Mark Nelson
Verified Expert in Marketing
Marketing Expert
Chicago, IL, United States
Toptal member since January 31, 2025
Mark is a marketing problem-solver with expertise in full-funnel marketing, driving sales growth through demand generation, digital channels, brand strategies, and high-performing teams. His experience spans branding, performance marketing, and martech. Mark has worked across industries such as B2C, B2B, B2B2C, financial services, retail, technology, education, consumer products, and agencies, with roles at AT&T, CNO, DeVry, PE-backed businesses, Prophet, startups, and higher-ed institutions.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Brand Development
- Customer Acquisition
- Demand Generation
- Digital Transformation
- Integrated Marketing
- Lead Generation
- Marketing ROI Optimization
- Team Building
Work Experience
Interim CMO
BetterLife Insurance
- Hired by the CEO for a short-term, fractional role to create a roadmap to establish marketing as a growth driver for this 60,000-member life insurance company. Laid the groundwork to hone the brand, focus key initiatives, and revise team structure.
- Scaled consumer digital demand generation from zero to several hundred leads per month in just four months.
- Spearheaded BetterLife's 1st-ever customer insights initiative to define the target, identify growth opportunities, refine messaging, and improve media targeting and marketing ROI.
Head of Acquisition Marketing
CNO Financial
- Managed a $128 million advertising budget across TV, digital, direct mail, email, and CRM channels. Cooperated with sales, IT, and senior leaders to align marketing efforts with business goals for a portfolio of consumer life, health, and B2B brands.
- Achieved peer-exceeding market share growth for Colonial Penn by increasing marketing revenue by 18% and improving revenue from digital marketing channels by 250%.
- Realigned the brand and media strategy for myhealthpolicy.com, CNO's D2C medicare marketplace, to increase leads by 108% while reducing acquisition costs by 78%.
- Oversaw the overhaul of the martech stack, implementing Pega CDH, a new AI customer decision and personalization hub, and expanding email communication for prospect and customer engagement.
- Consolidated disparate marketing functions to create a strategic go-to-market strategy, improve channel performance, and optimize marketing spend across B2B and B2C brands. Improved employee satisfaction scores year-over-year substantially.
- Supported the launch of Optavise, CNO's B2B benefits administration brand, created a targeted lead generation program to support organizational growth, and optimized SEM and SEO to help brand and website launch.
Marketing and Digital Strategy Director
Prophet
- Recruited to deliver transformative growth strategies across multiple clients while providing thought leadership to client CMOs. Managed initiatives to drive client growth and implemented strategies to enhance marketing campaigns and improve ROI.
- Developed and implemented customer acquisition, lead management and scoring, and omnichannel CLTV strategies for Thrivent Financial, improving Thrivent's digital advertising results by 800% and CPA by 84%.
- Transformed the marketing planning process to create a cohesive Year One integrated marketing plan for EverNorth Health Services, Cigna's multibillion-dollar B2B health services unit established in 2020.
Vice President of Marketing and Communications
Meritas International Family of Schools (Now a Part of Nord Anglia Education)
- Headed global marketing for a PE-owned network of 10 local brands, including seven in the US and three internationally, collectively generating $350 million in revenue. Recruited to improve brand and digital demand generation for a strategic exit.
- Spearheaded internal and external communication efforts for complex acquisition announcements, preventing customer turnover and declines in leads and sales. Earned organization-wide accolades for comprehensive nature and positive outcomes.
- Completed the rollout of the new brand platform, focusing on brand messaging and creating content to better tell the brand story at the local and retail levels.
- Redirected PR and social media content strategy to showcase measurable ROI, resulting in tangible gains in share of voice, sentiment, key message communication, and increased organic search volume.
- Transformed digital marketing efforts, including websites, SEM/SEO, digital ads, and CRM. Built paid search capabilities and relaunched local brand websites, driving a 300% increase in leads and boosting conversion rates and lead quality through CRM.
Project History
Customer Insights
Addressed gaps in understanding the existing customer base to identify growth opportunities, improve media targeting, refine messaging, and enhance ROI.
D2C Demand Generation and Digital Marketing
Modernized and optimized a $128 million multichannel marketing budget, driving a 23% increase in D2C sales and a 250% growth in revenue from digital marketing channels.
Social Media Ad Optimization
Improved digital advertising results by 800% and reduced cost per acquisition (CPA) by 84%.
B2B SaaS Product Marketing Launch
Created a go-to-market strategy for a new B2B SaaS product, resulting in surpassing 1st-year sales goals.
Local Marketing
I built the local marketing team at DeVry University, ensuring that our 90+ nationwide locations met their growth targets through improved lead generation and local marketing support. The team exceeded goals and fostered a strong esprit de corps.
B2B Web Strategy
Crafted a B2B eCommerce and lead generation website strategy as part of a significant digital transformation initiative for Kellogg's Foodservices (now WK Kellogg/Kellanova Away From Home), leading to a successful website launch.
Education
Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Marketing, Management Strategy, and Finance
Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management - Evanston, IL, USA
Bachelor's Degree in Communications
Boston University - Boston, MA, USA
Certifications
Executive Education Program: Mastering Sales: A Toolkit for Success
Kellogg School of Business
Skills
Core
Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, A/B Testing, Product Marketing, Go-to-market Strategy, Retail Marketing Campaigns, Omnichannel Marketing, B2C Marketing, Paid Advertising, Brand Marketing, Strategic Marketing, Sales, Content Marketing, Social Media Optimization, Marketing Technology (MarTech), Facebook Ads, Social Media Marketing (SMM), Content Marketing Strategy, Account-based Marketing (ABM)
Technical
SQL
Business Models
SaaS Product Marketing
Platforms & Tools
Google Analytics, HubSpot
Other
Remote Work, Business Strategy, Advertising, Demand Generation, Customer Acquisition, Team Building, Brand Development, Website Traffic, Paid Media, Digital Transformation, Integrated Marketing, Client Services, Private Equity, Marketing ROI Optimization, B2B Marketing, B2B Lead Generation, New Products, Localization Marketing, Team Leadership, Direct Response, Direct to Consumer (D2C), Growth Marketing, E-learning, Growth Strategy, MQL, Finance, Mass Communications, Website Design, Analytics, Project Management, Startups, Global Digital Marketing Strategy, Data Analytics, Customer Insights, Over-the-top Content (OTT), CTV Ads, Direct Mail, Email, Web Design Strategy, eCommerce, Meta Ads, Salesforce, Drupal, Pega, Sales Operations, Sales Management
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring