Shannon Black
Growth Marketing Leader & Experience Architect
Creative Vision. Data-Driven
I came to marketing through storytelling — photography, filmmaking, and creative work.
Over the past decade, I've built a fully integrated growth engine from the ground up — brand and demand in sync, content and data speaking the same language — across an ~$18M budget and 10+ channels.
Three things that shaped how I think:
Filmmaking — Structure and emotion aren't opposites.
Analytics — Every funnel tells a story. I read them forensically.
20+ years in web — I'm never intimidated by the technical layer.
Brand + Performance: Integration Making brand and performance work in sync, not in silos.
Content & Creative Direction: Organic social, video, editorial, webinars — storytelling that moves people and metrics.
Lifecycle, CRM & Marketing Infrastructure: End-to-end journey architecture, from first touch to retention.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Attribution modeling, funnel forensics, and reporting systems that connect spend to revenue.
Case Study
When I saw how paid social was being run, I was still a web developer. Broad targeting, limited optimization, significant untapped potential. I pitched to take it over.
What followed was a rapid build — every channel added by initiative, every dollar earned by performance.
The Build — In Order
Paid Social — took over underperforming account, scaled from $25K to $600K+ monthly
Paid Search — took over agency management, implemented keyword and match type CRM tracking
YouTube — added as brand and demand channel
CTV (MNTN/Hulu) — pioneered adoption, built custom attribution
Programmatic Display — broadened reach and retargeting
Reddit, LinkedIn, Spotify — diversified acquisition mix
Performance Max — integrated CLV and CRM data, shifted from volume to high-value conversion
The Team: Media Strategist (Meta/TikTok) • Paid Search Agency • Direct platform relationships with Google, Meta, TikTok, MNTN, Reddit
The Result: Approximately 5x institutional growth — built on a media operation expanded entirely on my own initiative.
From a $25K/Month Paid Social Account to a $17.8M Integrated Media Operation
Meta ad creative, disruptor brand voice series, 2026. Concept and copy.
After scaling the acquisition engine to $17.7M, I identified that the model was hitting a structural ceiling. I had long believed the organization needed to invest in brand. So I built the case from the ground up.
The Diagnosis
At some level of performance spend you exhaust the addressable in-market audience. Performance captures prospects only in the final active search window. Brand is what ensures you are already in the consideration set when that moment arrives. Third-party cookie deprecation and platform consolidation mean the same operational discipline now produces worse efficiency on degraded data. Branded search is durable, first-party demand we own outright.
The Recommendation
Brand — a coherent visual identity and messaging system.
Media Mix — rebalance from ~95% performance toward 35/65, building to 60/40 by 2028.
Creative — full-funnel content that shows up at every stage of the decision journey.
Team — two targeted hires to execute at the scale the vision requires.
The Process
Proprietary halo / lag correlation analysis, McKinsey and EAB benchmarking, full strategic document, executive summaries, and in-person leadership presentations.
Currently proposed. Not yet implemented
Case Study
From Demand Capture to Demand Creation
Case Study
CTV doesn't get conversion credit in a last-click world. So when leadership questions the spend, the numbers seem to agree with them.
I knew that was wrong. So I built a system to prove it.
What I Built
A custom Salesforce/MNTN integration tracking ad exposure at the lead level — cross-referencing CRM and MNTN data to identify which conversions had been exposed to ads before converting.
I also conceptualized and wrote the :30 second spots — scripting the narratives and directing the creative team through production.
$263,704 invested
1.4M households reached
81 confirmed student starts
The Yield Multiplier: Prospects exposed to MNTN before converting elsewhere:
+41% Google Search conversion lift
+40% Organic application-to-start conversion lift
CTV wasn't generating demand. It was making every other channel work harder.
Presented to executive leadership. Budget subsequently reduced pending external agency review.
Measuring CTV's Impact
How reimagining a single touchpoint changed everything
When I found it, the webinar program for applicants belonged to Admissions — a Zoom call with dated PowerPoints walking prospective students through paperwork. Attendance was low. Energy was lower.
I pitched that it could be something more. I rebuilt it from the ground up as a pre-orientation experience. Produced, branded, and emotionally engaging — designed to give prospective students an honest, immersive preview of what their academic life would actually look like. Integrated end-to-end with Salesforce CRM and Marketing Cloud to automate invitations, follow-up journeys, and downstream tracking.
