Elise Stone
Verified Expert in Marketing
Digital Marketing Expert
Palatine, IL, United States
Toptal member since July 25, 2024
Elise has over 15 years of analytics experience, specializing in performance marketing with a focus on digital and paid social media, earned media program evaluation, influencer program reporting, and experiential marketing analysis. She excels in data storytelling through compelling visuals and robust analysis. Elise is passionate about understanding client challenges and enhancing efficiency through innovative reporting and performance evaluation techniques.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Analytics
- Brandscopic
- Domo
- Google Analytics 4
- Marketing
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Tableau
Work Experience
Analytics Freelancer
Freelance Clients
- Collaborated with Legacy Marketing to conceptualize and build fully customized campaign wrap reports for several on- and off-premise programs, evaluating their effectiveness in relation to depletions, i.e., sales.
- Partnered with Sidecar to build their experiential analytics offering from the ground up, including reporting infrastructure. Created monthly and quarterly reports to analyze the return on investment (ROI) of a nationwide brand ambassador program.
- Developed interactive dashboards using Tableau Online for RJ Capital Group, showcasing direct mail efforts within the healthcare sector to understand messaging performance by geographical region better.
- Provided in-depth influencer reporting to Starfish for a pharma influencer program with organic and whitelisted ads. Analyzed holistic results using upper-level metrics from Keyhole and lower-funnel performance data from Google Analytics 4.
Associate Director of Analytics | Integrated Marketing
BISSELL
- Streamlined reporting capabilities by creating a holistic dashboard to analyze paid media performance, including linear and streaming TV, as well as digital marketing efforts.
- Conducted linear regression analyses to forecast sales and estimate the incremental impact of short-form TV on sales growth.
- Transformed BISSELL's measurement process to maximize ROI by spearheading a marketing mix modeling (MMM) with Nielsen. This initiative guided future planning efforts and illuminated paid media's true impact on online and offline sales.
- Conducted geo-lift experiments to evaluate the performance of various creatives.
- Self-taught Domo, quickly becoming a subject matter expert (SME) in automating data collection via API integration and manipulating data through complex ETL development.
VP of Digital Analytics and Performance Communications
Zeno
- Secured over $1.3 million in analytics-related fees and expanded the team from one to five members in under three years.
- Developed best practices for reporting to analyze data and determine the true impact of Zeno's earned media and digital efforts, utilizing a customized human and technology approach.
- Enhanced the measurement process to focus on actionable insights that tell a story, going beyond traditional reporting, allowing teams to be more responsive and impact brand communications and campaign performance in real time.
- Worked cross-functionally to build holistic reporting dashboards that analyzed campaign performance and showcased various key performance indicators (KPIs).
- Presented analytics capabilities in new business pitches and internal summits alongside executive-level leadership.
- Utilized a collaborative approach in working with over 70 brands across multiple offices, including Singapore, Malaysia, the UK, New York, California, Washington DC, Dallas, and Colorado.
- Determined Zeno's analytical offerings and developed innovative, cutting-edge solutions through customized deliverables and services, helping the agency implement a data-driven approach to media.
Director of Marketing Analytics
Legacy Marketing
- Built the analytics department from the ground up, expanding the team from one to five members in just over three years.
- Headed the analytical direction, determined the approach, and provided recommendations for new program pitches within the agency.
- Led the creation of custom, easily digestible reports, dashboards, and presentations that effectively communicated analytical findings, insights, and results. Focused on real-time program optimizations and provided future marketing recommendations.
- Presented at annual brand ambassador training sessions, consisting of 20-50 participants, to highlight the importance of reporting.
- Managed over 50 programs across 15-20 clients and over $15 million in experiential marketing campaigns.
- Worked for two years to gain the trust of a top client and obtain proprietary sales data, enabling the company to conduct ROI analysis. This facilitated understanding key aspects of the program and evaluating the effectiveness of marketing efforts.
- Developed a standardized reporting template utilized by 70% of clients, enabling the production of nearly 80 monthly reports.
- Received the Problem Solver of the Year accolade, nominated by co-workers, for my ability to identify and implement innovative solutions to overcome adversity and approach problems as opportunities rather than challenges.
Analytics Supervisor
Omnicom Group
- Managed analytics efforts for over $150 million in global media campaigns for Hewlett Packard and HTC over two years.
- Developed landing page tagging strategies to gain insights into user purchasing behavior across over 50 campaigns, enhancing the effectiveness and revenue generation of programmatic buying, retargeting, and real-time bidding strategies.
- Collaborated with publishers and creative agencies to develop top-performing custom digital executions, resulting in performance that was eight times better than industry standards.
- Orchestrated real-time optimizations of digital campaigns to improve ad exposure, enhance consumer response, and maximize media effectiveness, resulting in over $100,000 in savings for HP.
- Created agency-wide best practices and processes, ranging from metric standardization for ad units to evaluations of best-in-class site partners.
- Delivered presentations to top-level clients across 20 campaigns quarterly.
Senior Search Analyst
Starcom
- Managed multiple accounts within one of Starcom’s largest paid search clients, Keller Graduate School, with an annual budget of $20+ million in 2011.
- Worked as a liaison between clients and major search engines to expand brand awareness and marketing through pay-per-click (PPC) marketing.
