Farhan Khalid
Manager - Digital Development & Performance Marketing | Paid Search, Programmatic &
Social Media Advertising Pro | Google® Ads & Analytics™ Certified
App. # 412, 4th Floor, Imperial Building, Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO), Dubai
- |-LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/farhankhalid83/
Current position
MANAGER – DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT & PERFORMANCE MARKETING at
BIZFLARE TECH FZ LLC
October 2018 – till date | Dubai, United Arab Emirates
I am working with market leading tier one, two and three brands and businesses across different
industries in United Arab Emirates to gain and maintain competitive advantage in digital performance
and optimizing their digital customer experience.
I am responsible for digital strategy planning and then collaborating with the business, marketing and IT
stakeholders to execute world-class campaigns that drive performance in innovative and meaningful
ways. Helping them scaling their efforts in creating Online Brand Awareness also putting a strong focus
on customer acquisition – managing performance marketing channels e.g. Search Engines, Programmatic,
Social, Affiliate, Emailer and other various channels.
I setup and execute more personalized, targeted marketing campaigns across channels, thereby delivering
more relevant content for customers and using industry's best powerful tools for tracking, attribution and
targeting that enhances efficiency and improve ROI of my performance marketing efforts.
Professional Profile
Creative Digital Marketing Manager with over 11 years’ experience driving revenue gains and brand
awareness through intelligent use of search engine & social media. Identifies and evaluates new digital
technologies and uses Web analytics tools to measure digital traffic to better optimize marketing
campaigns, email marketing, social media, programmatic and search advertising.
☞ Holds Masters Degree in Business Administration (MBA) with majors in E-Commerce Marketing and
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering.
☞ Have done 7 different Certifications of Google® and Digital Marketing.
☞ Have worked with leading Brands and Organizations in UAE like GEMS EDUCATION. Developed &
Executed Digital Strategy and Implemented processes to improve online performance, applied latest
techniques and driven effective 'best in class' paid Google Search and Social Media campaigns for various
schools of GEMS EDUCATION.
Achievements: transformed my last Digital Agency into Google® Advertising Partner with 100% client
satisfaction. Earned the Google® Certified Ads Professional status for that company. Managing team of 18
and $2M monthly advertising budget
I offer the right combination of qualifications, experience, knowledge and personal attributes to effectively
lead e-business strategies and digital marketing goals of an organization.
Areas of expertise include:
360 Digital Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Website Conversion Optimization
Strategic Planning
Email Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Budget Management
Client Communication
Team Building / Training
E-commerce Operations
Certifications
Google Adwords™ Certified Professional
Google Analytics™ Qualified Individual
Issuing Authority: Google®
Issuing Authority: Google®
Google® Advertising Partner | since 2014
Google® Search Advertising Certification
Issuing Authority: Google®
Issuing Authority: Google®, 91% Marks
Google® Advertising Fundamentals Certification
Bing™ Ads Accredited Professional | 2014 - 15
Issuing Authority: Google®, 96% Marks
Issuing Authority: Bing™ AdCenter
Digital Sales Certification
Google Adwords™ Mobile Certification
Issuing Authority: Google®,
Issuing Authority: Google®
TECHNICAL SKILLS
Operating Systems:
Microsoft Windows (7, 8.1, 10), Microsoft Windows Server, Linux (Ubuntu),
Linux (CentOS), Mac.
Digital/Internet Advertising: Google Adwords®, Facebook® Ads Manager, LinkedIn® Ads, Bing/Yahoo
AdCenter®, Twitter® Ads, Google Merchant® Centre, Amazon® Seller Central, Wordstream®, Ad Roll®,
Facebook® Business Centre, Google® Adwords Editor, Facebook® Power Editor.
Web Analytics:
Google® Analytics, Google® Webmaster, Google® Trends, Google® Insights, Google® Keyword Planner,
Google® Display Planner, Visual Website Optimizer (VWO), Optimizely®, Hotjar®.
Content Management Systems (CMS):
Wordpress®, Shopify®, Woocommerce®, Magento®, Drupal, Joomla, LeadPages®, Unbounce®,
ClickFunnel®.
Email Marketing:
MailChimp®, SalesForce.com, ConstantContact®, Responsys®.
