The Challenge

As a design manager at Booking.com, I identified an opportunity to move into AdTech and assembled a small team to tackle a critical scaling problem. We needed to scale our mid-funnel programmatic creative strategy — we had contracts with TripAdvisor, Kayak, and many other partners, all with strict deadlines to deliver creative content aligned with our in-house dynamic feeds, including localized content for many languages and markets.

The process was painfully slow: it took six weeks to deliver one mid-funnel campaign end-to-end. Our new team was just two people, but we had over fifty stakeholders across the organization. The core question was: how might we scale and develop a design system custom-made for creative programmatic campaigns, align with the Booking.com product, and deliver more campaigns than ever before?

My Approach

The first steps were to speak with stakeholders, understand the technical capabilities, and define what the MVP would encompass. As the Christmas 2018 break approached, the MVP had a breakthrough — we discovered we could successfully map dynamic content to the modular elements within each banner and export Google campaign-ready assets, all within the acceptable guidelines. It took six weeks to create the MVP with the Booking.com product design system built in.

The marketing science department was not onboard initially. They didn’t see the value — just all the work they were having to do to get one campaign running. Delivering a successful MVP was just the beginning; the next step was selling it to the stakeholders who had initially requested the project. I presented the working MVP to the somewhat skeptical digital marketing track and won their approval. From there, we iterated for six months and handed over a more vetted version of the product.

The Result

The team and I delivered a working MVP and then iterated the product that enabled Booking.com to launch the first Booking.com mobile ad, the first-ever creative campaign that was A/B tested and had the highest ROI to date, and the first-ever KCT campaign. We went from delivering one campaign every six weeks to twenty campaigns per week, and they continued to scale up ever since.

There is now a dedicated team at Booking.com using the same banner system. The system continues to grow as defined by the original vision I defined back in 2018 — now anyone with no technical background can use their browser to define a banner creative and add it dynamically to their Google campaign.

The Challenge

Marugame Udon is widely known throughout the Asian community but not outside of that demographic. The company was looking to grow by increasing their franchises and exposing other demographics to their brand and udon in general — all during COVID. The problems to solve included: how to create brand awareness for a restaurant during a pandemic, increase revenue, drive online ordering through the web (not third-party apps), increase website traffic, and give the Marugame team the ability to update their own site.

When I assessed the current site, it was just plain broken. The “Delivery & Takeout” button didn’t even work, the main slider hero image was missing (causing a big blank spot), and the “Order Now” buttons on location pages were not functioning. There were no analytics or user data at all — everything was coming from the client. I usually wouldn’t recommend a full site overhaul for fear of alienating current users, but this site was beyond repair.

My Approach

First, I collected data and met with stakeholders — the current marketing team, the CEO (who loves new and shiny tech without understanding the weight of it in a browser), and the Japanese parent brand. I installed Google Analytics with events to get baseline data while planning the new site. Then I defined the must-haves: easy online ordering (the current system was broken), easy menu display (they were using PDFs with different menus per state), make the food look appetizing with good descriptions, proper tracking (navigating issues with the Brink ordering system), and introduce the brand outside Asian communities through digital strategy and optimized SEO.

Accessibility was a priority — I planned the code so screen readers and accessibility tools could read the site, defined the information architecture, and ensured the menu could be tabbed through. I used a mix of lo-fi and hi-fi wireframes due to the CEO’s attention span and the timeline pressure of a Dallas location opening. We went through several homepage designs, including backgrounds based on time of day.

For the build, I chose WordPress with a custom-built theme to accommodate all user needs and implemented GTM for data collection. Stakeholder alignment was ongoing — the marketing team found it easy to open and close stores and manage menu items. Cultural sensitivity mattered too: I originally had an image of Mt. Fuji on the homepage but removed it per the Japanese stakeholder’s guidance. I ran SEO and W3C checks, then set up a full digital advertising plan covering seasonal promotions, PPC Google ads, an Earth Day campaign, and content highlighting the brand’s volunteer work with the Oceanic Society.

The Result

Gross revenue increased 32%, new users increased by 282%, and the Marugame team gained the ability to update and manage their own website. The site went from having zero analytics to full measurement capability, and the SEO strategy put Marugame on the local search map for each of their US locations.

Challenge

Mad Co Tubing is a small adventure tourism company in Asheville, NC. Their existing site was built on Wix by the owners themselves — while functional, it lacked professional design, had poor SEO, no analytics, and didn't reflect the fun, adventurous brand experience. The booking flow was disconnected and confusing for first-time visitors.

Approach

Full client discovery and competitive analysis. Designed a mobile-first responsive site. Integrated FareHarbor booking system for seamless ticket purchasing. Built custom WordPress theme. Connected analytics, search console, Google Business. Created a photo-sharing workflow for the owners to share photos with clients (tubers). SEO strategy to put them on the local search map.

Result

In the first month after launch (March–April 2026), the site pulled in 143 new users and 198 sessions with zero paid promotion. Organic search already accounts for 34% of all traffic and has the highest engagement rate of any channel at 69% — a strong early signal that the SEO strategy is reaching the right audience. The booking page shows the highest average engagement time (57 seconds), indicating real conversion intent, and the site achieved a 100% form completion rate on early submissions.

Note: These are month-one results from an off-season launch. Full summer data will provide a more complete picture of the site’s impact on bookings and revenue.

The Challenge

I started working with Highline Tack in early 2021. They had two established e-commerce brands — Highline Tack and Fineline Tack — both running on hand-built Squarespace sites with a very loyal customer base. The platform was becoming a ceiling: it couldn’t support the payment flexibility they needed, the product catalog complexity was limited, and there was no analytics or conversion tracking in place. The challenge was significant — any migration had to preserve the familiar experience for loyal customers who knew exactly how the sites worked, while unlocking the flexibility to grow.

My Approach

I migrated both Highline Tack and Fineline Tack from Squarespace to WordPress with WooCommerce — a move that gave us full control over payment integrations, product organization, and the overall user experience. A key UX decision was not to make changes that would confuse the loyal customer base, so every modification was tested and validated.

One of the top research findings came from the saddle filtering system. On the old Squarespace site, filters were hidden inside dropdown menus. User testing revealed that customers found it significantly easier to locate saddles when every filter option was listed visibly at the top of the page rather than buried in dropdowns. Google Analytics confirmed this — pages per session dropped, meaning users were finding what they needed faster with fewer clicks. I’ve continued to evolve the filtering system since launch, adding deeper functionality for saddle brand, price range, and other attributes that matter to serious buyers.

Beyond the UX work, I set up analytics and conversion tracking from scratch, defined and implemented a digital advertising plan across Google Adwords, Google Display Network, and Facebook/Instagram, and optimized SEO to capture high-intent equestrian search traffic.

The Result

In the year following launch, Highline Tack sales increased by 111% and Fineline Tack sales increased by 101% — clear validation that the migration, UX research, and advertising strategy were working together. The difference between the two sites reflects the product positioning: Highline carries higher-end saddles, which accounts for the revenue gap.

The sites I built in 2021 are still live and running today. In 2025, Highline Tack brought in $3.7M in gross sales and Fineline Tack generated $980K. Over the past year, the site served 48K active users (up 4.4% YoY) and 47K new users (up 7.1% YoY) — proof that the foundation I designed four years ago continues to scale with the business.

What started as two hand-built Squarespace shops is now a multi-brand e-commerce operation with real analytics, flexible payment options, optimized UX, and a marketing engine that continues to scale.