Alex Kennett
Verified Expert in Marketing
Marketing Expert
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Toptal member since October 18, 2023
Alex is a data-driven digital advertising expert with extensive professional experience. He specializes in strategic planning, implementation, and execution of agile solutions for major music, sports, and eCommerce players. Alex excels at go-to-market campaigns, media planning, buying, budgeting, creative consulting, and growth and sales strategies in current and emerging markets. His clients include Live Nation, Ticketmaster, Dreamville, Lollapalooza, NBA, NHL, and AFL.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Digital Advertising
- Digital Campaigns
- Digital Strategy
- Facebook Ads
- Google Ads
- Omnichannel Marketing
- Paid Advertising
- TikTok Ads
Work Experience
Senior Digital Ads Strategist
Tradable Bits
- Grew ad revenue by 398% in 2023, representing a $1.2 million net gain to the company. I handled 7,600 campaigns that year, which led to over 700 million impressions booked, 12 million clicks, and $100 million of revenue for our clients.
- Managed a team of 6, overseeing $10M+ ad spend for over 2,000 annual search campaigns for Live Nation Canada, utilizing Excel and Tableau for streamlined campaign analysis and reporting.
- Led pitches to 10+ existing subscription clients on the capabilities of our advertising tools, including Google AdSense and Spotify Ads, achieving incremental revenue of $450,000 from clients and an advertising contribution growth from 16% to 28.3%.
- Increased YoY ad revenue 40 times from Australian clients by crafting consultative sales pitches and building copywriting and campaign development strategies based on their business needs.
- Hired and mentored four new members of our ads team. They now handle ten clients each and outperform their clients' KPIs, leading to many incremental revenue opportunities.
- Handled over $10 million in ad spend for sports and entertainment clients, including Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Tortuga, Country Jam, Trailblazers, Live Nation, Frontgate Ticketing, C3 Presents, Secret Sounds, and Barry Manilow.
- Created and implemented TikTok marketing strategies. Handled customer segmentation and consumer protection, establishing corporate branding as well as personal branding.
- Ran outdoor advertising such as physical towers with QR codes for contests, discounts, and fun, interactive gamification solutions at the venue and event for Barry Manilow and Live Nation.
- Performed marketing attribution analyses to demonstrate the effectiveness and impact of each solution, including lead nurturing efforts, on key metrics such as traffic, qualified leads, conversions, and sales.
- Gave strategic radio advertising guidance to the head of marketing at the Bonnaroo Music Festival, including recommendations on optimal ad timeframes, featured promotions, and target station selection for maximum impact in direct response marketing.
Digital Advertising Strategist
Tradable Bits
- Handled campaign monitoring and led weekly calls with clients to discuss campaign performance, new strategies across multiple buying channels, budgeting, creative production, digital channel execution, and post-campaign analysis.
- Coordinated with product and UI/UX teams to scope and build out internal ad tools for Snapchat, Google, and Facebook. Translating my native experience on these platforms, I've succeeded in maximizing campaign building and reporting efficiency.
- Performed asset management and handled $3+ million in ad spend, generating $200+ million in revenue across Facebook, Instagram, YouTube Ads, Search, Display, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, LinkedIn, Spotify, Eventbrite, and Pinterest.
Marketing and Sales Operations Coordinator
GLOBALWIDE MEDIA
- Worked with advertising partners to set up digital communication for offers, configure tracking URLs, implement pixel and postback tracking, and test to ensure correct conversion points for our clients.
- Completed multiple ongoing network maintenance tasks, including offer pauses, rate changes, adding creatives, adding and removing leads, and investigating tracking issues.
- Communicated with clients regarding network updates internally and externally using HTML notifications, direct mail, and one-on-one client calls.
- Generated reports within the company's tracking platform, exporting relevant data to Excel and using pivot tables to sort and sum.
- Processed and vetted new affiliate applications to the company's network using specific compliance protocols and web research.
