In October 2021, I was hired to lead Metropolitan Market's digital transformation. The starting point: customer data siloed with no unified view, a desktop-centric website five years past its prime, minimal ecommerce presence, and no coordinated marketing infrastructure. Over three years, I designed and executed eleven interconnected initiatives that turned that foundation into a modern, revenue-generating digital engine — including a $4M email program built from scratch, a 9x social media audience, three ecommerce marketplace launches, and a first-party data architecture that reached contract stage with Cordial and Amperity before capital constraints intervened.
Embedded Files
Unified View 1.0 | Foundational First Party Data Unlock
Situation
During Q4 2021, while managing holiday reservations, I identified a critical gap — customer reservations were processed manually with orders stored in a three-ring binder in the store, with zero connection between reservations and POS transactions. We had no visibility into abandonment rates, basket sizes, or whether customers shopped beyond their reserved items. Additionally, the organization had tokenized credit card data spanning five years in the POS system, but no way to link it to customer names or originating offers.
Task
I needed to establish a way to connect promotions to POS transactions and ultimately to individual customers, creating a unified customer view without building a traditional loyalty program — the organization was resistant to long-term point liability.
Action
I evaluated the POS system's capabilities and discovered two key opportunities: we could create unique digital offers using four-digit PLU codes that were barcode-scannable, and we could assign six-digit matchback codes to track which offers drove which transactions. I deployed the matchback system across direct mail first to validate the approach, then built a digital offer system from scratch to capture matching data across both channels. This created a new data stream tied to customer names and promotional activity.
Result
We established the foundational mechanism for unified customer transaction visibility and unlocked the ability to create scalable digital offers. The matchback codes created trackable data artifacts that, when aggregated with historical POS data, could eventually build comprehensive customer profiles. Simultaneously, the digital offer capability powered the complete reimagining of our email strategy and linked customer behavior to holiday reservations performance, creating a feedback loop for continuous optimization.
Stack
Toshiba POS · Custom PLU offer engine · Six-digit matchback codes · Direct mail integration · Mailchimp · Asana
Workflow
Audited Toshiba POS capabilities → identified PLU barcode scanning as integration point → built matchback code system in-house → validated across direct mail first → extended to digital offers in Mailchimp → aggregated transaction data into customer-level profiles
Weekly Value Email | Developed and Launched New Profit Center
Situation
Our email program consisted of two to three sends per week — two lifestyle emails focused on food stories, recipes, and aspirational design content, and one PDF blast of the weekly ad sheet. All three formats were hemorrhaging subscribers with low open rates and minimal clickthrough. We had no way to measure performance by product category or email section, and the entire program lacked strategic coherence or clear value proposition to subscribers.
Task
I needed to reimagine email as a strategic driver of customer engagement and revenue while establishing performance visibility that would inform future iterations.
Action
I restructured email around a weekly value anchor. Every Wednesday at six AM without fail, we sent a hero offer — high-value, exclusive, not available anywhere else — redeemable the following Thursday. This made Thursday competitive with traditional high-traffic days like Friday and Saturday. The rest of the email featured ten curated offers from that week's flyer, organized by department and brand visibility, with CPG partners competing for placement by offering exceptional deals of fifty percent off or better. I redesigned the entire email as carded, mobile-first layout so we could measure clickthrough by product and section, not just one PDF-wide metric. I also shifted buyer language from sales speak to personal perspective — buyers could only be featured if they could complete "I love this because." After three months of performance data showed lifestyle emails hemorrhaging subscribers while promotional emails thrived, I deprecated the lifestyle property entirely and repurposed that content into blog.
Result
Email open rates increased 260 percent, clickthrough increased 470 percent, churn dropped 73 percent, and the program generated four million dollars in revenue in year one. We established a consistent, data-driven email cadence that became a strategic pillar of customer engagement and a competitive revenue driver.
