--- title: "Luke Hodgkins, Digital Operations & Growth Director, RiseUp® Agency" url: "https://marketermagazine.co/interview/luke-hodgkins-digital-operations-growth-director-riseup-agency/" author: "Marketer Magazine" published: "2025-11-19" updated: "2026-09-19" --- # Luke Hodgkins, Digital Operations & Growth Director, RiseUp® Agency _This interview is with [Luke Hodgkins](https://www.linkedin.com/in/luke-hodgkins), Digital Operations & Growth Director at [RiseUp® Agency](https://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](https://marketermagazine.co/qa/paid-social-ads-know-when-to-refresh-creative-without-losing-your-brand/): 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](https://marketermagazine.co/qa/how-can-data-analytics-influence-marketing-decision-making/) 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.