Website Planet had the opportunity to speak with Arham Khan, Co-Founder of Pixated, a performance marketing Pixated with a proven track record for scaling up some of the most exciting brands (we’re talking Heinz, FIFA, The Telegraph, BBC, Adecco and more).
Arham Khan is a certified Google and Facebook ads performance marketing specialist with extensive B2B and B2C experience.
This interview is a must read for anyone looking to learn how a successful agency solves the common pain points faced by their clients, what skills and tools are essential to their success, and how they plan to make their growth sustainable.
Let’s introduce Pixated to our audience. What services do you offer?
We’re a web design and performance marketing company who love helping ambitious brands build scalable and sustainable growth. Our offerings are continually evolving and expanding, and we now provide no fewer than six distinct services:
- Facebook ads
- PPC
- web design
- branding
- video production
- email marketing.
What inspired you to start your own company, and how did you overcome the challenges you faced in the early days?
My business partner and I used to contract for big companies. He’s a web designer and I’m a performance marketer, and when these companies would bring in agencies only to disappoint time and again, they’d turn to us and say, “Do you know a web designer who actually delivers?”, “Do you know a performance marketer who actually follows through on their promises?”
Well yes, we did—we knew each other! In 2018 we set up our own agency, and things have moved at a crazy pace ever since!
In the early days as a startup it was tough to get clients on board, but through word of mouth our agency’s reputation grew fast. Our list of clients became longer and ever more prestigious, and quickly included some household names. This was a challenge in itself, because their campaigns were some of the most pressurizing we’d ever worked on!
How does your mission differ from other agencies in your niche?
Our passion shines through — and our prospects see it the very first time we pitch. They see it in our eyes: we truly care about getting their brands the results and recognition they deserve, and as quickly, profitably, and sustainably as possible.
What industries do you typically work with, and what are the common pain points your clients have when they come to you?
Our B2B clients span the legal, finance, SaaS and accounting industries, and we have experience across numerous other sectors, too. As for B2C, we know no bounds!—we’ve worked in food, beauty, newspapers, you name it. And our results speak for themselves. But no matter their industry, we see common themes in our clients’ pain points: struggles with growth, ROAS, conversions, customer retention—and these problems are growing only more complex and intense, not even from one year to the next, but from one
month to the next.
And what makes them eventually choose you over your competitors?
We are utterly performance-driven:
we focus only on the metrics that actually improve our clients’ bottom lines. Our campaigns are geared toward CPA, ROAS and conversions—no vanity metrics here. And more fundamentally, our clients trust us because they see from how we present ourselves that we love what we do, and that we only take on those we truly believe we can help. That approach is embedded in our pricing model itself: we don’t get paid unless we deliver results. It doesn’t get more ‘walking the walk’ than that!
What tools are most helpful in managing your business, and how do you benefit from them?
We simply couldn’t function with Slack and Google Analytics! As a fully remote team, Slack plays a vital role in keeping us connected both internally and with our clients. As for Google Analytics, its data visualizations are vital as we strive to optimize our clients’ marketing campaigns, improve their bounce rates, and segment their customers in ways that deliver tangible and long-lasting value.
Where do you go to hire new people, and what are the most important skills you look for?
We favor Reed, Indeed and LinkedIn. The skills we look for often center around the fact that these days we’re fully remote. For example, we home in on candidates who display superlative communication skills, which are especially essential now we’re all working toward tight deadlines without being in the same physical workspace. For this reason, we also prioritize applicants who are strong team players. We’re a collective at Pixated—the lack of ego is one of our most potent weapons.
What challenges and opportunities do you see in the future of your industry, and how do you plan to cope?
The biggest challenge I see on the horizon is the sheer level of competition in our clients’ respective industries—and in our own, of course! Sometimes it feels like even when we’re winning on one channel we’re being outperformed on another. Without exception, every search and social platform has become incomparably tougher than even just five years ago—and they’re getting only more saturated.
That being said, we’re ready to go with a whole host of strategies, including intensive analyses of our biggest competitors, courtesy of our in-house data specialists who are truly some of the finest in their field. And our dogged determination is perennially supported by our morale: as an agency we’re proud to be always learning, always teaching one another, and always going the extra mile for clients to ensure they’re happy and in the loop every step of the way.
