10 years turning behavioral insight into commercial results
Most campaigns are built around who the audience is. The ones that convert are built around the specific conditions that make that audience act. I find those conditions — and build strategy around them.
I'm a Behavioral Marketing Strategist with 10 years of experience building strategies that close the gap between audience awareness and audience action. That gap is almost always behavioral — and it requires a different kind of analysis than most marketing teams apply to it.
I don't start with demographics or personas. I start with a more commercially useful question: what conditions need to exist for this person to act — and what's currently in the way?
"Context isn't a detail. It's the variable that makes the same person behave completely differently."
My work is grounded in decision-making, friction mapping, and marketing systems — the three areas that most reliably determine whether a strategy actually moves the business.
At launch, The Write Lane had no audience, no client base, and no existing demand. The challenge wasn't improving performance — it was creating it. I built behavioral momentum through community-based exposure, positioning clarity, and low-friction entry points that made first engagement feel easy and repeatable.
0 → Waitlist
Client Growth
Hired
Additional Teachers to Meet Demand
Read Case Study →
Case Study · Community / Nonprofit
Rebuilding Engagement Through Decision-Focused Communication
The organization had consistent activity — but inconsistent participation. I diagnosed where behavior was breaking down and rebuilt the system around how people actually decide to participate.
+125%
Organic Social
+23%
Livestream Views
+20%
First-Time Participation
Case Study · National Nonprofit / Public Health
Closing the Gap Between Awareness and Action
Audiences already knew seafood was healthy. They weren't buying it. The barrier wasn't informational — it was behavioral. I diagnosed friction points and rebuilt messaging around the actual conditions under which people decide what to eat.
5×
Click-Through Rate
+63%
Social Engagement
Frameworks
Behavioral Frameworks
Framework · Decision Environment
C.O.R.E
Most marketing is built around who someone is. C.O.R.E is built around what someone is standing in front of when they decide — and how to design around that moment.
Read Framework →
Framework · Behavioral Diagnosis
B.E.A.M
When behavior isn't happening, the default response is to fix the message. B.E.A.M diagnoses what's actually blocking action — and identifies the intervention that matches what the person is experiencing.
Your Persona Knows Who They Are. It Has No Idea What They're About to Do.
Personas answer the wrong question. They tell you who someone is — not what they're about to do. And marketing that optimizes for identity instead of behavior misses the decision entirely.
Why People Don’t Fix Bad Decisions (And What It Means for Marketing)
People rarely correct decisions once they've started them. It's not irrational — it's predictable. And most marketing teams are optimizing for the wrong moment.
Most platforms assume that changing what you show will make something more relevant. Sometimes it does. But sometimes it interferes with something more important: recognition.
Let’s Talk Strategy.
I’m open to senior strategy roles, and occasionally take on consulting engagements where the brief is strategic, not executional.
Rebuilding Engagement Through Decision-Focused Communication
Industry
Community / Nonprofit
Focus
Behavioral Marketing Strategy
Core Problem
Engagement breakdown at the decision level
Approach
Decision-focused communication system redesign
Timeframe
3 months
Overview
Engagement Was Consistent. Participation Wasn’t.
The organization had consistent activity — but inconsistent participation. The issue wasn't effort. It was structure.
Communication, programming, and execution weren't designed to guide people toward action in the moment they encountered the message. My role was to diagnose where behavior was breaking down and rebuild the system around how people actually decide to participate — not how leadership assumed they did.
The Problem
People Weren’t Disengaged. They Were Unclear.
Engagement wasn't low because people weren't interested. It was low because the path to action was unclear. Communications were inconsistent across platforms. Messaging between services, events, and outreach wasn't aligned. Members didn't know what was happening, when, or why it mattered now.
People weren't disengaged from the organization. They were disengaged from what to do, when to do it, and why it mattered now.
What Changed
Four Behavioral Levers Applied Systematically.
1 — Unified Weekly Narrative. Each week operated as a coordinated system. Messaging aligned across services, events, and outreach — every channel reinforced the same "why now."
2 — Reinforced Decision Cycles Across Channels. Social → awareness. Email → clarity. Livestream → reinforcement. In-person → action.