Stack
Mailchimp · Toshiba POS · Photoshop · Asana
Workflow
Restructured send cadence → designed modular carded layout in Mailchimp for section-level click tracking → established Wednesday send / Thursday redemption rhythm → retouched product images in Photoshop → closed offer-to-transaction loop via POS matchback → deprecated lifestyle sends on performance data → repurposed content to Mixer blog
DAM | Architected and Implemented 50k Image Shared Photo Library
Situation
Metropolitan Market's marketing team had accumulated approximately 50,000 still images over a decade, organized by year, month, photographer, and shoot name — a structure that described origin but not content. The library was navigable only by a small group of long-tenured designers who held the institutional memory required to use it effectively. This created a single point of failure: image selection was functionally one person's job, causing bottlenecks and delaying production across the department. For anyone outside that group — including ecommerce, product, and senior leadership — the library was effectively inaccessible. The existing structure also made it nearly impossible to assess coverage across the catalogue, resulting in repetitive, campaign-by-campaign shooting without visibility into what already existed.
Task
As Marketing Manager reporting to the VP of Marketing, the goal was to eliminate the operational risk posed by institutional-memory dependency, democratize access to the image library across the organization, and build a scalable foundation that could support both current workflows and future personalized marketing efforts. The project required developing a taxonomy, selecting and implementing a platform, migrating and tagging the full catalogue, and standing up accessible infrastructure — all within a limited budget and without disrupting existing team workflows.
Action
The first step was developing a taxonomy: a naming convention and tagging structure that accommodated existing workflows while enabling future use cases including personalized marketing. The full marketing team pressure-tested the taxonomy to ensure adoption viability. In parallel, a platform evaluation was conducted across available DAM solutions. Given that automated tagging tools at the time had low ML confidence and no alignment with internal taxonomies, and that budget was constrained, Adobe Bridge was selected — already available through the existing enterprise Creative Cloud license. A temp agency contractor was onboarded to manually batch-tag and rename all 50,000 images against the new taxonomy. Simultaneously, a NAS was configured to give the marketing and photo teams, ecommerce, product, and senior leadership unified access via keyword search. Photo team deliverables were updated to conform to the new naming and tagging conventions going forward.
Result
The project was completed in 90 days for under $25,000 total. Image retrieval time dropped from hours to minutes for all users — not just the familiar few. Access expanded from a small group of designers to the full marketing team, photo team, ecommerce, product, and senior leadership. The library was also extended to Met Market's sister brands — New Seasons, Bristol Farms, New Leaf, and Lazy Acres — effectively distributing a catalogue with over $1M in sunk production cost across five organizations. The shared taxonomy enabled coordinated asset strategy between brands. With full catalogue visibility on a single screen, the team was able to identify gaps and fill them intentionally rather than repeating shoots. The photo budget remained flat while output increased. The system proved foundational to five subsequent initiatives: web redesign, CMS migration, email redesign, flyer redesign, and ecommerce launch. The solution was later replicated at Bristol Farms.
Stack
Adobe Bridge · Adobe Creative Cloud · NAS + custom search UI · Photoshop · Smartsheet
Workflow
Developed taxonomy and naming convention → evaluated DAM platforms against budget constraints → selected Adobe Bridge (existing CC license) → onboarded contractor for bulk tagging of 50,000 images → configured NAS with keyword search UI for cross-team access → updated photo team delivery standards to conform to new taxonomy → tracked migration in Smartsheet
Recipe Tagging | Made 600 Recipe Library a Performing Asset
Recipe Tagging | Made 600 Recipe Library a Performing Asset
Situation
Metropolitan Market had a six-hundred-plus in-house developed recipe library created by our culinary team — unique, high-value content that was the second most visited section of the website. However, the library was effectively inaccessible. Recipes were organized in last-in-first-out chronological order with no search functionality, forcing customers to wade through hundreds of pages sequentially to find what they wanted. Recipes couldn't be surfaced by season, dietary preference, occasion, holiday, or cooking method. Ingredients were stored as unstructured text blocks with no machine-readable structure, making it impossible to integrate with ecommerce or deploy recipes programmatically across channels.
