Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
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Accomplishments
Timeline
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Valentina Spinelli

Valentina Spinelli

London

Summary

Experienced and agile Digital Marketing leader with proven expertise in multiple industries including Travel, FMCG, Retail, Insurance & Healthcare. Highly skilled in Performance Marketing (PPC), Marketing Effectiveness and Analytics, with a passion for all things Search Engine Marketing (SEM), business analysis and growth.

Further successful expertise includes brand management, from brand diagnosis to strategy setting.

Overview

14
14
years of professional experience
4025
4025
years of post-secondary education

Work History

Head of Acquisition

Direct Ferries Ltd
London, UK
05.2024 - 03.2025
  • I am currently leading the Global New Customer Acquisition Marketing programme, with a focus on the PPC and SEO channels
  • The primary focus of my role is to maximise SEO coverage for new customers in order to generate headroom in Paid Media efficiency targets and drive profitable growth through Paid Media channels, predominantly Paid Search
  • I lead the new customer acquisition strategies across SEO and Paid Media and oversee the execution of the corresponding implementation and testing roadmaps
  • I report directly to the CMO and manage a team of 11 PPC and SEO practitioners
  • Successfully grew new business revenues by 25% YoY, hitting and exceeding business targets, driving incremental growth scaling testing results
  • Ran 50+ bid strategy tests and 100+ content SEO tests across AI and programmatic
  • Designed and introduced Tableau SEO/PPC Dashboards, streamlining SEO landing page and query reporting across all markets, reducing reporting time by 50%+ and unlocking insights to detect and address underlying trends

Head of Paid Media

Health Bridge ZAVA Ltd
London, UK
09.2022 - 04.2024
  • I led the Paid Media programme in Europe, with a focus on the Superdrug and Asda online doctor services in the UK and the ZAVA Online doctor international expansion in the UK, FR, DE and IE.
  • The primary focus of my role was to drive profitable growth leading the Paid Search, Affiliates and Paid Social programme.
  • I defined and drove the Paid Media strategy and analysed channel specific performance to ultimately deliver & exceed the agreed volume and efficiency targets
  • I reported to the Head of Retention and Acquisition, managed a team of two and an external media agency team of 4
  • Successfully grew new business revenues by 20% vs targets whilst shifting the focus from CPA to LTV, driving profitable growth YoY
  • Designed and introduced Looker Studio Dashboards across all countries, successfully reducing the time spent on reporting by 50%+ and unlocking insights for improved budget management and control over Google Ad automation

Performance Marketing Lead B2B

Direct Line Group
Bromley, UK
03.2017 - 09.2022
  • My role at Direct Line Insurance Group focused on the delivery of large Performance Marketing budgets with responsibility in delivering circa 50% of marketing driven revenues
  • I reported to the Head of Digital and managed an external media agency team of 6
  • I also managed an extended team of internal resources from the Direct Line for Business division
  • Q3’21 Delivered a Share of Search, Share of Market Econometrics Test for Direct Line for Business, in partnership with external econometricians, leading to the introduction of new brand metrics and KPI ‘s to rapidly assess impact of Ad Spend on share of market
  • Q4’20 Successfully reviewed the B2B (SME) Digital Marketing Effectiveness, unlocking c.20% additional revenues at the optimum marginal ROI
  • 2017 Built a view of the B2C (Home, Motor, Pet, Rescue) Mobile PPC Effectiveness, factoring in custom Econometrics geo test results, accelerating Direct Line new business growth vs market by c.15%

