Popular Keywords

Categories

No Record Found

View All Results

Role Overview

Digital Activation Specialist

2015 – 2016

The only woman among 12 men in the Suns’ Digital Newsroom

Six rounds of interviews over three months—nothing but net.

Working in pro sports was always the dream. I grew up on travel softball, dabbled in volleyball, and read ESPN The Magazine cover to cover—checking people in at Gold’s Gym, always with an eye on a future in sports. So when I landed the only open spot on the Suns’ digital team, I knew this was the call I’d been waiting for.

The role was built for my skill set: main point of contact between Digital and a 10+ person Marketing Partnerships team—two groups with no playbook for collaboration until I stepped in to bridge the gap. That year, 220,000 people applied to the NBA and only 1% were hired; I was one of 400 applicants for this unique position, the only one like it in the league.

After building my name as Your Digital Angel at Gannett, I expanded the brand into Suns Digital Angel—scoring my biggest career highlight when my Suns Media Day player styling creative landed earned media across ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, USA Today, HoopsHype, and Arizona Republic. (Dream achieved—ESPN feature, no Connecticut required.)

Won the Best Data Acquisition Award for a Facebook lead-gen campaign tied to the Suns Draft Lottery, earning a trip to NBA League Meetings in Austin to share insights with peers from around the league. My work spanned the Suns, Mercury, Rattlers, and NBA partners—meaning there was no off-season. And I was crushed by how it ended.

Case Study Snapshot

Challenge

  • Became the key bridge between Digital and a large Marketing Partnerships team

  • Partner digital reporting was a single raw-stats email — no visuals and no clear story of value

  • Ad placements scattered across 10 activation managers and misaligned with actual contracts

Strategy

  • Brought consistency to a chaotic, multi-contact workflow across Digital and Marketing Partnerships.

  • Built recap decks and reporting templates that gave partners a clear view of performance and ROI

  • Streamlined digital ad submissions to NBA Digital Ops into one process — routing, approvals, and QA checks

Results

  • 70M+ organic impressions — up 21.5% year-over-year

  • Pushed placement accuracy to 92% and cut excess inventory by 80%

  • Media Day creative earned coverage across six major outlets — ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, USA Today, HoopsHype, and The Arizona Republic

Impact & Achievements

A First for the Franchise

  • Transformed the former Effen Vodka VIP Lounge — anointed by 50 Cent on opening night — into a dynamic Suns Social Media Lounge, managing its giant live-feed digital wall and elevating the in-arena fan experience.

  • Moderated #WeArePHX content in real time using Spredfast Experience — approving UGC from an iPad for display on the Suns Social Media Lounge’s giant digital wall and across Suns social channels.

  • Kept the Social Media Lounge buzzing with a custom-built Twitter Mirror designed for NBA teams, Suns dancers and Gorilla photo ops, and life-size player cutouts of Nash, Booker, Bledsoe, and Chandler.

  • Spearheaded two Twitch livestream activations while the platform was still new territory — including pro sports — featuring Booker and Bledsoe, plus a Facebook Live chat with Coach Watson, meeting fans across emerging platforms while supporting CenturyLink’s partnership activations.

  • Tracked fan sentiment and engagement across all three livestreams — surpassing engagement goals by 60% and setting a new benchmark for live fan interaction on a new platform.

  • Partnered with Community Relations to land Booker for a live, CenturyLink-sponsored NBA 2K16 stream — turning a freshly drafted rookie into a real-time face-off with fans and their favorite player.

92% Improvement, 100% Custom

  • Partnered with NBA Digital Ops and the internal Marketing Partners data team to audit and map ad placements against contractual agreements across Suns.com, the mobile app, Suns en Español, the Mercury site, and arena screens — creating a clear view of inventory, obligations, and revenue opportunities.

  • Centralized ad submissions by serving as the single point of contact — replacing a fragmented process across 10 activation managers, saving each 5+ hours of admin work per week, and giving NBA Digital Ops a cleaner process for execution and trafficking.

  • Designed and rolled out streamlined routing templates, approval flows, and cross-team training to keep specs, flight dates, and QA checks rock-solid.

  • Improved placement accuracy by 92%, cut excess inventory by 80%, accelerated speed-to-market, and strengthened partner revenue by aligning each ad placement with its true contractual value.