Project Management:
Redbooth®, BaseCamp®, Asana®, TeamWork®, Toggle®, Trello®.
Software:
Microsoft® Office (MS Word, MS Excel, MS Power Point).
Career history
GEMS EDUCATION – CORPORATE OFFICE
Manager – Digital Performance ◆ Digital Marketing Strategist & Performance Analyst
October 2016 – February 2018 (1 year 4 months) | Dubai, United Arab Emirates
I looked after Digital Marketing strategy and performance of Paid Advertisement for all schools of GEMS
EDUCATION (UAE’s leading Education Company with more than 50 schools across United Arab Emirates).
I planned and execute digital (including external emailer) marketing campaigns across different platforms
like Facebook, Google, Instagram, MPUs (on different websites), Programmatic and Google Display
Banner campaigns for both Lead Generation and Brand Awareness. And then measured and report
performance of all digital campaigns, and assess against goals (ROI and KPIs).
I have worked closely with Marketing Managers, Schools and Enrolment’s team to develop strategies for
paid Digital campaigns of various schools and then on-going work to optimize online results and improve
ROI.
Core Responsibilities Include:
•
Developing yearly Digital Marketing strategy for each school of GEMS EDUCATION, which includes
Digital Marketing budget, Media Plans (what to spend and where to spend), finalize platforms to
use for paid advertisement and performance forecasting.
•
Measuring and reporting paid digital campaigns performance and ROI from each platform. Define
UTM parameters to track results in Salesforce CRM and then take decisions based on results.
•
Identifying trends and insights, and optimizing spend and performance by introducing new Digital
platforms and new creative ad types to generate more leads and traffic for brand awareness.
•
Collaborating with internal teams to create landing pages, creative ad designing and copy writing
for paid digital campaigns (Google, Facebook, External Emailers etc).
•
Collaborating with agencies and other vendor partners for Programmatic campaigns of various
schools.
•
Serving as a primary contact point for external vendors responsible for Digital Advertising on
different platforms like Programmatic, Google Facebook and External databases for emailers.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Developed and Implemented processes to improve online performance, applied latest
techniques and driven effective 'best in class' paid search campaigns for various schools of GEMS
EDUCATION.
I achieved all the KPIs and earned a handsome performance bonus and appreciation from senior
management in the very first year of my job.
GOFLARE™ - WE COLLECT | We CONNECT | We CONVERT
Digital Marketing Manager ◆ Google Search & Social Media Marketing Strategist
April 2011 – June 2016 (5 years 3 months) | Islamabad, Pakistan
Developed and implemented processes to improve performance, applied latest techniques and drove
revenue gains for client’s digital campaigns. Worked directly with clients to manage their B2B and B2C
marketing plans, developing strategies to optimize results and improve ROI.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Transformed company into Google® Advertising Partner with 100% client
satisfaction. Earned the Google® Certified Ads Professional status for company. Managed team of 12 and
$0.5M annual advertising budget.
•
Introduced clients to social media marketing as a means to develop leads other than branding.
Implemented comprehensive social media strategy to boost traffic to corporate clients websites
by over 30% and generated monthly revenue of $12000 at a cost of nothing from social media
advertising.
•
Implemented Facebook Lead Ads and developed fan pages of clients and persuaded clients to
move money from Yellow Pages advertising to fund Facebook Ads.
•
Implemented and managed $2M advertising on Google Search Advertising, Google Display Banner
Ads and Google Merchant Centre for different clients on company.
•
Generated $200k in additional projects by acquiring new clients with the help of amazing success
storied of current clients.
•
Upgraded team, training of digital marketing team as per new trends and techniques to improve
performance on campaigns and projects.
•
Increased lead generation 79% with 90 days, with 67% improvement in conversion rate, by
developing optimized landing pages and Google Ads strategy for Ticketing & Travelling company
based in United Kingdom.
•
Improved client service and project management by introducing in-house project management
systems like Redbooth®, Toggle® and Trello®. Increased company revenue by acquiring more
customers by effectively manage the workload with the help of these in-house systems.
