MN Opps: Ellie Mental Health taps first CMO as digital display spend skyrockets (Score 80)

Sales Lead: Melissa Amponsah became the first-ever CMO at Ellie Mental Health, effective May 2023.

• Amponsah previously served in the same role at Steele Brands.
• Now, she will focus on continuing Ellie's forward movement as a national brand and on overseeing its integrated advertising efforts across existing and new franchises.
• This CMO hire reflects Ellie's "explosive" growth plans and its commitment to building a strong leadership team.
• The company will likely:
  • Implement strategy shifts
  • Keep adding to its marketing team
  • Continue increasing digital spend
  • Seek new agency partners
• Target demographic: 
  • Millennials and Gen-X, especially those in and around MN

Additional spending insights:

• Digital display insights (digital ad spend and placement)
  • YTD spend: Ellie has already spent roughly $822.5k on digital display YTD, a huge increase from the roughly $87 it spent in all of 2022.
  • YTD data: Most of this year's spend has gone toward programmatic ads placed via Google Display Network onto site destinations such as buzzfeed.com (21%), parentinfluence.com, signupgenius.com, webmd.com, and edjoin.org.
  • Last year: Ellie spent approximately $87 on this channel in 2022 and didn't utilize it in 2021.​​​​​​​

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: Get on Amponsah's radar soon in case her hire leads to agency reviews.
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​Bright Red: Agency partner

Insight Sources: Digital spend insights estimated by Adbeat.