Task
Transform the recipe library from a flat, unsearchable archive into a structured, queryable asset that could support customer-facing search, internal campaign planning, and shoppable ecommerce integration.
Action
I led a month-long taxonomy development process working collaboratively with our registered dietitian, culinary team, product teams, and ecommerce partners. We created a robust tagging system designed to support all internal use cases — deliberately comprehensive to enable flexible campaign planning and deployment. I distributed the tagging work by domain expertise: the dietitian handled nutritional attributes, the chef verified ingredients and cooking methods, the copywriter reviewed descriptions, and the full team contributed contextual tags. Each recipe was migrated into a structured database with discrete fields and assigned a unique recipe ID. Ingredients were separated from text, normalized, and linked to a measurements database. Deep linking was built into the Instacart integration so clicking a recipe triggered searches for each required ingredient category, surfacing available options while allowing customers to swap alternatives before checkout.
Result
Completed in ninety days with zero net new expenditure. The recipe library became fully searchable and shoppable, with customer-facing search deliberately curated to surface the most relevant results while the backend taxonomy supported comprehensive internal use cases. The structured database enabled programmatic recipe deployment aligned to seasonal availability. We shared the complete tagged recipe library with Bristol Farms, extending the asset across the brand portfolio. When Instacart deprecated deep linking, the data foundation enabled a pivot to a native shopping list feature. Recipe interaction data matured into actionable insights informing campaigns, promotions, and product development.
Stack
Custom structured recipe database · Instacart deep linking (later native shopping list)· Photoshop · Asana
Workflow
Developed tagging taxonomy with dietitian, culinary, and ecommerce teams → migrated 600+ recipes into structured database with discrete fields and unique IDs → normalized ingredients and linked to measurements database → built Instacart deep linking per recipe → retouched recipe imagery in Photoshop → pivoted to native shopping list when Instacart deprecated deep linking
Website Redesign | Mobile First - SEO Optimized
Situation
The Metropolitan Market website was built in 2012–2015 and optimized exclusively for desktop viewing. It used a traditional department-centric information architecture that didn't match how customers shopped. There was no search functionality, no blog for SEO, recipes were buried in a chronological system, the weekly ad was a non-compliant PDF, and there was no visibility into user behavior or site performance.
Task
Rebuild the website with modern, mobile-first architecture organized around customer needs (shop, learn, make, save) rather than internal departments, while incorporating the redesigned offers, recipes, and blog into a cohesive experience.
Action
I began with customer journey mapping — not as an analysis of existing behavior, but as a clean reimagining of how customers should move through the site. Rather than mapping what was, I designed what should be, organizing the experience around four customer need states: shop, learn, make, and save. From there I built a comprehensive site map that gave those need states structure and hierarchy. Only after the site map was validated did I move into Adobe XD for wireframing — approximately one to two weeks mapping out how the buckets interconnected and where key content lived within each. I then created high-resolution wireframes with detailed variations on key elements and interactive flows. These high-fidelity wireframes informed the design system decisions — icon design, typography, component patterns, spacing, and interaction behaviors. Rather than designing the system in isolation, every decision was made in context using wireframes to ensure consistency and usability across the entire site. The design system was built out in XD and became the source of truth for the developer. We then took a phased, modular approach to implementation: offers page first, then recipes, then Mixer blog, shop bucket, and homepage landing page simultaneously. Microsoft Clarity was implemented to provide visibility into user behavior for post-launch optimization.
Result
Overall traffic increased 63% and mobile traffic increased 230%. The modular rollout allowed us to validate each section independently before the full launch, reducing risk. The design system ensured consistency and accelerated development. The website became the central platform connecting offers, recipes, content, and ecommerce integrations.