Activations That Made the News

  • Turned a flat print ad into a high-energy photo shoot just one month into the role — collaborating with Suns and Mercury mascots and dancers for Lustre’s USA Today “Best Hotel Rooftop Bar” nomination, generating 80K+ partner social impressions and driving real voting traffic right out of the gate.

  • Suns Media Day 2015 creative landed across six news outlets — ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, USA Today, HoopsHype, and The Arizona Republic. Yes, six pubs. The shoot featured Booker (freshly drafted), Bledsoe, Chandler, Len, Leuer, Knight, Goodwin, Warren, Tucker, and Coach Hornacek in Superman and Batman capes, a Captain America shield, Jedi lightsabers, and a WWE-style belt, with the creative reused all season across social, Suns.com, and partner activations. I totally understood the assignment.

  • ESPN’s SportsCenter tweeted Warren’s retro boombox shot with oversized stunna shades — already drawing 296 retweets and 922 favorites within six hours of posting — with the image also landing in Sports Illustrated and HoopsHype, while Booker’s Yoda-in-a-backpack shot made USA Today.

  • Coach Hornacek’s Jedi robe also made ESPN, Leuer’s freshly hand-pressed Superman cape — courtesy of yours truly — hit Bleacher Report, and Morris’s bespoke floral arrangement ran in The Arizona Republic.

70 Million Reasons to Notice

  • Activated 70M+ organic social impressions and 2.2K+ branded partner posts across the Suns digital ecosystem — a 56.1% year-over-year increase in post volume and 21.5% increase in impressions — turning fan engagement into measurable partner value.

  • Negotiated flexibility to reallocate partners’ contracted post counts across platforms — shifting deliverables to the channels that best served their goals and available inventory.

  • Led integrated multicultural partner activations across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, SMS, Suns.com, and the Suns mobile app via push notifications — maximizing ROI while keeping every touchpoint on-brand and polished.

  • Turned digital activations into high-impact partner visibility across Suns digital channels — working closely with the activation and web teams to keep Suns.com and Mercury promotions pages current.

  • Revamped recycled partner landing pages — same photo, new expiration date — with campaign-specific creative built around each partner’s goals, including a Talking Stick Resort pool photo shoot for its cabana giveaway.

Data for the Assist

  • Replaced single-line emails of raw stats with polished recap decks — screenshots, insights, and optimization recommendations for each post — giving partners a professional, handoff-ready view of performance across digital touchpoints.

  • Tracked a season total of 2,273 social posts across 87 partner recaps — 441 Facebook posts, 1,184 tweets + 60 retweets, 443 Instagram posts + 8 reposts, 61 Snapchats, 33 Vines, 22 SMS, 15 push notifications, 4 Suns Dancer posts + 1 repost, and 1 app alert — plus $9,350 in Facebook/Instagram ads and boosts.

  • Created standardized reporting templates for each partner — making it easier to track progress, surface wins, and connect campaign metrics to strategy and ROI.

  • Turned reporting into a resource activation managers sought out — surfacing optimization recommendations from the data until they were swinging by the newsroom to see overnight performance.

  • Revamped expiring Suns.com ad reports to flag any issues early — reducing last-minute scrambling and giving the team more time to plan proactively.

Nine Departments, One Story

  • Wrangled data and insights from nine departments — including Digital, Marketing, Creative, Ticket Sales, Game Entertainment, Community Relations, Phoenix Mercury, Arizona Rattlers, and Northern Arizona Suns — to fuel the State of the Suns end-of-season presentation and broader organization-wide initiatives.

  • Stitched every department’s presentation into one polished State of the Suns deck — driving deadlines, shaping the season narrative, and keeping reporting and visuals on brand.

  • Emceed the presentation and personally covered Digital and Game Entertainment recaps for senior leadership and cross-functional stakeholders — translating business-wide performance into a clear story about the organization and fan base.

  • Won the Best Data Acquisition Award for a Facebook lead-gen concept tied to the Suns Draft Lottery — earning a trip to NBA League Meetings in Austin to meet league peers and platform reps from Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram/Facebook where the league’s best campaigns and results were showcased.

Awards

Best Data Acquisition Award

  • Earned for a Facebook lead-gen idea tied to the Suns Draft Lottery — recognition that opened the door to NBA League Meetings in Austin (2016)

Share this Post »