Context
Nordic Oil is a CBD brand active in 10 European markets and in the US; the Danish market had been flat for years.
In 2024, after relaunching the CBD Sleep Drops with Melatonin, we built a strong, in-house paid media engine run by me with two colleagues. The goal was to scale Denmark and grow it to be Nordic Oil’s biggest market. In 2025, regulatory changes overnight forbade EU approved marketing claims and removed one of our best selling paid media products from sale entirely. Paid media performance was deeply affected, but strong retention and the newsletter allowed us to stabilize the market.
Role and Scope
As CMO, I built and owned the channel strategy, team structure, and creative strategy.With a small team and high demand, scaling required doing rather than delegating, I therefore also owned part of the hands-on execution across paid media as well as A/B tests on the webshop to improve conversion rate.
Strategy
We built trust with a mix of scientifically backed content, UGC, and content produced in-house featuring the team, publishing a demanding weekly cadence of new creative that let us test aggressively and double down on what converted. Video introduced the product to cold audiences, while statics closed the sale further down the funnel.
Once Denmark proved itself as a promising market, we invested in expanding the sleep offering with a new product, the Chill Gummies for after work relaxation, and accessories including a sleep mask and nose dilators, to simplify cross selling, repeat purchase and lift average order value.
When the 2025 regulatory change made it impossible to promote product benefits or sell the Chill Gummies, we rebuilt our content to keep the Sleep Drops campaign compelling without claims, shifted focus to retention, and laid the groundwork for a subscription model, which launched in 2026.
Outcome and Impact
Built the paid-acquisition engine that took the market from flat to its strongest year on record, then led the compliance-driven rebuild that held revenue within 5% of the prior year despite losing the ability to make any product claims, while marketing efficiency recovered and customer loyalty reached a three-year high.
+89%
YoY revenue in 2024
7.7 : 1
LTV : CAC in 2024
60%
returning-customer share
(no subscription model)