The data confirmed what the instinct said.
The Results:
51.7% start rate among attendees
5.02x more likely to enroll vs. non-attendees
+4.43% retention boost for online cohorts
Key Takeaway:
The best conversion tool we had wasn't an ad. It was an experience.
Case Study
From Registration Session to Enrollment Engine
Webinar takeaway materials. Concept & Copy.
Creative + Brand Impact
Great performance marketing without brand is just noise. These campaigns were built to change how people felt about the institution — and the numbers confirmed they did.
The World is Waiting for You Launched post-COVID, 2021
Conceptualized and written in response to a cultural moment defined by lost time and renewed ambition. Partnering with our Art Director, we built a campaign around open landscapes and vast possibility — designed to meet prospective students exactly where they were emotionally and point them toward something bigger.
Legacy 25th Anniversary Campaign
Built to celebrate the institution's history in Hollywood and the achievements of its alumni. The brief was to make prospective students feel they were joining something — not just enrolling somewhere.
"Your success is our mission. Your impact, our legacy."
The Result:
A 672% lift in branded search demand — measured via a controlled Google Search Lift test — confirming that brand investment doesn't just build awareness. It builds intent.
"The World Is Waiting for You," 2021. Wrote and produced; directed the creative team through production.
"Your Impact is Our Legacy" . Wrote and produced; directed the creative team through production.
Good content isn't a volume game. It's a positioning game.
When the content team was eliminated in May 2025, the blog went three months without ownership, and monthly views fell to 13,966. I took stewardship in August, absorbed the function into the Digital Team, and built a volunteer contributor network to fill the gap.
By January 2026, monthly views had more than doubled to a record 38,472.
Aug 2025–May 2026 vs. prior year
+23.6% blog views
+28.3% active users
+26.6% sessions
62 posts published — ~7/month with no dedicated headcount
Organic search
121K search clicks from 34.1M impressions
196 pages ranking in Google's top 10
58 queries ranking in the top 3
99.8% of clicks from non-branded search
The Editorial Strategy
Rather than chase volume, I established six content pillars:
Entertainment & Industry Events · Education & Skills · Craft & Industry Insight · Alumni · Campus & Community · Diversity & Culture
Across every pillar, the voice is warm, clued-in, and industry-aware — never academic or clickbait.
The Opportunity
The next phase is to turn this foundation into a fully resourced content engine integrated with paid media, lifecycle communications, and brand strategy. Priorities include moving existing top-5 keywords toward the top 3, refreshing time-sensitive content, expanding the tentpole calendar, and rebalancing coverage across programs.
Content & Editorial
Instagram Social Post: Concept and copy. Pinned post as conversion driver.
Instagram Social Post: Concept and copy. Created accompanying blog post.
Instagram Social Post: Concept and copy. Created accompanying blog post.
Lifecycle & CRM
Paid media gets people in the door. Lifecycle marketing is what moves them through it.
I designed and built full-funnel journey architecture in Salesforce Marketing Cloud spanning lead, application, and enrollment stages — complex, multi-trigger automations integrating email, SMS, ad audiences, and CRM data into coordinated communication sequences that responded to prospect behavior in real time.
For three months I also stepped into operational leadership of the Marketing Cloud team while the Director of Marketing Operations was on leave — managing the platform, the team, and ongoing campaign execution without interruption.
What I Built:
Multi-stage lead nurture journeys with behavioral triggers
Application and enrollment activation sequences
Ad audience integration synced to journey stage
Single-send communications to current student and alumni segments
End-to-end CRM data hygiene and workflow architecture
The Philosophy:
A lead without a journey is just a name in a database. The infrastructure I built was designed to make every touchpoint feel intentional — because in a high-consideration decision like choosing a school, the experience between the ad and the enrollment matters as much as either one.
Marketing Cloud Email Journey
When I arrived, reporting lived in spreadsheets. By the time the infrastructure was complete, we had a real-time system connecting every dollar of spend to every stage of the enrollment funnel.
Phase 1 — Salesforce CRM
Built the marketing tracking architecture — lead and contact data structure capturing campaign data, keywords, and acquisition source.
Phase 2 — Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Made the business case, secured approval, contributed to journey architecture, and built lifecycle journeys, automations, and reporting infrastructure.
