Paid search, paid social and programmatic across eleven markets and four languages — including one client running 400+ of its own Google Ads accounts. I started inside Google's own AdWords operation.
Each belongs to a different client. I'll walk through any of them in a conversation.
Where a full monthly export exists — the powersports and the Meta accounts — the chart is that series. Elsewhere the start and the end are measured and the line shows the shape of the change between them.
Open any one for the detail. Charts are plotted from the monthly account data; clients are unnamed where the engagement is covered by confidentiality.
More than 400 individual Google Ads accounts — one per property — structured into seven US regions, with monthly spend scaling from roughly $0.75M to $1.34M over eighteen months. Performance Max, Demand Gen, Shopping and Meta Advantage+, with the pacing governance and alerting that make a portfolio that size genuinely manageable.
Owned paid search for a global commercial real estate firm across thirteen European markets, working in local languages and currencies with market-level budget and performance governance.
Took a US footwear retailer from 2.5x to 6x return on ad spend through feed work, account restructure, bid strategy and audience segmentation, delivering the strongest peak trading period the client had recorded.
Over eighteen months this account spent 19% less and returned 28% more conversions, with cost per acquisition down 37% and return on ad spend climbing from 6.7x to 13.2x. No extra budget — structure, bidding and feed discipline.
Spend grew 18% while cost per acquisition fell 42% and conversions rose 106%. The usual trade-off is that scale costs you efficiency; here it didn't.
Two direct-to-consumer apparel accounts taken from setup to steady state on Meta — audience architecture, prospecting and retargeting structure, creative testing cadence and weekly pacing. Across seven months the two returned 3,400+ purchases at a £5.24 cost per purchase and a 3.7x blended return.
Paid search for the personal care vertical of a global consumer-electronics brand across Western Europe, working alongside the client's in-house team. Search integrated with SEO through shared term clusters, SERP coverage and negative keyword governance. Non-brand impression share moved from 30% to 75% across the engagement.
Three and a half of them on-site inside Google's own AdWords operation, which is where the habit of defending a number came from.
Built the white-label services line from zero — pricing, commercial terms and the delivery operating model — while owning Optmyzr's own paid acquisition.
My first extended break in ten years, taken deliberately before choosing what came next.
Point of contact for EMEA and North America. A commercial real estate client across 13 markets, a multifamily operator's 400+ accounts, and a footwear retailer's turnaround — paid search, Shopping, Performance Max and Meta Advantage+. Led twelve people.
Led paid search and paid social for a global consumer-electronics brand across Western Europe, integrating search with SEO and running Meta alongside it.
Scaled a Nordic agency portfolio from 1 to 8 client accounts in three months across Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta and SA360 — sports, fashion, homeware and financial services.
Meta, DV360 display, video and YouTube buying, plus end-to-end CM360 trafficking and reconciliation.
Meta Ads for three SMB e-commerce clients: pixel, audiences, creative testing, weekly pacing.
A short tenure between agency roles.
On-site inside Google's AdWords operation. Subject matter expert mentoring a pod of 15.
Pay-per-click campaigns across Google Search and Display. Best Associate across multiple months.
Most performance marketers optimise what already exists. A good share of my work has been building the thing that didn't exist yet.
Built a white-label services function inside a SaaS company from scratch: the proposition, pricing architecture and tiering, commercial terms, a 21-page onboarding SOP with a delivery playbook, SLA card and escalation matrix, and a qualified inbound pipeline.
Run a SaaS company's entire paid acquisition: thirteen Google Ads campaigns across English, Spanish, German and French, plus Meta prospecting, AdRoll retargeting and LinkedIn account-based marketing.
Build agent-driven workflows over live ad data using Claude and MCP, and chain them into the wider stack through Zapier and HubSpot. Five Rule Engine strategies with rebuilt KPI alerting into Slack replace manual search-query review with automated negation and monitoring.
Run Microsoft Ads and Google Ads audits across European advertisers in EUR, GBP and DKK — German, French, Dutch, Danish, UK and Swiss accounts — turning a manual review into a structured, repeatable, client-ready output.
When a native Google tag would not fire reliably outside the debugger, implemented a direct GA4 Measurement Protocol fallback through GTM, resolving lead tracking that had been silently broken in production.
Led and mentored a twelve-person team across regions. SOPs, QA governance, escalation matrices, client onboarding, WBR and QBR reviews, and the documentation that makes delivery repeatable rather than heroic.
Fourteen recommendations on LinkedIn, all written unprompted. Six of them here — a client, a direct report, and the people I reported to.
“Balaji consistently goes above and beyond to ensure success of the campaign. His data-driven approach and openness to exploring new ideas let us make informed decisions.”
“His presence on one of my largest clients helped solidify the operation and drive industry-leading performance.”
“I strongly recommend him for any role that needs a true owner to guide the client or team to a better future state.”
“Balaji has the unique ability to navigate the most complex client challenges, and portray himself as an authority figure while being extremely personable.”
“One of the most driven and insightful professionals in the digital marketing space. Deep expertise in paid search, combined with a genuine passion for performance.”
“One of the best managers I've ever worked with. Equally skilled at solving technical challenges, handling client interactions, and mentoring team members.”
The roles I'm looking for
Targeting Dubai and Europe. Happy to walk through any number on this page in as much detail as you want.