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Work Experience

I’ve been in the digital marketing space for over ten years, and made my first website in 1997. Ad Age magazine declared me an “ad insider.” I’m a creative problem-solver, a marketing expert, and a strategic leader.

Here’s where I’ve worked.

RPA

Director, SEO
August 2019 – Present
Santa Monica, CA

RPA is a remarkable advertising agency, with a long history of wins across brands like Honda, Apartments.com, Farmers Insurance, ampm, ARCO, SCE, and more. RPA puts people first, and I couldn’t be more proud of my work and my team here.

My Accomplishments at RPA:

  • Developed a signature “Future-Proof” SEO strategy to predict and then benefit from all of Google’s relevant algorithm updates. This was a smash success, and we were able to accurately predict and optimize for multiple updates before they even happened. This led to steady growth despite a chaotic industry environment. For example, one client saw a 160% increase over a three-year timespan that included the pandemic and worldwide protests.
  • Synchronized paid search, copy, product, design, and other departments to develop agency-first synergies – bringing people together so we can share our expertise more fluidly.
  • Used data science to monitor and report on unique information, including stats that most clients had never seen in an SEO report before. This led to unorthodox innovations since we were working with expanded data analysis methods.
  • Founded the Green Team, which boosted paper/e-waste recycling and reusable supplies. This lowered overall agency costs. We also arranged for a battery recycling bin to be set up in the office. I am serious about my commitment to sustainability.
  • Produced quick wins for new clients, and immediate ROI during new business pitches, which allowed RPA to demonstrate its value by example. It can take time to set up a paid search account, do thorough product analyses, etc. With SEO, we became experts at demonstrating our worth with extreme speed. We even developed a 1-hour audit.
  • Presented remote & in-person to clients in automotive, travel, utilities, oil, foodservice, cruise lines, LGBTQ charities, convenience stores, dealerships, and more.

 

Hulbert Marketing

Marketing Consultant, Owner
June 2006 – Present
Los Angeles, CA

This is my own business. Although I formally founded it for tax purposes in 2021, I’ve been making money for myself and others online since around 2006, if not earlier. I’ve had a huge variety of clients over the years, but these days I enjoy focusing on marketing with integrity, and helping out charitable and artistic organizations.

You can learn more at the Hulbert Marketing website.

My Accomplishments at Hulbert Marketing:

  • Advertised using cutting-edge AI technologies like ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, OpenAI, and others. The industry has changed in huge ways in a timeframe of months.
  • Started a blog from nothing, then grew it to 10,000 daily visits in under one year. Ranked it #1 for all primary keywords and so many more, including terms with massive competition by some of the most well-known companies in the world. Implemented brand loyalty strategies resulting in 30% of organic traffic becoming direct. Gained such a huge and dedicated following that I was able to host events for readers and leverage amazing user-generated content.
  • Partnered with various onsite advertising networks, including the sadly shut-down Project Wonderful.
  • Coordinated social media advertising campaigns to successfully promote a book launch for a bestselling author.
  • Acted as a promotional agent for a band to help release multiple singles and gain listeners.
  • Consulted and marketed for charities, artists, photographers, models, ecommerce companies, childcare consultants, other marketing agencies who needed a fresh perspective, and more.
  • Owned and operated a massively popular educational website for children and teenagers for nearly fifteen years. This was a gigantic project with a community that grew to tens of thousands of people. I personally led a team of 100-200 volunteers, including a senior staff of about 10-15. Our members were from countries and cultures across the planet, leading to translation work, a global distribution of staff accessible across time zones, and widely varying social mores. We took the site through hundreds of seasonal redesigns, four major replatforms, and constant optimizations. The educational aspects included gamifying math, writing, and spatial reasoning, with emphases on teamwork and politics. Adapting these to such a wide audience took frequent rules-system work, constant moderation, and a lot of personal attention to each individual. This was probably the biggest single project I will ever have worked on in my life, and I’m extremely proud that my legacy involves improving the education and imagination of so many.

 

Publicis Sapient

Senior Manager, SEO
January 2015 – July 2019
Los Angeles, CA and Chicago, IL

Note that this entry also includes my time at Razorfish and Rosetta, as my department went through numerous mergers and acquisitions over the years. When I left, it was Publicis Sapient, but I believe they’re back to being Sapient Razorfish now. It’s all part of the Publicis Groupe.

Razorfish is a well-known name in the digital transformation industry, and for good reason. With a storied history and offices all over the world, Razorfish and Publicis are agencies you can count on.