Stack
Adobe XD · Illustrator · Photoshop · WordPress (v1) → Kentico (v2) · Microsoft Clarity · Smartsheet
Workflow
Customer journey mapping (reimagined, not data-derived) → site architecture mapping → wireframed full site in Adobe XD → produced high-fidelity interactive prototypes → built icon system in Illustrator → established design system as developer source of truth → migrated CMS from WordPress to Kentico → phased rollout by section to validate independently → implemented Microsoft Clarity for heatmap and session recording → tracked build in Smartsheet
Mixer Blog | 140 SEO Optimized Articles
Situation
The website redesign eliminated traditional department pages, which meant we needed an alternative way to surface product information, producer stories, and seasonal content that had previously lived in those static pages. Additionally, we had no SEO-forward content strategy — no blog, no long-form content targeting search queries, and no way to drive organic traffic through content discovery. The lifestyle email content we'd been producing was being deprecated, and we needed a home for that storytelling.
Task
Build a content strategy and publishing cadence that could replace department pages, drive SEO through long-form content, and provide a platform for the brand storytelling that would no longer fit in email.
Action
I roadmapped Mixer as a digital magazine with distinct editorial sections: meet the maker (producer spotlights), our favorite farms (local sourcing stories), the goods (product roundups and trends), what's cooking (seasonal recipes and how-tos), one-oh-one guides (ingredient education), best of met (signature products), and around the store (department spotlights converted to blog format). I informed content decisions through search behavior analysis on the website, seasonal trends, social media performance signals, and team passion — team members wrote about what they knew and cared about. I personally wrote pieces on coffee, time changes, and other topics. We had a chef-driven recipe roundup section. I led producer and farm stories. Rather than hiring external writers, I found that in-house expertise and passion produced better content than outside contractors. We integrated ChatGPT and Adobe Firefly into the content creation workflow from day one of their availability, enabling us to accelerate production without sacrificing quality. Over time, we published 140-plus articles. Blog content was threaded back into email through carded links, and short-form video was created from blog posts for social distribution.
Result
Mixer launched simultaneously with the new website homepage and became a core navigation hub. The 140-plus article library provided SEO-forward content that drove organic discovery. Blog content fed email strategy through contextual product links, reinforced brand narrative, and supported promotional campaigns. Short-form video repurposed from blog content fueled social media growth. Mixer became essential infrastructure — without it, the removal of department pages would have created a content void. The blog demonstrated that in-house editorial talent, combined with emerging AI tools, could produce high-quality content at scale without external agency support.
Stack
WordPress CMS · Photoshop · ChatGPT · Adobe Firefly · Asana
Workflow
Defined editorial sections and content calendar → informed topics via site search behavior and social performance data → retouched and cropped blog imagery in Photoshop → integrated ChatGPT and Adobe Firefly into production workflow from day one of availability → repurposed blog content into email card links and short-form social video → managed publishing pipeline in Asana
Social Media Relaunch | Early Adopter of Video First
Situation
Before the social relaunch, Metropolitan Market's social presence was inconsistent and underperforming. Content strategy lacked coherence, posting was sporadic, and there was no clear value proposition driving engagement or follower growth. The platform wasn't being leveraged strategically as a customer acquisition or engagement channel.
Task
Transform social media into a strategic, high-engagement channel that would drive brand awareness, customer acquisition, and community building through a differentiated approach.
Action
In early 2022, I launched a video-first strategy — deliberately ahead of the industry curve before short-form video became ubiquitous. Rather than trying to maintain multiple content formats, I committed entirely to video storytelling focused on seasonal moments, producer spotlights, product arrivals, and brand narrative. Year one was about building a foundational content library. I personally shot, edited, and deployed every video, capturing the moment new products hit the store — filming the Hennings Cheddar wheel coming off the truck, shooting Scooter Farms berries the morning they arrived. I didn't focus on posting cadence; I focused on shipping high-quality, relevant seasonal content. Year two, with a growing backlog of evergreen content, I could flex and repurpose existing footage while introducing new seasonal stories. By year three, as my responsibilities expanded, I brought in a production team to handle shooting and editing under my direction, maintaining creative control and quality standards while scaling output. I expanded to TikTok when Instagram growth plateaued, leveraging the same content library across both platforms. The content balanced entertainment with education — occasionally playful moments like mixing pickles and Doctor Pepper, but primarily serious storytelling around recipes, ingredient usage, and culinary knowledge.
