Mateusz Kardas - Marketing Strategy

Who I help

You're the founder or marketing lead of a scaling business

Smart, ambitious, and surrounded by activity that isn't moving the needle fast enough. You don't need more effort. You need sharper thinking.

📈

Founders of scaling businesses

with a small marketing team. Revenue is growing but has hit a ceiling, and you suspect the strategy (not the effort) is the problem.

Trigger

You've just had another monthly review where the numbers look busy but growth is flat. Again.

Where to start

🎯

Marketing managers at mid-sized companies

who are across the execution but lack the senior strategic layer. You need a thinking partner, not another pair of hands.

Trigger

You've been asked by the CEO to present a growth strategy and you know the current plan isn't going to cut it.

Where to start

💸

Business owners spending $6k+ per month

on an agency but unsure if you're getting real results or just polished reports. Not confident enough in the numbers to push back.

Trigger

You've just sat through another WIP where everything looks fine on slides but your gut tells you something is off.

Where to start

About me

The gap between strategy and execution is what I fix

I started as a performance analyst at a global media network, then spent time mapping customer journeys for the Australian government. At Good Pair Days we doubled revenue in Australia and launched in the UK in under six months, not by spending more, but by being ruthless about what was actually working.

Leading a team of 20 at a digital agency, I watched the same pattern repeat with client after client. Budgets going into platform optimisations and creative tests because those things are visible. The harder work of figuring out who you're talking to, what you're offering and why it matters kept getting pushed aside.

That gap is what I fix. I help mid-sized businesses that have hit a growth ceiling build the strategy that answers who, what and why. Because until that's clear, everything else is just expensive noise.

✦ Credentials

My thinking is grounded in both sides of the equation. A degree in marketing and finance, a graduate diploma in psychology, and further study under Mark Ritson, Scott Galloway and Matt Johnson PhD. I don't just know how platforms work. I know why people make decisions.

That combination matters in practice. I have run campaigns for adidas across four European markets and helped scale a start-up in a new market from in six months. Big budget rigour and lean startup scrappiness are not opposites. They are two ways of solving the same problem: finding the 20% of activity that drives 80% of the result and having the discipline to focus there.

Most marketing problems are not resource problems. They are clarity problems. The academic grounding helps me find the human truth. The commercial experience keeps me honest about what actually moves the needle.

How I work

I start upstream, where the real leverage is

Most consultants fix the execution. I start upstream, tightening your positioning until it's sharp enough to defend, then making sure every paid channel and creative decision flows from that single source of truth.

Diagnose

Before any strategy, I take the lay of the land. Qualitative and quantitative research, environmental scanning of public data, and a clear picture of where the real blockage sits.

Design

Not every problem needs the same tool. Based on the diagnosis I select the right combination from the toolkit, whether that's brand positioning, paid media restructure, creative strategy or team alignment.

Decide

Every recommendation is grounded in marketing science. But science tells you what's true, not what to do next. That's where a decade of experience across start-ups, global brands and agencies comes in — to turn the evidence into a plan your team can actually execute.

The work itself

Six ways in. One direction.

Every engagement starts with a clear problem and ends with something you can act on. These are the formats I work in — pick the one that fits where you are right now.

Work that moved the needle

From brief to outcome

A selection of brands I have worked with and what we built together.

Global brand

adidas

Planned the Deerupt re-launch across four European markets, coordinating teams in London, Amsterdam and Warsaw. End-to-end media execution across paid search, social, video, programmatic and OOH.

4 markets · Full-funnel

Insurance · Client-side

Budget Direct

Managed paid social, video and programmatic for one of Australia's largest insurance brands. Created a global-first dynamic display product and a national-first hyper-targeted YouTube pre-roll campaign, both in collaboration with Google.

Global first · National first

Start-up · eComm

Good Pair Days

Led paid media, creative briefs, eDM flows and paid partnerships. Contributed to doubling revenue in Australia and launching into the UK market in under six months.

2× revenue · UK launch <6 months

Global spirits

Johnnie Walker

Managed paid social campaigns in Poland, handling end-to-end execution, audience targeting and performance optimisation.