Behavioral Lever: Trigger Timing vs. Intent
We shifted the primary email trigger to 35 minutes before the live engagement — aligning with the transition window when users move from passive routines into Sunday intentions. This drove a +23% increase in livestream viewership without increasing send volume.
3 — Friction Reduction in Participation. Every message was redesigned around a singular, clear next step.
4 — System-Based Execution. Repeatable workflows replaced one-offs. Volunteers worked inside defined roles.
Outcomes · 3 Months
Each Lift Mapped to a Specific Behavioral Lever.
+125%
Organic Social Engagement
Driven by unified narrative and clear channel roles
+20%
First-Time Participation
Tied to friction reduction and behavior-specific CTAs
+23%
Livestream Viewership
Directly linked to the 35-minute trigger timing shift
Key Insight
"Engagement doesn’t increase because you communicate more. It increases when people understand why acting now makes sense — and how to act immediately."
Your Persona Knows Who They Are. It Has No Idea What They’re About to Do.
Personas are built around identity. Job title, age range, values, lifestyle. They answer one question very well: who is this person?
They answer a different question very poorly: what are they about to do?
And that second question is the one that actually determines whether your campaign converts.
The Core Problem
Identity is stable. Behavior is contextual. The same person who ignores your email on Monday is your most responsive prospect on Thursday — not because they changed, but because their context did.
A persona doesn't capture that. It can't. It's a static snapshot of a dynamic system.
So when you build strategy around a persona, you're optimizing for who someone is. When you should be optimizing for the state someone is in.
What Behavioral Segmentation Does Instead
Instead of asking "who is our customer," behavioral strategy asks: what conditions have to exist for this person to act? And more importantly: which of those conditions can we create, time to, or remove friction from?
You segment by decision state, not demographic
You sequence messages around behavioral triggers, not calendar logic
You measure conversion conditions, not awareness metrics
You design for the moment of action, not the moment of exposure
The Reframe
Stop asking: who is our customer?
Start asking: what state is our customer in when they're most ready to act — and how do we build strategy around that state?
Personas answer “who.” Behavioral strategy answers “when, why, and what removes the barrier.”
Why People Don’t Fix Bad Decisions (And What It Means for Marketing)
I grabbed three drinks at Kroger. Not because I wanted three. Because I couldn’t find the one I was actually looking for. So I hedged — one safe option, one “maybe this works” option. Then, right before checkout, I saw the one I actually wanted. And grabbed it immediately.
This is a small example of a bigger pattern: people rarely correct decisions once they’ve started them.
The Mechanism
We like to think bad decisions come from bad thinking. They don’t. They come from timing. There are two phases happening in the brain:
Fast Action (System 1): intuitive, effortless, momentum-driven
People don’t optimize decisions. They continue them.
The Strategy Layer
1 — Reduce the Cognitive Cost of Continuing. Design environments where the next step is obvious, low-effort, and already aligned with the momentum they’re in.
2 — Introduce Decisions at the Peak of Momentum. The best time to ask for action is when someone is already acting.
3 — Design to Avoid Re-Evaluation. The biggest threat to conversion isn’t confusion — it’s pause. A pause triggers System 2. System 2 triggers reconsideration. Reconsideration triggers abandonment.
I was scrolling through my shows and couldn’t find Billions. Not because it wasn’t there. Because I was looking for it. I kept scanning past it. Paused. Scrolled back. Still missed it.
Until I realized what changed. The cover image. It didn’t change the show. It changed how I find it. And that’s the point.
This is where personalization breaks.
People don’t navigate interfaces by reading. They scan. They rely on familiar visuals, repeated patterns, and quick identification. When that visual anchor changes, the cost isn’t confusion. It’s friction.
The Strategic Takeaway
Separate the decision layer from the recognition layer.
Personalize where people are deciding: recommendations, offers, messaging
Stabilize where people are navigating: labels, structure, visual anchors
When you put discovery-layer content on a retrieval-layer surface, you don’t elevate the experience. You interrupt it.