Result
Metropolitan Market became one of only two grocery brands in the United States publishing video content at scale that audiences watched and engaged with. We consistently outperformed Whole Foods and every other major competitor, while the broader grocery industry remained focused on static imagery. Social presence scaled nine times over three years with three consecutive years of 300-plus percent follower growth and 5.46 percent engagement rate — genuinely exceptional for a grocery brand. We produced viral videos with genuine cultural impact, something virtually no other grocery retailer could claim. The video-first strategy positioned Metropolitan Market as the clear leader in social storytelling within grocery retail.
Stack
Instagram · TikTok · CapCut · Epidemic Sound · Photoshop · Sprout Social · Meta Ads Manager · Asana · Production hardware: iPhone, Samsung Note 5G / S23 Ultra, Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II, Action360 gimbal, DJI Mic, Røde Mic, LumeCube, lightbox
Workflow
Shot and edited all video personally using CapCut → licensed music via Epidemic Sound → designed thumbnails and static assets in Photoshop → published natively to Instagram and TikTok → introduced Sprout Social for scheduling and analytics as output scaled → ran paid amplification in Meta Ads Manager → managed content calendar in Asana
Ecommerce Marketplaces | Three Partners – Three Approaches
Situation
Metropolitan Market had minimal ecommerce presence and was missing significant revenue opportunities as customers increasingly shopped through third-party marketplace platforms. A previous attempt to launch DoorDash had failed — a five-day pilot that was shut down. Instacart existed but was a light-touch partnership with no strategic effort. Amazon Grocery was not yet integrated. The organization had no coordinated approach to omnichannel commerce or marketplace enablement.
Task
Launch and optimize ecommerce marketplace partnerships across DoorDash, Instacart, and Amazon to drive incremental revenue and customer acquisition while maintaining brand consistency and operational feasibility.
Action
I took ownership of the DoorDash restart after the failed pilot. Rather than attempting aspirational menu items that didn't travel well or required significant prep time, I focused on what we could execute consistently while maintaining brand identity — the signature cookie paired with milk, sushi and vegan sushi options, the prime sandwich made fresh daily in every store, simple items like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and comprehensive drink options. I leveraged the half-million-dollar DoorDash incentive budget strategically through free delivery and dollar-off offers, then used customer feedback from reviews and messages to iterate the menu ruthlessly — removing items with fulfillment issues and adding customer-requested options. We soft-launched at two stores to validate, then rolled out across all locations a month later. For Instacart, the initial partnership required only light touch liaison and product photography coordination. However, we then undertook a white-label Instacart build where I owned the entire storefront development. Rather than replicating the traditional grocery taxonomy where orange juice lives under dairy, I decoupled from brick-and-mortar classifications and reorganized around customer mental models and use cases. We developed a comprehensive shot list and photographed all products from scratch to ensure consistency and quality. Amazon Grocery presented a different model entirely — they dictated implementation with minimal flexibility. My role was to feed them required assets, sequence promotional items, and work within their constraints on look and feel. Each marketplace required different strategies and levels of control, but all three became important revenue streams.
Result
DoorDash went from failed pilot to soft launch in forty-five days and full rollout one month later — a genuinely fast timeline that proved the opportunity was real when given proper strategy and execution. White-label Instacart launched on schedule with a completely reimagined taxonomy and customer experience that differentiated our offering from traditional grocery ecommerce. Amazon Grocery launched on time with strategic asset delivery and promotional sequencing that maximized our launch window. Across all three platforms, we exceeded expectations and established ecommerce marketplace presence as an important revenue stream. The willingness to adapt strategy to each platform's unique constraints — rather than forcing a rigid omnichannel playbook — enabled us to compete effectively across fundamentally different commerce models.
