Paid media should be one of the most powerful growth engines a brand has — but too often it becomes slow, expensive and disconnected when managed through traditional agency structures. I work directly with marketing teams to bring paid media back inside the business, combining strategic oversight with hands-on execution to deliver performance that actually moves the needle.
Paid Media
These case studies showcase a selection of paid media campaigns where I’ve been responsible for the full performance cycle — from analysing the data and shaping the strategy to running, testing and optimising campaigns over time. By working directly with in-house teams rather than through agency layers, I’m able to move quickly, respond to performance signals and continually refine the approach.
The Duppy Share
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Premium rum brand The Duppy Share had never invested in paid digital marketing, relying instead on strong retail sales. With a major product launch coming up, they wanted to boost brand awareness, drive traffic to their online store and grow direct-to-consumer sales.
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With limited sales and traffic data to work from, we identified and segmented over 20 “dream customer” profiles — from rum enthusiasts to aspirational lifestyle audiences aligned with the brand’s playful, premium identity.
We built a funnel-based paid social strategy designed to:
Capture attention with storytelling, humour, beautiful visuals and UGC.
Build trust with benefits-led content, testimonials and use cases.
Convert the most engaged audiences with price-led and promotional messaging.
This strategy was mirrored on-site through optimised landing pages, blogs, and Shopify product pages, ensuring users had a seamless experience from first impression to final purchase. Constant creative testing — from ad formats to landing page variations — kept engagement high and content fresh.
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In just six months:
+1,000% growth in monthly website sessions, while keeping bounce rates below 40%.
+3,000% increase in online transactions, driving huge DTC sales growth.
3M+ unique users reached via paid social, with 5%+ engagement rates and 1–2% CTR even from the coldest audiences.
Improved retail sales performance through stockists and record-high levels of brand awareness and sentiment.
The Duppy Share went from having no paid digital presence to achieving phenomenal online growth, proving that when performance strategy meets creative storytelling, even the “coldest” audiences can become loyal customers.
Work.Life
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Work.Life offers B Corp certified workspaces designed for startups, SMEs and growing teams who need a place to come together.
The team approached me as they had worked with multiple paid search agencies and the result was a Google Ads suite that was complicated, messy and showed no real evidence of success or a clear strategy. Willing to invest significantly in paid search, the team opted for a complete reset after my initial evaluation of their ad accounts.
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The offering was fairly complex. Work.Life catered to such a broad spectrum of businesses - from SME’s to freelancers across a variety of industries, that we had to appeal to the masses whilst remaining entirely focused on converting those who were ready to convert. With significant competition and excruciatingly high CPCs in the London office space category, we created a high-level awareness strategy with multiple layers of messaging, coupled with a hyper-targeted conversion campaign.
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In the past, this client had seen CPA’s in excess of £500 through paid ads.
Where we saw the biggest opportunity was in reducing wastage - we took the bold decision to limit the more expensive Google Search ad exposure to those who weren’t showing signs of converting yet. Instead we let our competitors do the awareness/discovery work for us.
We focused on decision-makers who were further down the funnel, closer to making their final decision. We hit those users with compelling messages, hard-to-miss offers and managed to continue booking office tours even throughout Covid when the industry slowed. CPA fell well below £100 and enquiries continued to grow steadily.
Client Testimonials
“Rachel has been an important extension of our marketing team and we're in constant communication, whenever we need support. She's helped us develop and implement our paid digital strategy, supporting us on everything from audience targeting and budget setting, to copy and creative. Before working with Rachel we didn't have a Paid Social or Google digital plan, but now it is one of the most important parts of our marketing mix,”
— Jessie Kenneth - Brand Manager - Pip & Nut
“Working with Rachel has been nothing short of a dream. She has totally transformed our brand’s online presence, taking our online sales from next to nothing, to a steady revenue stream.
Rachel runs our paid social and the advice and guidance she gives is so valuable. Everything is super quick - she spots a trend, we jump on it there and then. It’s so refreshing.”
— Harriet Brandt - Previously Brand Manager - The Duppy Share
“I love working with Rachel!
She has a way of explaining things that just makes sense and her digital marketing knowledge is scary.
We honestly wouldn’t be where we are without her.”