- Conducted daily keyword analysis and optimized strategies to lower overall cost-per-acquisition while maintaining significant brand presence and consistently meeting monthly conversion goals.
- Conducted A/B tests within ad copy and branding strategies to determine successful ad campaigns that resonate with customers.
- Initiated a landing page transition that resulted in a 60% year-over-year (YOY) conversion rate (CVR) increase and a 23% reduction in cost-per-acquisition (CPA).
- Collaborated cross-functionally with teams, including operational-level agreement (OLA), brand, website architects, and search engine optimization (SEO), to ensure a cohesive client experience.
eCommerce Analyst of Housewares
Kohl’s
- Served as the sole analyst for one of Kohl’s largest online divisions, which grossed $60 million in sales during 2009.
- Monitored and analyzed stock positions for Kohls.com during advertised events, ensuring budget adherence for over 10,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs) across six companywide departments.
- Collaborated cross-functionally with production, website architects, brick-and-mortar counterparts, and marketing to ensure all products were live on the site and available for sale.
- Completed save-a-sale analysis from February 2009, leading to a company-wide initiative to stay in stock on key items and an incremental sales increase of $10 million in Spring 2010.
- Developed a sales forecasting tool currently utilized by all direct-to-consumer vendors operating on Kohls.com.
- Presented monthly at Vendor Initiation Kickoffs, which consisted of 50-100 participants.
- Maintained one of the highest in-stock levels company-wide throughout 2009.
- Trained and mentored new hires while taking on multiple SME responsibilities.
Project History
Off-premise Program Analysis Report
Created a comprehensive report offering key takeaways, insights, and recommendations at both the market and campaign levels to evaluate the effectiveness of the off-premise program.
The Chivas Brand team hired Legacy Marketing, for which I freelance, to run an off-premise consumer sampling program to distribute samples of Chivas at various off-premise locations across the country, primarily focusing on Chivas 12.
Off-premise tastings help generate brand awareness, connect consumers with the brand through a visual and sensory experience, and allow consumers to taste the product without purchasing a bottle.
The primary goal of this off-premise program was to generate sales and convert consumers to brand loyalty to Chivas. My role was to evaluate the program's effectiveness by analyzing the pros and cons of each location and market and then evaluating the overall effectiveness of the campaign as a whole.
Seasonal Brand Ambassador Program Evaluation
Analyzed and monitored the performance of a Seasonal Brand Ambassador campaign featuring ready-to-drink gin and vodka cocktails, tracking KPI achievement across multiple on- and off-premise accounts within a top summer market, the Hamptons.
I was tasked with creating the reporting infrastructure in which the Seasonal Brand Ambassador logged all of his activity, pulled the data bi-weekly, and reported on KPI performance. I conceptualized and built the reporting template from the ground up and worked with the client to ensure they were happy with the dashboard's interactive functionality and the report's aesthetic.
I would also provide insights based on the depletion data, i.e., sales data at each account, and tie that back to what was working and what was not based on the KPI achievements in each account.
Social Media Influencer Brand Partnership Program
Developed the reporting methodology for an influencer campaign, focusing on upper- and lower-funnel tactics by partnering with micro- and macro-influencers across TikTok and Instagram.
I conducted a social media reporting platform evaluation and presented my key findings and recommendations to the CEO for the best-in-class social media tool, Keyhole. I also developed performance benchmarks by leveraging historical performance at both the post and influencer levels through the use of this tool.
I led reporting efforts for this program and evaluated the effectiveness of each post, influencer, and platform from a front- and back-end perspective. I provided weekly optimization recommendations to improve the campaign's performance in real time. I also created and managed Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) tags to better understand the back-end performance via Google Analytics 4 and evaluate the effectiveness of each post, influencer, and platform.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Marketing and Psychology
Indiana University - Bloomington, IN, USA
Skills
Core
Marketing, Ad Campaigns, Marketing Campaigns, TV Advertising, Paid Advertising, Social Media, Out-of-home (OOH) Advertising, Facebook Ads, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Influencer Marketing, Social Media Marketing (SMM), TikTok Ads, Pinterest Marketing, Digital Marketing, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Digital Campaigns, LinkedIn Ads, Lead Generation, Pay-per-Click (PPC), Google Ads, Sales Analysis, TikTok Marketing, Instagram Marketing, Brand Marketing, Email Campaigns
Platforms & Tools
NewsWhip, Google Analytics 4, Meltwater, CreatorIQ, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kenshoo, Instagram Ads, Bing Ads, Canva
Business Models
Business to Business (B2B)
Other
Tableau, Brandscopic, Analytics, Microsoft Excel, Domo, Alteryx, Keyhole, Microsoft PowerPoint, Looker, Brandwatch, Meta Ads, eCommerce, Digital Media, ETL, Management, Team Building, New Business, Programmatic Advertising, Semrush, Forecasting, Agency, Advertising, Digital Branding, Paid Media, Influencers, Digital PR, Dashboards, Reporting, Data Reporting, Optimization, Ad Optimization, Ad-hoc Analysis, Marketing Forecasting, Geofencing & Geotargeting, Analysis, Event Marketing, Campaign Optimization, B2B Lead Generation, Conversion Rate, Reports, Paid Search, Customer Experience, Program Evaluation, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Market Insights, UTM Codes, Benchmarking
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