Search Operations Director

Omnicom Media Group
London, UK
02.2015 - 10.2016
  • Company Overview: PHD Worldwide (Omnicom Media Group)
  • Part of the Global Search team based in London, I managed a team of 2 global London based PPC practitioners and an extended team of 15 people internationally
  • I reported to the Global Head of Digital and led the Unilever Search programme operations in 50+ markets
  • I managed the relationship with the Omnicom/PHD regional hubs and coordinated the implementation work streams across the EMEA, APAC, LATAM, North America and NAME regions
  • I was also responsible for the Unilever Search Strategies and implementation roadmaps to be integrated with the Unilever brands' Marketing and Communication architectures
  • Delivered Search Implementation roadmaps that were actionable and helped the Unilever global brands gain authority in the organic rankings and Paid Search positions, in full alignment with the Unilever brands marketing and communication architectures
  • Delivered excellent PPC global governance, allowing the Search Strategy to be implemented consistently at a local level
  • Standards introduced around naming convention, account structure and campaign set up, auditing and restructure templates, content gap analysis, optimization roadmaps and reporting
  • Successfully upskilled Unilever on digital engagement measurement and redefined the definition of bounce rates to better assess on site engagements

Account Director

Neo@Ogilvy
Canary Wharf, UK
10.2010 - 12.2014
  • Company Overview: WPP
  • Started as an Account Manager in 2010, and promoted to Account Director in 2013
  • Part of a team of 15 people, I managed a team of 5 PPC practitioners
  • I was responsible for the team’s business profitability and the relationship with the client
  • I led the SONY Paid Search program and cross-channel projects including Ad Ops, Analytics, Display and Affiliates
  • I was also responsible for the DEC (Disaster Emergency Committee) fundraising PPC campaigns pro-bono when a DEC appeal was on in the UK, including the Ebola Crisis, Philippines Typhoon and Syria Crisis Appeals.
  • Introduced Machine Learning through Google SA360, leading to an award winning PPC campaign for the Sony Store Online selling VAIO laptops
  • Machine Learning generated c.20% increase in sales at a considerable CPA reduction
  • Successfully changed the campaigns’ set up to distribute traffic proportionally to market demand across the VAIO laptop product ranges, resulting in an uplift in total sales for the same PPC marketing spend
  • Successfully launched a new PPC feature ahead of market: Product Listing Ads, outperforming competitors in selling e-book readers online

Education

Brand Management - Marketing

Marketing Week MiniMBA with Mark Ritson
London

Master of Arts - Media Studies

La Sapienza University
Rome / Italy

Skills


MARKETING


  • PPC, SEO
  • Marketing Effectiveness & incrementality
  • Google Market Sizing
  • Business & Marketing Data Analytics
  • Team Management
  • Marketing Talent Assessment/ Mapping
  • Leadership & personnel development
  • Brand & Performance Media Planning
  • Social Media & Influencer Marketing
  • Affiliates & Partnership programmes
  • Display Advertising


MARKETING TECH AND DATA ANALYTICS


  • Google Marketing Suite including Google Ads, SA360, Campaign Manager, GA4
  • Looker, Looker Studio, Tableau
  • Google Search Console
  • SEM Rush incl Split Signal
  • Chat GPT, Gemini and Copilot prompting
  • Python for SEO and content marketing
  • SQL


LANGUAGES


  • English: Native equivalent
  • Italian: Native speaker


HOBBIES


  • Beach Volley
  • Football
  • Running/ cycling
  • Reading/ writing/ caricature drawing
  • Italian cooking
  • Guitar playing




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Accomplishments

  • WARC Global Media Awards, Gold and Attribution Award, Best Use of Data, 2020 with Direct Line Group
  • The Drum Digital Advertising Awards Europe Best Paid Search Campaign, 2020 with Direct Line Group
  • Best Paid Search: The Drum Digital Trading Award for Sony Store Online, 2014
  • Silver DMA Award for Best use of Search, Natural and Paid for DEC (Disaster Emergency Committee), 2011



Timeline

Head of Acquisition

Direct Ferries Ltd
05.2024 - 03.2025

Head of Paid Media

Health Bridge ZAVA Ltd
09.2022 - 04.2024

Performance Marketing Lead B2B

Direct Line Group
03.2017 - 09.2022

Search Operations Director

Omnicom Media Group
02.2015 - 10.2016

Account Director

Neo@Ogilvy
10.2010 - 12.2014

Brand Management - Marketing

Marketing Week MiniMBA with Mark Ritson

Master of Arts - Media Studies

La Sapienza University

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