Case Studies

Cal State San Marcos needed a reliable, high-volume email operation capable of supporting university-wide initiatives — from enrollment and commencement to fundraising campaigns and prospect outreach — while navigating strict accuracy requirements and multi-stakeholder editorial approval chains.

Owned the full campaign lifecycle — intake coordination, editorial review, audience segmentation (1,000–56,383 recipients), QA testing, and deployment — using Microsoft Dynamics as the primary execution platform. Built repeatable workflows that maintained zero delivery disruptions across every high-visibility, high-stakes send.

Sustained a 33.45% average open rate and 2.96% CTR across 496 campaigns — while holding unsubscribe rates at 0.03% and hard bounces at 0.54%, both well below industry benchmarks. The program became the trusted infrastructure for every major university-wide communication initiative.

Cal State San Marcos needed a paid search presence to reach prospective students actively researching university options — competing against well-funded institutions with a lean budget that had to perform with maximum efficiency from day one.

Architected and launched the campaign from the ground up — conducting keyword research via Google Keyword Planner, configuring geo-targeting and audience parameters, and iterating on bidding strategy and keyword mix through a disciplined daily optimization cadence across the full 42-day window.

Delivered 86,824 impressions and 5,731 clicks at an average CPC of $0.24 — reduced from $0.34 at launch. CTR improved from 6.1% to 6.6% over the campaign window, outperforming higher education benchmarks throughout and earning the distinction of most cost-efficient campaign in the project.

Frontera Health — a behavioral health app serving families of children with autism — needed to scale social content production rapidly with a minimal team and constrained budget. Traditional production timelines and costs weren't compatible with the pace the growth strategy demanded.

Designed and deployed an AI-powered content production workflow — using HeyGen for avatar video generation and Claude for scripting, campaign brief development, and content pillar strategy. Grounded content decisions in audience research: identified that autism mothers responded most strongly to relational content that made them feel seen, not clinical product messaging. Ran structured A/B testing across 100+ content pieces to build a data-driven creative rulebook, then amplified top performers through influencer partnerships and paid media.

Drove 100x impressions growth in 14 days through two targeted influencer campaigns — generating 185,600+ combined Reel views from a sub-200-follower starting point. App downloads scaled from approximately 100 in March 2026 to 3,000+ by May 2026, with social media identified as the primary acquisition driver throughout.