Neil RuffoloNeil RuffoloDigital marketing strategist & practitioner

Application portfolio / Elgin Community College

A community-college foundation.
Current digital practice.

I connect digital strategy with the work it takes to deliver: campaigns, automation, measurement, and a team that knows what matters.

Five years at Waubonsee Community College. Thirteen years of broader agency leadership. This portfolio brings the relevant evidence together for ECC's Digital Marketing Manager position.

Explore the evidence Download résumé DOCX

MBA, Management and Strategy BFA, Graphic Design

01 / The fit for ECC

The role's priorities.
The experience behind them.

ECC needs a leader across digital advertising, email automation, search, analytics, and staff development. My experience connects those functions.

01

Enrollment & integrated campaigns

Credit and noncredit campaigns developed with campus partners, with documented performance and enrollment context.

Review the college work
02

Email & marketing automation

Experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Pardot, email templates, segmentation, and nurture communications.

Explore the approach
03

Advertising & search

Hands-on campaign planning and optimization, from district-focused search to multi-brand paid-media programs.

See search in practice
04

Analytics & useful reporting

Conversion tracking, attribution, controlled testing, and clear recommendations grounded in what the data supports.

Review a conversion test
05

Team & partner leadership

Direct supervision, staff coaching, vendor coordination, and budget decisions across complex marketing programs.

Review the leadership scope
06

Workforce & community relevance

Community-college experience alongside years serving manufacturers of machinery, tools, and equipment.

Connect the experience to ECC

02 / Selected work

Evidence you can inspect.

Four documented examples of audience strategy, execution, and measurement. Each includes the original period, the result, and the source material.

4 case studies
Original Waubonsee creative montage combining student photography with coordinated display advertising formatsOriginal creative montage · View full size ↗
One campaign. Many points of contact.360+ in-house creative variations across a coordinated enrollment campaign.

Waubonsee / Credit enrollment / Fall 2012

An integrated enrollment campaign, measured beyond the click.

District-focused paid search, display, retargeting, social, mobile, and video supported a coordinated college enrollment campaign. More than 360 in-house ad variations connected original student photography with the college's brand messaging.

20.2M
brand impressions
21,276
advertising clicks
483
assisted conversions
Role, approach, and measurement

My role

As Internet Marketing Coordinator, I developed and executed online campaign work in collaboration with Marketing and Communications, Admissions, and other campus partners.

What the work demonstrates

Audience and geographic targeting, coordinated creative, media placement, retargeting, and analysis of direct and assisted website conversions.

Reading the results accurately

The source report calculated an unofficial working ROI above 550%, using estimated tuition value and conversion-to-registration assumptions. Assisted conversions are website actions, not a count of unique enrolled students. Enrollment outcomes reflected shared institutional work.

Read the original award entry PDF · 6 pages
Complete Xcelerate campaign graphic showing the website, skyscraper, rectangle, and leaderboard advertisementsOriginal campaign graphic · View full size ↗

Waubonsee / Noncredit enrollment / 2012

A focused audience strategy for a youth program's growth goal.

The Xcelerate summer-camp campaign aimed to double participation from 150 to 300. A local parenting-blog partnership, email, search, social, display, and remarketing reached district families during the spring enrollment window.

100%
program enrollment growth
150 → 300
youth enrollments
550+
registration-form downloads
Role, approach, and measurement

My role

I developed and implemented the digital campaign as Waubonsee's Internet Marketing Coordinator, aligning in-house banner and landing-page graphics with the companion direct-mail design.

What the work demonstrates

A clear audience, useful local partnerships, consistent messages across channels, and digital activity timed to a limited registration period. The campaign delivered approximately 3,000 clicks and 5.7 million impressions over three months.

Reading the results accurately

The program reached its enrollment goal during the integrated campaign. Form downloads indicate response and interest; they are not completed registrations. Program growth reflects the combined program and marketing effort.

Read the published case study PDF · 7 pages
Original control13.30%Buy Now click conversion rate
Full original dark-background Powermatic product-page control used in the December 2015 conversion testOriginal page · View full size ↗
Winning light variant21.41%Buy Now click conversion rate
Full winning light-background Powermatic product-page variant with product description and Buy Now call to actionTested variant · View full size ↗

The observed difference

+61% relative lift

In-test Buy Now clicks, not purchases or sitewide revenue.