Paid social

FMCG · Family brand

Beerenberg

Digital media planning and execution across Google, Meta, Digital OOH and BVOD, alongside a strategic workshop to identify an untapped audience segment and reposition the brand to win them over.

Audience strategy · Repositioning · Google · Meta · BVOD

Retail · Home

Pillow Talk

Strategic review of brand positioning, analysis of market research and reframing of perception issues that were directly impacting paid media performance.

Brand strategy · Paid performance

Craft beer · FMCG

Stone & Wood

Paid media workshops, netnography research into beer brand perception, and paid media strategy tailored to state-level qualitative brand research findings.

Netnography · State-level strategy

Higher education

University of Queensland

Responsible for all digital media spend, agency relationships and building an in-house performance team from scratch. Improved media buying efficiencies across paid search, audio, video and social.

In-house team build · Full channel

Fashion · eComm

Nude Lucy

Creative review and analysis to align paid media execution with brand positioning, followed by a growth workshop to identify and action the highest-leverage opportunities.

Creative alignment · Growth workshop

Logistics & eComm

SEKO & Latex Mattress Australia

End-to-end management of paid platforms across Meta, Google and LinkedIn, driving performance through strategic targeting and ongoing optimisation.

Meta · Google · LinkedIn

Start-up · Subscription

Lucent Globe

Workshop to better understand target audience through consumer psychology and consumer behaviour.

Consumer psychology · Revenue unlock

Fine jewellery · Retail

TMC Fine Jewellers

Growth and creative workshops followed by a full repositioning built on the gap between how the brand was perceived in-market and how it saw itself internally. Included netnography of the jewellery category, identification of category-specific growth levers, changes to communication strategy, staff training, and a brand identity distinctly its own in a crowded vertical.

Repositioning · Netnography · Brand identity · Staff training

What brands say

Results that speak for themselves

Briony Roberts

Marketing Manager, Beerenberg

Digital media · Strategy · Repositioning

"Mateusz has a rare ability to respectfully challenge us to try new things and think in different ways, without ever losing sight of what actually matters for the brand."

Alex Anderson

Head of Marketing, Good Pair Days

Paid media · Growth · Consumer strategy

"I had the pleasure of working alongside Mateusz on the marketing team for a couple years, and he's one of those people who genuinely raises the standard around him."

Tom Walenkamp

Co-Founder & CEO, Good Pair Days

Performance · Leadership · Team

"Mateusz is hands down one of the best performance marketers I've worked with. Plus lots of fun to have on the team."

Gemma Bugg

ANZ Agency Partnerships, Tracksuit

Brand · Performance · Strategy

"Mateusz is genuinely one of the sharpest strategic thinkers I know. He has this rare ability to help you think bigger, and I have thoroughly enjoyed partnering with him."

Jess O'Connor

Paid Media Specialist, Virgin Australia

Leadership · Strategy · Team development

"I had the pleasure of working with Mateusz for four years at Alpha and reported directly to him for two of those. He is a driven, strategic, and fair leader who consistently challenges his team to think more deeply."

Courtney Wilkinson

Senior Performance & Analytics Manager, JUCY

Leadership · Mentorship · Brand & performance

"I had the privilege of working under MK when he led our paid media team, and he played a meaningful role in shaping my development as a marketer."

Chris Radloff

Head of Performance Creative, Lucent Globe

Consumer psychology · Paid acquisition · Retention

"Mateusz is thorough and an expert in all things consumer psychology."

Marketing strategy that works — even with a small team

You're the founder or marketing lead of a scaling business

Founders of scaling businesses

Marketing managers at mid-sized companies

Business owners spending $6k+ per month

The gap between strategy and execution is what I fix

✦ Credentials

I start upstream, where the real leverage is

Diagnose

Design

Decide

Six ways in. One direction.

From brief to outcome

adidas

Budget Direct

Good Pair Days

Johnnie Walker

Beerenberg

Pillow Talk

Stone & Wood

University of Queensland

Nude Lucy

SEKO & Latex Mattress Australia

Lucent Globe

TMC Fine Jewellers

Results that speak for themselves

Ready to find out what's actually blocking your growth?