Optimized | Growth Marketing Agency

Founder

UPTHRUST | Growth Marketing & Digital Product Studio

Digital Marketeer

We help ambitious DTC & SaaS brands​ grow by pairing our proven growth systems with performance creative and landing page testing.

We work with 25+ 6 to 8 figure brands. Some of our success stories:
✅ Helped a subscription baby brand launch and scale to $250k/month in 12 months
✅ Reduced MER by 60% for a CPG brand in the first 90 days
✅ Helped a fashion DTC brand cut CPA by 43% through structured creative testing and UGC

Here's how we help you scale your brand:
👉 Performance creative: a consistent inflow of high-performing ad creative built around consumer psychology.
👉 Landing page testing: we design and build landing pages that match ad intent, messaging and customer pain points.
👉 Influencer & creator whitelisting: tap into trust and leveraging authentic creators that help increase brand awareness and social proof through .


If you’re a 6 to 8-figure DTC brand looking to break through a growth plateau or scale profitably, DM me “𝗚𝗥𝗢𝗪” to learn more.

Alexander Pauwelyn

Salient Social Media

- Manage a diverse portfolio of B2C and B2B clients, modernize consumer journeys through full-service media and creative strategy and execution.						
- Develop bespoke client marketing strategies combining learnings from past and present field experiences, industry research, and comprehensive analysis to evolve clients’ communications approaches for peak digital compatibility and target market appeal.
- Create original client advertising collateral leveraging specialty background in driving over $1MM in revenue through professional passion projects in copywriting, graphic design, and trending UGC mobile video content creation.
- Manage client paid media accounts, ensuring campaign success through years of compounded best practice expertise leading 8-figure creative rotations.
- Perform media and creative audits, analyzing client performance within the competitive landscape and outlining whitespace opportunity areas for optimization.
- Serve as a readily available client resource, providing immediate, expert advice on media, consumer, and creative strategy to navigate and resolve unexpected marketing challenges, ensuring the continuity and success of key initiatives.

Founder & Chief Consultant

Biossance

- Led end-to-end paid channel operations including consumer targeting expansion, product portfolio management, media planning/buying and creative development.
- Collaborated with C-suite leadership via regular growth performance reporting to amplify and optimize marketing to achieve quarterly revenue goals.
- Continuously developed and executed an always on, hypothesis based, agile testing and learning roadmap, leveraging digital field research and controlled A/B experiments to strengthen messaging strategy, ad design, targeting, and campaign ecosystems.
- Partnered with finance and marketing leadership to balance a substantial OpEx, liaising with agency partners and vendors to keep programs on budget and profitable.

Senior Marketing Strategist

- Revitalized the Biossance digital marketing journey, boosting revenue by 72% in 12 months through implementing AI-driven growth media tactics across Meta and Google properties, modernizing the brand’s creative approach and value proposition, broadening customer targeting, and launching on TikTok and Pinterest.
- Honed full-funnel new product launch strategy, modernizing creative and media tactics to drive budget efficiency (ROAS) by +28% between integrated campaigns.
- Transitioned paid media mix to AI enabeled campaign formats that lifted efficiency +44% and revenue volume 129% within one month of implementation.
- Launched a successful evergreen UGC brand content stream to support the DTC ecomm business plan and drive customer engagement. Sourced trending authentic, lo-fi product innovation and efficacy focused mobile footage from external influencers, internal creators, and dermatology field experts.

Marketing Strategist

Ogilvy

- Spearhead brand building and commercialization for a premium home siding company, managing a cross functional digital experience overhaul.
- Collaborated with client leadership and agency branding specialists to revamp James Hardie’s value proposition, visual identity, messaging strategy, and communications tactics, elevating programming across B2B channels and introducing B2C media to the marketing mix.
- Leveraged data and trends reports from Nielsen, Mintel, and Kantar to inform consumer personas and targeting, product marketing recommendations, and unified language surrounding renovation products and features for advertising collateral and sales enablement resources.
- Led partner management while owning shopper marketing workstreams, organizing internal and external communications and operations involving clients, internal cross functional agency teams, external agency specialists, vendors, and retailers.
- Pitched and successfully sold in an 11% retail project scope expansion, upselling agency services from in-store interactive kiosk development to full signage and display modernization at Lowe’s and Home Depot.
- Supervised a team of two direct reports, creating individualized career development plans to empower team members to achieve personal and organizational goals.