Digital Ads Consultant
Freelance
- Managed over $100,000 in spending, generating over $500,000 in returns.
- Worked with local eCommerce brands, the Gustavson School of Business, and other local projects around my university.
- Led the execution of campaign strategies, ad optimization, conversion rate optimization (CRO), programmatic advertising, Instagram growth, creative and copywriting initiatives, and content generation for the clients I consulted for.
- Leveraged Reddit Ads in the entertainment and sports industry to generate conversation around music festivals, a new product release, and sports highlights for the Portland Trailblazers and the Vancouver Canucks.
- Ran a SWOT strategic analysis for multiple go-to-market strategies across eCommerce, event management, and lead generation.
Project History
Tortuga Music Festival
https://tortugamusicfestival.com/Developed an ads strategy around big announce pushes and omnichannel full-funnel optimization, selling out their 2022 festival with an audience of 50% new ticket buyers, laying the foundation for selling out 2023 and beyond.
We wanted to create a five-year rolling internet marketing and sales strategy to build up the presence and sales of Tortuga 2022, 2023, and beyond following a two-year interruption. With its two previous festivals hampered by COVID-19 restrictions, Tortuga Music Festival's coordination team was driven to bring Tortuga 2022 back with a splash, doubling down on infrastructure that could amplify their efforts year-over-year. We also created and executed TikTok and other social media marketing.
Arizona Coyotes
https://blog.tradablebits.com/blog/how-the-arizona-coyotes-used-tradable-bits-to-increase-ticket-sales-double-their-roiHandled the Arizona Coyotes' 2020/2021 campaign during the NHL season. The engagement campaigns and audience segmentation resulted in a record 4% increase in ticket sales, creating more than 82,000 fan profiles in their CRM and doubling their ROI.
At the start of the 2019/2020 season, the Coyotes set their goal to improve overall fan engagement, increase single-game ticket sales, and encourage existing fans to attend at least one to three games yearly. The Coyotes partnered with Tradable Bits to leverage their all-in-one fan marketing platform, including its suite of customizable engagement campaigns to collect, segment, and activate all their fan data under one roof. By housing its data in one place and automating the analysis in its fan CRM, the Coyotes could easily personalize their fan experiences and increase single ticket sales, revenue, and return on advertising spend (ROAS).
I also developed and executed TikTok and other social media campaigns.
Fremantle Dockers
https://blog.tradablebits.com/how-the-fremantle-dockers-used-tradable-bits-to-find-target-capture-new-qualified-leadsSuccessfully allowed Freo to engage fans that they still needed to reach. The result was that 85% of entries were new fans, and 68% were identified as qualified membership leads. In addition, the ROAS increased from 2.5 to 16.7.
Freo used Tradable Bits' engagement and advertising platforms to create a strategic giveaway that would only be marketed to new fans. To do so, they built an "exclusion audience" within Tradable Bits, which would remove any Fremantle member existing in their database from their targeted social advertising. From there, they used the Tradable Bits engagement platform to build a compelling "profiling giveaway" that their target audience was served. The incentive of the giveaway (five signed jumpers) was a low-cost way to increase the view-to-click-through rate of the campaign, driving up entries.
Peach Pit – Interactive Live Stream
https://blog.tradablebits.com/blog/how-peach-pit-engaged-fans-and-increased-revenue-through-live-streamingGenerated audience retention for this particular show at an astounding 98%. Over 50% of the fans tuning in also bought merch from Peach Pit's online store and checked their upcoming tour dates on their website.
As part of Live Nation Canada's "Live from Inside" series, Peach Pit planned two livestream experiences for fans in North American and European time zones. These shows were gated and required fans to purchase tickets to access the live stream. Paying fans received invites to the platform, where they were treated to a full one-hour private show with multiple camera angles to choose from and the chance to connect with other fans from all over the world using a global chat room functionality.
Combining both an organic and paid social strategy, Peach Pit leveraged their own social channels and the channels of Live Nation Canada and the Commodore Ballroom to reach as many music fans as possible about their upcoming show.
Dreamville Festival
Successfully collaborated with Dreamville to design a low-lift, extremely effective engagement campaign. This project drove 64% new fan data collected, a 74% opt-in rate, and a 16-times increase in overall ROAS.
With Dreamville Festival entering its 2nd year of operations following a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19, their team was hard at work bringing the festival to life. A key challenge for the young music mecca has been building up a verified and dedicated fanbase to build the foundation of their festival year-over-year. Dreamville turned to Tradable Bits to attract, organize, and enrich its fanbase while using its collected data to convert fans in the most efficient way possible, including TikTok marketing.
Education
Bachelor of Commerce Degree in Marketing and Branding
University of Victoria - Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Bachelor of Commerce Degree (Erasmus) in Marketing and Branding
Reykjavik University - Reykjavik, Iceland
Certifications
Google Ads Measurement Certification
Google Ads Display and Shopping Certification
Google Ads Search Certification
Google Display Certification
Facebook Certified Buying Professional
Skills
Core
Digital Campaigns, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Facebook Marketing, Digital Marketing, Campaign Strategy, Ad Campaigns, Digital Marketing Strategy, Digital Marketing Best Practices, Google Paid Ads, Paid Advertising, B2C Marketing, Advertising Campaigns, Display Advertising, Instagram Marketing, Digital Advertising, Facebook Video Ads, X (formerly Twitter) Ads, Customer Segmentation, Go-to-market Strategy, Social Media Strategy, Funnel Marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Funnel Optimization, Omnichannel Marketing, Media Buying, Performance Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Marketing Analytics, Social Media Marketing (SMM), Pinterest Marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Copywriting, Marketing Budgeting, TikTok Ads, TikTok Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing, YouTube Ads, Marketing Mix, Branding, Social Media, Marketing, Google Tag Manager, LinkedIn Ads, Reddit Ads, Product Marketing, Product Positioning, Brand Strategy, Marketing Automation, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Market Research & Analysis, Social Media Content, Affiliate Marketing, Marketing Communications (MarCom), Marketing Operations, Content Marketing, Agile, Instagram Growth, Campaign Monitoring, Interactive Advertising
Platforms & Tools
Facebook Ads Manager, Instagram Ads, Google Ad Manager, Google Analytics, Google Analytics 4, Google Data Studio, Google Analytics 360, Lead Capture Pages
Business Models
Business to Consumer (B2C), Software as a Service (SaaS), B2C
Technical
Direct Response Marketing
Other
Digital Strategy, Snapchat, Paid Media, Facebook, Google Display Network, Sales Funnel, Market Segmentation, Programmatic Marketing, Marketing Attribution, Marketing Plans, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Lean, Eventbrite, Programmatic Advertising, Facebook Pixel, Spotify, Paid Search, Digital Agencies, Drip Campaigns, Google Docs, Microsoft Excel, YouTube Marketing, Communication, Project Planning, Strategy, Digital Media, YouTube, Thought Leadership, Competition Research, Data Analytics, Brand Positioning, Project Management, Go-to-market Optimization, B2B Partnerships, Growth Marketing, Integration, Tableau, Entrepreneurship, Business Planning, SWOT Analysis, Finance, Google Shopping, Compliance, Sales Support, Sales Growth, Operations Management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), User Engagement, Streaming, Sales Strategy, Ad Optimization, Google AdSense, Personal Branding, Corporate Branding, Outdoor Advertising, Internet Marketing, Spotify Ads, Asset Management, Lead Nurturing, Gamification, Direct Mail, Radio Advertising, Campaign Development, Web Research, Consumer Protection, Media Sales, Attribution Modeling, Yahoo Ads, Advertising Copy, SEO Consultant, Affinity Marketing, Marketing Mix Modeling, Audience Development, Native Ads, Post Sales Consulting, Brand Licensing, Community Marketing, Advertorials, Product Listings
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