For someone so precise and data-driven about where to spend our clients’ advertising dollars, Coralie Wood’s career has been surprisingly spontaneous. The UK-born Canadian followed a patch of unexpected turns that led her to Orso, much to our (and our clients’) everlasting benefit.
When she’s not cheering on her beloved Vancouver Canucks, Coralie is getting to the Why behind organizations’ paid advertising goals, aligning them to their brand foundations, business goals, and building strategic campaigns that deliver meaningful results.
Tell us a little about yourself.
Well, I was born in the UK, just south of London. Honestly, if I ever say anything other than London people look confused so we’ll just leave it at that. I moved to Canada about ten years ago and am Canadian through and through. I’m a citizen and fully indulge in all Canadian pastimes, especially hockey. I’m pretty sports-oriented and watch a lot of sports: hockey, obviously, but also Formula 1, soccer, skating, skiing.
Were you rooting for the Toronto Blue Jays?
I was, yes. Game 1 was good. I’m not the biggest watcher of baseball, but I’m a big Canucks hockey fan and the last time the Blue Jays won the World Series the Canucks were in the Stanley Cup finals, so I was taking the playoffs as a good omen.
What’s your area of expertise?
I lead our Digital Advertising service line. Anything involving ad strategy or media buying across paid platforms like Meta, LinkedIn, or Amazon is in my wheelhouse. I manage the strategy, implementation, and operation of those campaigns.
How did you develop that specialty?
It’s something I fell into back in the UK. I was working at a small life insurance company, just calling people to chat about their options. One day, a member of our team went on vacation and the head of the company asked me to look after an ad account for him. It was very different back then, essentially just saying “I want to pay X dollars,” and then Google would show you what that could do. So I played with it for a while with no idea the ramifications of my experiments, ha. But I must have done okay because when my colleague returned to work the team invited me to keep it up.
So I kept at it, totally self-taught, until I became pretty good at it. I worked at an agency in the UK, then an agency in Canada. For a few years, I led Demand Gen for a tech company. But I missed specializing and consulting so I left and refocused on paid advertising and all the cool sub-specialties that entails: ops, audits, tracking, and analytics.
As an expert, what are your top tips for companies diving into paid advertising?
Here’s the very first thing I assess when companies ask how to make a campaign better: What is your business goal? What are you trying to achieve? It’s so basic, but it’s essential.
We need to make sure clients’ goals for campaigns align to their overall business goals. People often get fixated on visibility metrics. But maybe, depending on your business goals, you should be planning instead to assess the quality of traffic or analyzing what site visitors do when they get to your website.
Once we know the business goals, we can settle those campaign goals, and then build out a campaign structure complete with targeting and segmentation that sets the client up for success.
What do you love about what you do?
It’s funny: I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and I don’t totally know the answer! I think it’s something to do with the balance of analytical, logical thinking, and creative thinking. I’m largely analytical, so while people tend to think that advertising is very creative, a lot of my work is about analyzing data and then making a decision about next steps based on that data. That balance really works for me and lets me lean into my strengths.
Honestly, it’s those strengths that play out in a lot of what I enjoy outside of work too. I’m good at project management and finding solutions to problems so I end up doing things like serving as president for my apartment building’s Strata Corp, which I think is like a Homeowners Association in the U.S. Our building has HVAC issues and despite knowing nothing about HVAC, I’m over here working on resolving the issue for the 400-500 people who live here. My friends and family tend to tease me for taking on a bit too much but I love it. I get so much enjoyment from solving problems and helping people, both in my personal and professional life.
Ok, let’s put you on the hot seat:
- Fave song on rotation right now: I will never get tired of listening to “A Change of Heart” by The 1975!
- Preferred form of exercise: Running—it’s essential for my mental health and physical health; I’m currently training for the Vancouver Marathon.
- Worst habit: Staring at the TV in a sports bar when I’m supposed to be spending time with friends.
- Night owl/early bird: I’m not too extreme either way but tend to lean towards an early bird.
So there you have it: if you need an analytical mind to support your paid advertising needs, reach out to partner with one of the absolute best in the industry. Bonus points if you’re open to hockey-talk (go Canucks!).