Phase 3 — Salesforce Intelligence
Built entirely independently. Connected all advertising platforms and CRM into a single blended system — real-time cost-per at every funnel stage across every channel simultaneously.
Most organizations know their cost-per-lead. I built the infrastructure to know the cost-per-everything.
Marketing Infrastructure
Digital Platform & UX
When I rebuilt the institution's web presence, I started from scratch — a full ground-up WordPress rebuild of a complex multi-program site, integrated with Salesforce initially via REST API and later streamlined through Zapier.
Every page built to convert. Every landing page A/B tested and refined over time.
What I Built:
Website Rebuild:
Full ground-up reconstruction of the institutional website in WordPress — rebuilding architecture, content, UX, and Salesforce integration from scratch. Improved site speed, SEO performance, and conversion infrastructure in the process.
13 Program Landing Pages:
Designed and built individual landing pages for every academic program — continuously A/B tested and optimized over time to improve inquiry and application conversion rates.
Admissions Portal:
Identified a gap in the FAFSA completion process and proposed adding a FAFSA action trigger to the admissions portal — enabling automated follow-up sequences for students who hadn't completed financial aid applications. The result: a 7% increase in ISIR completion rates, directly improving downstream enrollment conversion.
Websites & Landing Pages - Various
My approach is simple: define the goal, set a clear vision, then get out of the way. I've found that people do their best work when they feel trusted, not monitored. The teams I've led have been small, highly capable, and given the autonomy to own their work completely.
I lead by example first. If my team is impressed by what I bring to the table, they want to match it — not because I asked them to, but because the standard is visible and the bar is clear.
In Practice:
Set strategic direction and creative vision across marketing, web, and content functions
Managed a Media Strategist and Web Developer at peak team size
Directed external agency relationships across paid search and creative production
Maintained direct platform relationships with Google, Meta, TikTok, MNTN, and Reddit
Led cross-functional initiatives spanning admissions, operations, IMT, and executive leadership
Selected and onboarded Basecamp as the team's project management platform, streamlining workflow and cross-functional collaboration
On day one of COVID lockdown, migrated the entire marketing team to Slack — which remains the team's primary communication platform to this day
I've operated lean — building systems, absorbing functions, and delivering results with limited resources. I'm ready to lead a properly resourced team and build something at the scale these systems deserve.
Leadership
By the Numbers
5x growth in student population during tenure
672% lift in branded search demand from brand campaigns
51.7% start rate among webinar attendees
5.02x more likely to enroll for webinar attendees vs. non-attendees
+4.43% retention boost for online cohorts from webinar program
+41% Google Search conversion lift from CTV exposure
+40% Organic application-to-start conversion lift from CTV exposure
38,472 monthly blog views — all-time record, January 2026
+23.6% blog views year-over-year with no dedicated content headcount
196 pages averaging a top-10 Google ranking
121,176 search clicks from 34.1 million impressions over 16 months
+7% ISIR completion rate improvement from admissions portal redesign
~36% relative decline in App-to-Start rate diagnosed and actioned
10+ years leading growth marketing at Director level
20+ years in web development and digital production
“Shannon is a results-driven, hard-working, unstoppable force. She embodies integrity and has a unique ability to see through problems to find the proper solution. Because of her broad set of expert-level skills — with her digital marketing campaigns, multiple website redesigns, and organizational restructure plans — she's helped increase the school's reach, brand awareness, and bottom line. Shannon opens your eyes to change, encourages you to ask ‘why,' and will always be there to help pick up the pieces when things don't turn out the way they were intended.”
Cara L. Himmel — Director, Marketing Operations | The Los Angeles Film School
“Shannon single-handedly transformed our dysfunctional, bloated website into the thriving platform it is today. She is a pioneer, introducing LAFS to WordPress and Salesforce, recognizing their potential to drive company growth. When she sees something that could be improved, she is not afraid to roll up her sleeves and do it herself, often without anyone asking. She is an unsung hero for The L.A. Film School, and many overlook her invaluable contributions and don't realize how much she's improved the company. Her campaign visions emboldened the Creative team to perform at their best. Shannon is sharp, artistic, fearless, and brings everyone she works with to a higher level."
E. Shuttleworth — Art Director & Graphic Designer | The Los Angeles Film School