Stack
Instacart Storefront Pro · DoorDash Grocery· Amazon Grocery · Photoshop · Meta Ads Manager · Google Ads · Smartsheet
Workflow
Rebuilt DoorDash menu around operationally viable items → soft launched at two stores → full rollout in 45 days → built Instacart Storefront Pro taxonomy decoupled from brick-and-mortar structure → shot and retouched full product catalogue in Photoshop → coordinated Amazon Grocery asset delivery and promotional sequencing → bulk-produced Google ad variations via multi-canvas Photoshop export → tracked all three launches in Smartsheet
Holiday Reservations Platform | Double Digit Growth 3 Consecutive Years
Situation
The holiday reservations system was operational but deeply inefficient. Year one had hour-long customer wait times for pickup, manual reporting across all stores that consumed hours daily, vague pickup windows that created confusion and shrink, and no visibility into operations or performance metrics. The platform was a revenue opportunity but operationally painful.
Task
Streamline the holiday reservations platform across multiple iterations to reduce operational friction, improve customer experience, increase revenue, and enable data-driven decision making.
Action
In year two, I completely redesigned the platform to align with the new mobile-first website architecture. I implemented assigned time slots so customers selected specific pickup days and times rather than vague windows. I automated all reporting — what previously took hours daily became instantaneous dashboards accessible to product leads, operations, and leadership. I added automated reminder messages to customers approaching their pickup window. If customers didn't pick up within 24 hours of their assigned time, the system automatically released that product for other customers to purchase, dramatically reducing shrink. I ruthlessly simplified the menu, reducing decision fatigue by eliminating redundant options and keeping only items with meaningful differentiation. I sequenced the menu to lead with appetizers and sides before mains, intentionally creating friction points like required sides selection that drove incremental attachment — the sides dropdown alone tripled pie sales. Years three and four brought continued optimization based on performance data and customer behavior. I deployed the system across email, social, and search with targeted omnichannel campaigns.
Result
Pickup wait times dropped from one hour in year one to ten minutes by year four. Automated reporting freed up hours of manual work daily in year two. The assigned time slot system with automated reminders and product release created operational efficiency and reduced shrink significantly. Menu sequencing and intentional friction drove double-digit revenue growth every single year — results that outperformed our in-house brand competitors across the Goodfood Holdings portfolio. By year four, we leveraged matchback data from our unified customer view to identify high-value holiday shoppers, segment them, and deliver a differentiated experience: early platform access to ensure full menu availability and vendor-funded premium product samplers included in their reservation bags. The platform evolved from an operational burden into a precision revenue, customer experience, and customer loyalty asset.
Stack
Custom WordPress reservation platform · Mailchimp · Toshiba POS · Meta Ads Manager · Google Ads · Smartsheet
Workflow
Redesigned platform for mobile-first architecture → implemented assigned time slots with automated reminders via Mailchimp → built automated reporting dashboards replacing manual daily reporting → configured auto-release of uncollected reservations after 24 hours → deployed omnichannel campaign across email, social, and Google Ads → leveraged POS matchback data to segment high-value customers for early access → managed platform iterations in Smartsheet
CMS Migration | Goodfood Holdings Cross-banner Initiative
Situation
Goodfood Holdings needed to consolidate five banner websites — Metropolitan Market, Bristol Farms, New Seasons, New Leaf, and Lazy Acres — onto a single CMS platform to enable shared back-office operations. Each banner was running independently with no common tooling, processes, or content infrastructure.
Task
As Metropolitan Market's appointed representative, contribute to platform selection, vendor evaluation, and implementation — while protecting Met's more sophisticated digital requirements within a group decision-making process.
Action
I led stakeholder interviews across Metropolitan Market and co-authored a GFH wide requirements document separating MVP, fast-follow, and long-term features. That document became the foundation for an RFP distributed to 15 agencies — 8 submitted, 5 were interviewed, 3 reached finalist stage: Sagepath Reply, Laughlin Constable, and Deloitte Digital. Finalists bid against a detailed SOW. Sagepath Reply was selected on price via two rounds of ranked-choice voting. I did not favor the selected agency but supported the group decision.