•
Worked on ‘Lead Generation’, ‘E-commerce Stores’, ‘Online/Offline Services’ projects and worked
on 75+ business niches including: Doctors, Weight loss, Furniture Stores, Travel & Tourism, Real
Estate, Cosmetics, Colleges, Insurance (Health, Life, Auto), Shipping, Packers & Movers,
Pharmaceutical, Hotels Restaurants, Software, Marketing Agencies, Home Décor, Plumbers, AC
Installation & Repair, Heating & Cooling Products, Lawyers and many others.
CYBER DESGINZ™ - A PROJECT OF KNOWLEDGE BPO
Search Engine Marketing Analyst ◆ Social Media & Google Adwords® Campaigns Manager
September 2009 – March 2011 (1 Year 7 months) | Islamabad, Pakistan
Recruited as first Paid Advertising Marketing Professional for the company whose only prior marketing
had been Search Engine Optimization and Call Centre. Challenged to setup Paid Digital Advertising team,
upgrade the team and re-train employees on paid advertising platforms.
•
Introduced new landing page designing and setup tools to quickly setup the conversion optimized
landing pages and cut annual development cost 35% in the 6 months. Trained the
developers/programmers on tools like LeadPages®, Unbounce® and ClickFunnel®.
•
Drove 20-fold increase in unique visitors in the first quarter on company’s website by redesigning landing pages, setting up Google campaigns and implementing paid advertising strategy
on different services offered by company.
•
Launched paid campaigns in just 2 months for different services offered on the website,
generating $4000 in revenue on 3rd month by acquiring new clients from paid ads.
•
Worked with clients & team to implement new marketing strategies (Sales Oriented, Traffic
Oriented, SERPs Oriented) for running Projects.
BIZEXCEL™ - Excel Your Business Profitability
Google Adwords® PPC Expert ◆ Website Conversion Optimizer
September 2008 – August 2009 (1 Year) | Islamabad, Pakistan
•
Pay-Per-Click Competitors Analysis, Keywords Analysis & Ad-Copy Analysis for different clients of
the company.
•
Creation of Campaigns, Setup of Keywords and Ad-Copies in Google Adwords®.
•
Management & Optimization of Campaigns to make sure that campaigns remain in defined budget
and get maximum clicks.
•
Wrote project proposals to acquire new clients for Digital Marketing and designed/conducted
training sessions for the business development team to communicate with clients to convince
them for Digital Marketing for their product and services.
DIGITAL RESEARCH LABS™ Pvt (Ltd)
Implementation Team Lead
February 2005 – March 2008 (3 Year 2 months) | Islamabad, Pakistan
Team Lead of the implementation team for the implementation of ERP an Enterprise Product named
SIMAP (Surgical Instruments Manufacturers Association of Pakistan) based on Nine Modules for the
Surgical Sector of Pakistan.
•
Developed the implementation plan and change management plan for deployment of ERP (SIMAP)
in surgical industry of Pakistan.
•
Frequent visits to the clients for customer support of the ERP (SIMAP).
•
Wrote user manual and design/conducted the training sessions of End User for ERP (SIMAP).
•
Provided technical support to ERP users and technical consulting to developers and end users to
increase the efficiency of ERP.
•
Involved in Business Process Re-Engineering of two biggest surgical units of Pakistan for
implementation of ERP (SIMAP).
EDUCATION
Master of Business Administration (MBA) – Major: Marketing
Virtual University of Pakistan | 2009 - 2011
Cumulative GPA 3.1 out of 4.0
I completed my MBA Degree (with major in Marketing) and learned general business and marketing techniques that i
can apply to nearly any industry. I studied Leadership, Business, Management and Marketing philosophies that can be
applied to almost any leadership role.
The most important things that i discovered in my MBA degree are:•
•
•
•
•
I learned how stop and reflect on some big B2B and B2C marketing issues.
I learned how to think about the global economy and not just your little world where you used to work.
I learned about managing people.
I learned what businesses do in marketing & branding to make money and grow.
I learned how to get involved in strategy and in planning the future of an organization.
Bachelor of Computer Engineering (BCE) – Major: Computer Architecture
Bahria University, Pakistan | 2001 - 2005
Cumulative GPA 3.2 out of 4.0
This degree provided me a Graduate level education in Basic Computer Architecture & Design with an emphasize on
Web Programming, Algorithms, Networks, Chip Designing and Electronics.
