upside
“Cash Back for Doing You”
Upside unveiled a brand campaign in early 2023: Cash back for doing you. It added personality and positioned the app as something for everyone and every little errand, not just what they were best known for.
We built on the campaign with fun, copy-centric OOH placements.
Creative Director: Luis Rodriguez
Copywriter: Patrick McMahon
Designers: Joseph Chae, Lauren Ransom
consumer growth + acquisition
On TikTok, Reels, and YouTube, I led a push to move Upside from underperforming performance creative to scripted + UGC creative.
Our resulting work immediately felt more native and — in line with “cash back for doing you” — put stories and personalities up front.
Best of all, we saw longer watch times, reduced cost per sign up (CPSU) and a 9% month-over-month increase in return on ad spend (ROAS).
lifecycle + retention
With senior lifecycle marketing team members, I wrote and developed strategy for dozens of day-to-day campaigns for app users — the transactional emails and in-app/push notifications that help define the experience of using Upside. Some were as simple as a new retailer launch, some were as complicated as the campaigns below. (Aside: I have A LOT of this work. More samples available by request.)
My approach was direct, simple, and actionable. (Read as: These are here not because they’re beautiful, but because they’re effective.)
Recent Inactive User Bonus
Challenge: Reactivate users who have not claimed an offer in 30 days with $0.10/gal bonus cash back. Some of them have bonuses on their accounts already — in subject lines and emails I stacked the new and old bonuses to serve the biggest number I could.
Assets: Email, push and in-app notifications for an initial send and two rounds of reminder communications
Results: 41% average open rate + 1.14% average click rate + 14.6% reactivation rate
Dead User Reactivation
Challenge: Bring back “dead” users who have not used the app for a year or more with a $0.15/gal bonus. This campaign is almost too simple but it A) worked B) on a really difficult audience C) without using a super-rich bonus — just effective subject lines and notifications that prompted them to act and made it sound simple.
Assets: Email and in-app notifications for an initial send and four rounds of reminder communications
Results: 29% open rate + 0.53% click rate + 17.2% reactivation rate