input, even if specialists handle databases, website management, and process control.

Below, explore my core operational strengths, including project management for the Yvolver, AdColony, and Digital Turbine websites.

BUDGET MANAGEMENT

My budget management skills have been praised by finance teams for years, earning unparalleled trust from Otello's and Digital Turbine's CFOs. I'm the only non-executive leadership team member authorized to sign vendor contracts and agreements. The embedded sample below (using outdated/non-confidential data) showcases my budget planning Google Sheet, with Digital Turbine's fiscal year running from April to March.

Why Google Sheets? Collaboration is key. As a team leader, I value transparency and trust my employees to see the big picture. I also rely on those responsible for spending to input data and keep the sheet current while locking certain fields for inputting actuals rather than plans.

At AdColony, I introduced Airtable as a project management tool, spending four years refining our instance to track swag, events, and content projects. At Digital Turbine, I led marketing operations, evaluating tools across DT, AdColony, and Fyber to adopt the best practices and processes. Our team chose Monday.com, and we gathered requirements to create efficient, transparent processes. I also collaborated with the executive team and sales leaders to share parts of Monday.com with other teams for visibility on events and content.

Since I can't share internal views from DT's Monday.com or AdColony's Airtable, the example below demonstrates my thought process in applying lessons learned from one job to an unrelated project.

During the Overwatch League offseason, I noticed a lack of official trackers for contract statuses. I built a comprehensive database for the 2022-2023 offseason, considering popular requests and logical team groupings. I set up the entire board from scratch and input data from a pre-existing Google Sheet.

ORGANIZATION

I also worked with other community members of the scene to tie the back end into an attractive front-end Vercel app, available via the button below the embedded table and other view examples.

The embed (above twice) and Kanban view (left) are publicly visible, but the screenshot (directly above) showcases the different views I utilized to make updating the data a little easier for the others involved in the project.

The easy-to-navigate front-end and customizable public view have seen this project featured on high-profile Overwatch League podcasts and streams.

Overall, this personal example gives a great picture of my universal professional skills and mindset when it comes to organizing projects and data.

CRM allows for a connection with users and clients without exponential growth in staff is a recipe for sustained engagement. It’s also a prime examples of cross-department cooperation, requiring input from data teams for ongoing analysis, product teams for integration, and wider marketing for swag fulfillment at higher tiers.

Across my career, I’ve built both types of programs from scratch, and overseen more expanded strategies, effectively delegating “lever-pulling” and helping others grow their own skills and learn from my experience as I took on more leadership roles.

CRM

  • In 2015, I learned on-the-job how to build CRM campaigns, creating AdColony's SalesForce Pardot engagement campaign from scratch.

    Using if/then checks, timers, active email lists, and custom HTML email templates with variables, I delivered consistent results for AdColony's self-serve clients through short and long-term drip campaigns.

    As Digital Turbine's marketing operations team expanded, we added more automations and CRM campaigns, addressing SDK errors and prompting developers to fix issues and update integrated versions.

  • You can view a strategy presentation I collaborated with AdColony’s Head of Growth on in early 2016. Coming from Yvolver’s basic CRM and planning, I immediately saw the opportunity to leverage SalesForce tools with a growth-stage company budget for AdColony.

    View the presentation here.

    The proposal was successful, and the integration was completed in late 2017.

  • Recognizing to a gap in AdColony’s engagement, I developed Facebook and Twitter bots for end-users, guiding them through common issues and concerns. Over time, these bots addressed self-serve developer questions, effectively multiplying the marketing team's efforts. This allowed AdColony to retire its "copy-paste answers" document and provided 24/7 support.

    Before leaving DT, I strategized with my marketing operations team to expand this automation, sharing my knowledge with a capable team that will continue to evolve the product as DT's business grows.