My Accomplishments at Publicis:

  • Increased organic traffic, revenue, conversions, and physical store visits for clients.
  • Crafted comprehensive, actionable recommendations for both technical and nontechnical audiences, as well as massive marketing education presentations custom-tailored for different departments.
  • Reorganized architecture of websites to streamline information hierarchies – changing the flow and categorization of a website to make better sense for customers and search engines alike.
  • Pitched SEO for internal business development, resulting in more clients for our agency, as well as bigger, “stickier” clients who were even more excited to work with us.
  • Worked directly with clients in industries like healthcare, retail, jewelry, luggage, women’s fashion, luxury brands, eyewear, diamonds, ecommerce, finance, government, and a lot more.

 

1871 Startup Collective

Business Marketing Strategy Mentor
April 2015 – July 2019
Chicago, IL

1871 is an amazing company that brings start-up founders, CEOs, CMOs, and other executives together and pairs them with experts in any fields they need help in. They’re an innovation hub full of incredibly smart and talented people.

My Accomplishments at 1871:

  • Educated CEOs, CMOs, and start-up founders with custom one-on-one sessions. These sessions were in high demand, as I would lead entrepreneurs through digital and conventional marketing step-by-step, discussing each channel’s pros and cons.
  • Advised on advertising across mediums including billboards, coffee cup sleeves, television commercials, within video games, native apps, and more.
  • Taught foundations for branding, growth hacking, email lists, advertising, business strategy.
  • Showed a former Shark Tank contestant why his performance marketing tactics weren’t working, as well as how to fix them.
  • Consulted on a rebrand to push an all-natural-fabric underwear company to a national distribution level.
  • Helped a digital sports network build its first professional website.
  • Crafted a paid digital advertising strategy to get a piano tutor app past the first 1,000 downloads.
  • Worked with different start-ups in vastly different fields every week–an absolute thrill.

 

Elliottsweb

Director, Marketing & SEO
November 2013 – November 2014
Chicago, IL

Elliottsweb was a small but mighty web design and digital marketing company that managed a vast number of #1-ranked companies across the web. It also managed digital transformations and replatforms, brand strategy, and design. The Elliottsweb marketing methods were like magic, and I learned every secret they had and created a whole lot more of my own before I was through.

My Accomplishments at Elliottsweb:

  • Optimized and reported on up to 50 websites per month to support new client workflow, developing an assembly line SEO process that managed to cover most basic optimizations within hours.
  • Wrote new content from scratch for a variety of industries, including legal, manufacturing, warehousing, medical, physical therapy, barcoding, wireless surveying, thermal printing, and more.
  • Managed a total company portfolio of over 1,500 different businesses and websites across multiple teams.
  • Directly supervised a department of 15-20 marketers, as well as a second department of 10-15 developers.
  • Compiled agency-first metrics on client satisfaction, then increased it 70% over three months with only small policy changes that also increased employee morale.
  • Interviewed and trained new hires, moving from the basics of SEO to advanced marketing in weeks, leaving them ready to work alone.
  • Recognized flaws in the scripts our sales department was using, then trained them on marketing and SEO beyond the basics so our company could put our best foot forward as soon as the first call. This dramatically increased client acquisition and decreased the time it took to get them.
  • Fastest promoted employee in company history, twice.

 

Abbey Heat Cool

Senior Manager, Digital
June 2013 – November 2013
Chicago, IL

Abbey Heat Cool was a small heating and air conditioning company that had been brought under new ownership and required a new website and brand design to differentiate it from the past, as well as a wide field of competitors. I was brought in specifically to advise during the rebrand process.

My Accomplishments at Abbey:

  • On request, I coded a brand new marketing-focused CMS for a major replatform, then created a new highly-optimized website using the CMS. This allowed the website to be code-minimal while still fully customizable, which let us supercharge page load speed and mobile-friendliness even before Google’s algorithms caught up with us.
  • Managed a complete corporate rebranding, including organic digital presence, paid search, print ads like mailers and flyers, banners, logo design, brand guidelines, and uniform design.
  • Partnered with local vendors, and negotiated with third-party platforms like Yelp and Foursquare for cost-saving promotions.
  • Coordinated with the internal marketing specialist and our in-house ventilation experts to better position ourselves in the Chicago market.

 

Professional Skills

  • HTML5
  • CSS
  • JSON
  • XML
  • PHP
  • A/B Testing
  • UX Design
  • CRO
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • ChatGPT & OpenAI
  • Stable Diffusion
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Search Console
  • Bing Webmaster Tools
  • Yandex Metrica
  • Screaming Frog
  • Xenu Link Sleuth
  • Majestic
  • Moz
  • Ahrefs
  • SEMRush
  • BrightEdge
  • WordPress
  • MS Office
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Affinity Photo

 

You may also be interested in learning about my education. Or, contact me now!