Megan Oliver
Case Study · National Nonprofit / Public Health
Closing the Gap Between Awareness and Action
Industry
National Nonprofit / Public Health
Role
Social Media & Email Marketing Lead
Core Problem
Awareness not converting to behavior
Approach
Friction reduction at the decision level
Focus
Behavioral barrier diagnosis & messaging redesign
Overview
Awareness Was High. Behavior Wasn’t Changing.
Audiences were already exposed to the nutritional benefits of seafood. They knew it was good for them. But that awareness wasn't translating into consistent behavior at the moment of decision.
The gap wasn't informational. It was behavioral. My role was to diagnose the friction points preventing action and rebuild the messaging system around the actual conditions under which people decide what to eat.
Behavioral Diagnosis: Four Key Friction Points
Perceived cost — seafood felt less affordable. Limited exposure — low familiarity with different types. Low cooking confidence — uncertainty around preparation. Abstract benefits — nutrition messaging lacked personal relevance at the moment of choice.
Strategic Principle
“Awareness does not drive behavior. Reducing friction at the point of decision does.”
Outcomes
From Passive Exposure to Active Engagement.
5×
Click-Through Rate
Increased from 0.5% to 2.7%
+63%
Social Media Engagement
Driven by normalized, accessible content
Behavioral
Shift Achieved
Messaging moved from informative to actionable
Megan Oliver
Case Study · Early-Stage Growth / Day Zero
Creating Demand from Zero
Organization
The Write Lane
Role
Marketing Strategist (Day Zero)
Core Problem
No audience, no demand, no behavioral precedent
Approach
Community-driven behavioral momentum
Focus
Early-stage growth & client acquisition
Overview
The Challenge Wasn’t Low Conversion. It Was None.
At launch, The Write Lane had no audience, no client base, and no existing demand. The primary risk at this stage isn't low conversion. It's no behavior at all.
Three Zero-Stage Barriers
No familiarity or trust.No established reason to engage.No behavioral precedent — no social proof, no word of mouth, no pattern of participation to reference.
Strategic Principle
“Early-stage growth doesn’t come from optimizing conversion. It comes from making the first interaction easy enough to happen — and repeatable enough to grow.”
Outcomes
From No Demand to Operational Pressure.
0 → Waitlist
Client Growth
From no clients to a full waitlist
Hired
Additional Teachers
Required to meet demand created by the campaign
Acquired
Business Traction
Sufficient value established to support acquisition
Megan Oliver
Framework · Decision Environment
C.O.R.E A Behavioral Approach to Marketing Strategy
Type
Strategic Framework
Focus
Decision Environment Design
Application
Marketing Strategy
Core Shift
From audience profiles to decision moments
The Problem
Most Marketing Is Built Around Who Someone Is.
Demographics. Personas. Interests. Identity. That's useful — but it's incomplete. Because behavior doesn't happen at the level of identity. It happens in moments.
Core Shift
“What someone is experiencing when they encounter the message matters just as much as what the message says.”
The Five Decision Factors
Context — where they are, what they're doing, what just happened. Timing — whether the moment supports action or delay. Friction — how much effort sits between intent and action. Default paths — what is easiest or requires the least thought. Emotional state — what they're feeling in that moment.
Core Idea
“Knowing your audience isn’t enough. You have to understand what they’re standing in front of when they decide — and design around that.”
Megan Oliver
Framework · Behavioral Diagnosis
B.E.A.M A Behavioral Approach to Diagnosing Action
Type
Diagnostic Framework
Focus
Barrier Identification
Application
Behavioral Marketing
Core Shift
From better messaging to removing barriers
The Problem
When Behavior Isn’t Happening, We Fix the Wrong Thing.
When behavior isn't happening, the default response is to fix the message. But most of the time, the issue isn't the message. It's what's happening at the moment someone has to act.
Start Here
Begin with the actual behavior — not awareness, not engagement. The specific action: submit the form, book the appointment, click through, attend the event, complete the purchase. If that action isn't happening, something is blocking it.
Three Primary Barriers
What Gets in the Way.
Ability
The person can't act
Unclear next step, too much information, uncertainty, low confidence
Environment
The path isn't supported
Too many steps, poor timing, low visibility, unnecessary friction
