This interview is with Luke Hodgkins, Digital Operations & Growth Director at RiseUp® Agency.

Luke Hodgkins, Digital Operations & Growth Director, RiseUp® Agency

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your role in the digital marketing industry?

I'm Luke Hodgkins, Co-Founder of RiseUp Agency. We're a performance-led growth partner for e-commerce brands. I focus on the intersection of paid media, creative, and measurement, making sure every change we ship is trackable, improves profitability, and actually grows the business.

What inspired you to pursue a career in digital marketing, and how did you get to where you are today?

I've always been obsessed with refinement, tweaking something small, then proving the uplift. Early on, I gravitated to roles where I could test headlines, creative, and bid strategies and immediately see the impact on revenue. That cause-and-effect loop hooked me. Over time, I moved from doing the work inside small teams to building RiseUp so we could bring that same test, learn, and scale approach to more brands.

You've mentioned optimizing for intent-based keywords at RiseUp. Can you share another specific campaign where you applied this strategy and what were the results?

A garden furniture Shopify brand had plateaued on broad terms. We rebuilt around intent clusters:

Problem/solution: "small garden bench," "weatherproof outdoor seating"

High-intent category: "corner sofa set with table"

Product modifiers: "6-seat outdoor dining set," "120-cm teak bench"

We tightened negatives, mapped queries, and wrote benefit-led ads tied to availability and delivery. In 8 weeks: non-brand CVR +62%, CPA -34%, and search revenue +52%. We then used those winners to feed product-level Shopping/PMax with clear listing groups.

In your experience, what's the most underutilized digital marketing tactic that businesses should be leveraging more?

Two things together:

1. Creative systems on Paid Social: UGC frameworks, weekly sprints, and structured testing so every ad is a hypothesis, not a hunch.

2. Durable measurement: server-side tagging, CAPI/Enhanced Conversions, and quick post-purchase surveys to close attribution gaps. Better inputs make every decision smarter.

Can you describe a challenging digital marketing project you've worked on and how you overcame the obstacles?

A D2C brand was over-reliant on Google Ads spend skewed to brand terms, tracking was messy, and growth had stalled. What we did:

- Fixed tracking in GA4 and deduped conversions.

- Separated brand vs. non-brand and rebuilt Shopping with product groups by margin and stock.

- Added Paid Social with UGC to drive new customers.

- Shipped CRO quick wins on key product pages.

90 days later: new customers +28%, overall CPA -22%, and revenue +31%—with a healthier mix beyond brand search.

How do you stay ahead of the constantly evolving digital marketing landscape, and what's a recent trend you've successfully implemented for a client?

We run a standing Pilot Squad to test emerging features in controlled sprints. A recent win: product-level Google Ads campaigns using supplemental Google Merchant Center feeds (richer attributes, cleaner titles) combined with first-party audience signals. For a gifting brand, that lifted Shopping revenue +36% quarter-on-quarter while reducing CPA by 18%.

What's the biggest mistake you've made in your digital marketing career, and what did you learn from it?

Scaling spend before the conversion truth set was clean. In-platform numbers looked great, but the incremental lift wasn't there. Lesson learned: Fix measurement first, put budget guardrails in place, and validate with simple geo/time tests before pushing spend.

Can you share an example of how you've used data analytics to dramatically improve a client's digital marketing strategy?

We built a board-level dashboard showing revenue, contribution margin, new vs. returning customers, and cohort LTV alongside channel spend. It revealed diminishing returns on social past a daily threshold and under-investment in high-margin SKUs on Shopping. We rebalanced budgets, introduced profit-based bidding, and refreshed creative for high-LTV cohorts. Result: +19% revenue with -12% total media spend in 60 days.

Looking ahead, what do you think will be the next big shift in digital marketing, and how can marketers prepare for it?

Three shifts converging: privacy-driven data loss, AI-assisted everything (from creative to bidding), and the rise of retail media/commerce surfaces. Prepare by:

- Owning first-party data and moving to server-side tagging

- Treating product data/feeds as a growth asset

- Building a repeatable creative engine

- Making incrementality testing a habit, not a one-off

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Ask your agency for a 90-day plan that ties activity to revenue, margin, and cash flow, not just clicks. If it can't be measured and improved, we don't ship it. That's our bar at RiseUp.