Powermatic / Usability & conversion testing / 2015

More traffic did not mean more progress. Testing identified the friction.

After a website redesign, traffic was growing while dealer handoffs were falling. The analysis combined predictive attention reports, a live three-variant test, and qualitative user testing to investigate the gap.

+61%
relative increase in Buy Now clicks
13.30% → 21.41%
control vs. winning conversion rate
1,121
unique visitors in the live experiment
Role, approach, and measurement

My role

As Director of Digital Marketing at Dorn Group, I led analysis of the conversion problem and developed evidence-based usability recommendations.

What the work demonstrates

Define the consequential KPI, check alternative explanations, test a specific change, and combine quantitative results with observed user behavior. The original analysis translated findings into layout and call-to-action recommendations.

Reading the results accurately

The live experiment ran December 11–29, 2015 on the 3520B lathe product page. The conversion goal was a Buy Now click, not a purchase. The 61% figure is relative lift in the winning variant during that test, not a sitewide revenue increase.

Read selected analysis slides PDF · 7 pages

Historical examples are dated deliberately. They show how I frame objectives, build campaigns, and evaluate results; current platform experience is outlined below.

03 / Current practice

The tools have changed.
The need for judgment remains.

My ongoing work spans paid media, email automation, GA4 and tag management, attribution, and communication with technical and nontechnical stakeholders.

Measurement & decision support

First establish what the numbers mean.

Recent work includes diagnosing duplicate GA4 configurations, payment-referral attribution issues, and consent-related changes in measurement. A change in recorded conversions needs to be understood before it becomes a budget or performance conclusion.

How I review a performance change

  1. 01
    Check collectionTags, duplicates, and consent
  2. 02
    Check attributionReferrals, sources, and continuity
  3. 03
    Explain the decisionEvidence, uncertainty, and next action

GA4 · Google Tag Manager · CallRail · SQL

Email & marketing automation

Make the next communication relevant.

My experience includes email and automation work across Salesforce Marketing Cloud (ExactTarget), Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (Pardot), HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, and other client platforms, including templates, audience segmentation, and nurture communications.

An approach for ECC

I would start by clarifying audience definitions, consent, data ownership, and the next useful action at each stage of the student journey. Then establish reusable templates, test journeys, and agree on reporting that connects communications with meaningful progress.

A proposed communication workflow for ECC

  1. 01
    Define the audienceConsent, ownership, and useful segments
  2. 02
    Build the next messageReusable template and a clear next action
  3. 03
    Test, review, improveJourney checks and meaningful progress

The ECC approach above is a proposed working method, not a claim of an existing ECC implementation.

Hands-on advertising experience

Google Ads Microsoft Advertising Meta LinkedIn Programmatic & retail media

04 / Leadership & collaboration

Set priorities.
Support the people doing the work.

I have provided more than four years of direct supervision and coaching for two employees, alongside ongoing direction of contractors, vendors, and platform partners. My role connects the plan, the investment, and the work required to deliver it.

Staff development

Assign priorities, review work, coach specialists, and maintain quality standards.

Budget stewardship

Manage channel allocation, forecasts, pacing, reporting, and vendor relationships across more than $1 million in annual investment.

Campus collaboration

At Waubonsee, partnered with Student Services, Instruction, Community Education, Workforce Development, and college colleagues.

A practical connection to ECC

Education, employers,
and the people connecting them.

ECC's new Manufacturing and Technology Center makes my industrial-market experience particularly relevant. Years serving manufacturers of machinery, tools, and equipment have given me familiarity with the audiences and applications behind skilled-trades and technical education.

Combined with community-college marketing experience, that background would help me work with faculty and workforce partners to communicate why a program matters to prospective students and regional employers.

ECC's Manufacturing and Technology Center

05 / Application documents

Continue the conversation.

The résumé and cover letter are tailored to ECC's Digital Marketing Manager position, Job 495548.

RésuméExperience, results, education, and technologyDOCX ↓Cover letterThe case for this role at ECCDOCX ↓
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