I got my start in the world of digital marketing as an intern managing a blog. I applied for the job because I liked writing. That’s it.

I’d never even heard of SEO, let alone backlinks or keywords.. but, throughout the internship, I learned the basics of the SEO game, along with some marketing fundamentals like ideal customer profiles, positioning, etc.

I liked SEO and the concept behind content marketing, BUT as soon as I learned that I could use advertisements to reach people 1,000x faster than I could attract TOF traffic by ranking articles, I knew I had to learn more about the paid side of digital marketing.

So, I got a full-time job at an agency managing Facebook ad campaigns — I was hooked. I’d test variations of the first sentence in an ad, thinking of it as my headline. I’d try different formats, images, etc., anything to test new creative. I loved the concept of experimenting with an ad and then spending hours poring over the performance data and analyzing the results.

At the time, I wasn’t paying attention to the right metrics and I had limited technical skills (I’d never set up a conversion event or even a remarketing campaign). The concept of turning internet traffic into customers was alluring though, and over time I started to improve; the more I learned about running ads, the more fun it became.

I’m by no means a ‘guru’ (there are some mind-blowingly talented marketers on Twitter, that keep me humble), but I like to think I’m skilled enough to bring a considerable amount of value to most teams.

But.. if you’re here because you think you may be interested in working together, I’ll save my pitch for later 😃. I want to use the rest of this section to share a few details about my personal life because I think it’s important to connect with clients/partners at least somewhat outside the scope of ‘businessy things.’

I’ve lived in 5 different states throughout my life and last year, I landed in one I don’t I’ll leave anytime soon — Austin, TX.

(Hot take incoming) I’d argue Austin, TX is a better city for hiking than Denver, CO. Sure, Denver has mountains and breathtaking parks.. but they’re not very accessible. Even the closest mountains are a 45-60 minute drive away. It’s hard to set aside two hours of drive time plus another two hours to hike on a regular Tuesday evening after work. Austin, on the other hand, has small rivers, parks, and trails everywhere throughout the city. A good hike is never more than 10 minutes away.

And after the hike, there’s always a food truck close by, serving my favorite food (tacos). So, between all the trails and taco trucks, I think this is the greatest city in the world.

I spend a ridiculously high percentage of my time marketing, hiking (with my girlfriend Jumi & dog Rocky), and eating tacos, so as strange as it may sound, you know me pretty well at this point.

For day-to-day thoughts and updates, here’s my LinkedIn profile, and if you’re interested in seeing some case studies or articles I’ve written, those are available too!