Account Supervisor (James Hardie Account)

Leo Burnett

- Led project management for B2B and B2C work streams across healthcare and non-profit sectors, centralizing communications and providing strategic support.
- Partnered with analytics and strategic leadership to develop, pitch, and sell B2B and B2C strategic proposals for brand creative, demand generation tactics, and performance media based on category trends, competitive landscape analysis, target consumer data, and client KPI and ROI goals.
- Conducted audience and industry research informing the pitch that won the UHG business, expanding account scope by 47%. Insights later contributed to UHG’s  first formal brand strategy, including B2B customer personas, segmentation frameworks, and bespoke communications planning targeting healthcare stakeholders.
- Led crisis social media strategy for Feeding America during the onset of Covid-19, overseeing a cross functional team of writers, designers, and strategists while generating donation driving campaigns aimed at stocking food banks to accommodate record unemployment rates.

Account Executive (UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealth Group, & Feeding America Accounts)

- Centralized communications and operations between McDonald’s, Disney, and Marvel clients, establishing collaborative processes and partnership expectations while re-launching the Disney Happy Meal program following a twelve year hiatus to support the Avengers Endgame theatrical release.
- Oversaw strategic planning and creative execution while  introducing adult media to the Happy Meal advertising mix and launching comms on digital channels.
- Oversaw strategic planning and production coordination for the successful launch of the first ever Happy Meal flagship restaurant takeover, transforming the Chicago retail location into a high fidelity Marvel Avengers Recruitment Center for the Avengers Endgame theatrical film release.

Account Executive (McDonald's Account)

- Partnered with cross channel strategic leadership to balance client interests, relationships, brand partnership requirements, budgets, and performance goals throughout the always-on Happy Meal advertising development process. 
- Synthesized client P&L parameters, localized consumer trends, and regional media landscapes for informing and managing test market campaign experiments.
- Owned competitive research to inform advertising category strategy for the premium bacon product line extension launch in 2019.

Associate Account Executive

- Utilized social listening software to pitch proactive content strategy to McDonald's clients, generating data-driven insights to inform concepts for marketing activations aimed at engaging with consumers during high impact cultural moments.
- Contributed to end-to-end project management processes for new business pitches, coordinating cross-functional teams to ensure timely and high-quality deliverables, enhancing the agency's competitive positioning.
- Assisted in the preparation and design of client creative pitch decks, supplementing with strategic market research and data analysis to fortify proposals and contribute to successful campaign approval.

Account Management Intern

House of Commons

Assisted with PR and constituent outreach for Stewart Jackson MP (Conservative Party), submitted campaign slogan and marketing proposals, drafted official batch letter responses, attended committees and drafted summaries, updated parliamentary databases.

Parliamentary Campaign and Communications Intern

Coolfire Studios

Pitched reality show concepts based on Food Network, CNN, and Discovery ID network mandates to studio executives, lead a team in developing a social media campaign to drive the studio’s digital traffic and visibility, served as a production manager and director while filming the campaign’s YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook content.

Television Development Intern

PR Collaborative

Conducted market research and identified customer segments for Sony Pictures’ campaigns for the fall 2016 film slate, assisted with related communications, event planning, and promotional product pitches, compiled media lists, drafted press releases, and generated digital promotional content for the AFI Documentary Film Festival, coordinated media involvement, wrangled talent, and assisted PR staff at AFI red carpet events.

Account Management Intern (Sony Pictures and AFI)

Washington University in Saint Louis Strategic Communications Network

Developed integrated social media campaign for student outreach, researched top marketing and communications firms to help build WUSTL recruiting relationships, produced career preparation materials to aid students applying for marketing and PR jobs, coordinated marketing and communications career events including panels, workshops, and employer information sessions.

Marketing and Strategic Communications Intern

CommCore Consulting Group

Conducted client media research and drafted reports for GE, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and others, assisted with real time crisis research and strategic development, generated original digital content and published blog posts on the firm’s main website, managed Salesforce updates, drafted client pitch letters, conducted pitch phone calls.

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