The project kicked off with a week-long in-person discovery session in Carson, CA. Metropolitan Market shared complete, high-fidelity wireframes and a full design system prior to the onsite. It became apparent at the discovery meeting that Sagepath Reply had not reviewed them. The agency arrived pushing native, desktop-optimized vertical stacking — with no familiarity with the carded layout or slider components we had specified. What was a zero-cost build in WordPress was quoted as a $100K feature enhancement. Because the site architecture depended on it, we paid — but the framing as a custom feature rather than a reviewed deliverable was a red flag that proved accurate.
It became clear early that Met was the only banner with a defined digital vision — the others were optimizing for the easiest path forward rather than the best outcome. Phase one launched with Bristol Farms first, a decision that created cascading problems: the BF project lead departed before build began, design decisions were inconsistent and undocumented, and the launched site had broken links, incorrect breakpoints, improperly sized assets, and missing alt tags throughout. Constant scope changes at Bristol Farms and BFLA burned through the agency's overage budget. By the time Met went live — a year late and at three times the original budget — we elected a hybrid approach: Kentico as the core CMS framework, with ecommerce, reservations, and promotions continuing on WordPress. The other banners subsequently adopted Met's hybrid playbook.
Result
Metropolitan Market launched on Kentico on schedule relative to our revised timeline, with a functioning hybrid architecture that preserved our ecommerce and promotions capabilities. The hybrid approach we developed became the de facto model for the other banners. The project is an honest case study in cross-organizational governance: requirements discipline and a rigorous vendor process can only absorb so much misalignment downstream. What I could control, I made better for everyone.
Stack
Kentico · WordPress (hybrid) · Adobe XD · Smartsheet · Asana
Workflow
Stakeholder interviews → requirements doc (MVP / fast-follow / long-term) → RFP to 15 agencies → 5 interviews → 3 finalists (Sagepath Reply, Laughlin Constable, Deloitte Digital) → SOW → ranked-choice vendor selection → submitted wireframes and design system pre-onsite → week-long in-person discovery → negotiated carded layout implementation → phased banner implementation → hybrid architecture decision → Met launch → playbook adopted cross-banner → tracked in Smartsheet throughout
Liability Free Loyalty | Architecture - Contract Paused - Capital Constraints
Situation
Metropolitan Market had no loyalty program and no appetite for the long-term point liability one would create. At the same time, the matchback system and offer infrastructure built across prior initiatives had generated a meaningful first-party data foundation. The missing layer was a platform capable of activating that data at scale — delivering segmented, behaviorally-driven offers without a traditional points model.
Task
Architect a loyalty-equivalent stack that could deliver compelling, highly segmented offers — driving measurable revenue and customer retention — without creating point liability or requiring a traditional loyalty program build.
Action
Designed a phased CDP architecture built on existing data streams: reservations, direct mail, weekly value email, and Toshiba POS transactions feeding into a unified customer layer. Phase one specified Cordial as the combined CDP, ESP, CRM, and SMS platform — chosen to consolidate costs and maximize ROI from day one against a constrained budget. Phase two specified a migration to Amperity as the CDP once first-party data reached critical mass, with Cordial continuing as the activation layer. The matchback system was already in production as the customer identification mechanism. Cordial's core capability — infinitely variable email content driven by individual customer behavior — would have allowed us to segment hero offers within the existing carded email framework, increasing redemption rates without rebuilding the channel. All three vendors were taken to contract stage.
Result
The project was paused when capital was exhausted by the CMS migration overruns. The architecture, vendor contracts, and phased implementation plan were complete and ready to execute. The first-party data foundation built through the matchback system remained in production. With the architecture complete and contracts in place, the decision to pursue outside opportunities became straightforward.
Stack
Toshiba POS · Custom matchback system · Mailchimp (interim ESP) · Cordial (CDP / ESP / CRM / SMS — contracted, not deployed) · Amperity (CDP phase two — contracted, not deployed) · Smartsheet
Workflow
Audited existing data streams → identified Cordial as phase one platform → scoped Amperity migration trigger criteria → drafted phased CDP architecture → ran vendor evaluation → negotiated contracts with Cordial and Amperity → project paused at capital approval stage
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