Hi, I'm Ekaterina
It started with chandeliers. My first marketing job was selling my father's luxury chandeliers online, which taught me the thing I still do every day: find the specific person who wants an expensive, specific thing, and put it in front of them before they go looking somewhere else.
Where it started
Before any of this I did a master's degree in pedagogy and Russian language in Moscow. Teaching, in other words. It sounds like an odd road into advertising until you notice that both jobs are the same job: explain one thing clearly to somebody who was not looking for it.
Then my father needed his chandelier business found online, and I learned Google Ads and search the way you learn anything properly, with somebody else's money on the line and a product that does not sell itself. That was more than eight years ago.
Belgium
I moved to Belgium and went deep. Intensive courses and training under one of the country's leading digital marketing freelancers, then client work across a spread of industries rather than a single niche. That breadth is the useful part. The mechanics of an auction do not change between a retailer and a clinic, but what counts as a good lead changes completely, and having seen both makes the second question easier to answer.
Now, from Brisbane
Today I run performance marketing for clients around the world, in retail, ecommerce and service businesses, from Brisbane. Google Ads and Meta are the core of it. Around that I build websites and landing pages that do not waste the click, and I do the newer work on getting businesses found and quoted by AI assistants, which is where a lot of buying questions are heading.
On the side, I still tutor Russian as a hobby. It keeps the teaching muscle working, and it means I will explain your account to you until it makes sense, not until the meeting ends.
How I work
- The review firstRead access, then a plain-language note on what is working, what is wasting money, and what I would do first. Sometimes that ends the conversation, which is the point of doing it before anything is quoted.
- One number, agreed up frontA fixed monthly fee for the scope, before I touch anything. Not a percentage of spend.
- Tracking before tuningNothing gets optimised against numbers I do not trust. That is the least exciting week and the most important one.
- One note a monthWhat changed, what it did, what happens next. Written so you can forward it to a business partner without translating it.
What I will not do
- Charge a percentage of your ad spend. It would pay me to spend more of your money, which is the wrong thing to pay me for.
- Hold your accounts hostage. Everything is built in accounts you own, with your name on the logins. Leave any time, and take the history with you.
- Promise a ranking or a return. Nobody can, and the ones who do are counting on you not checking. What you get is attention, honest reporting, and being told early when something is not working.
- Take the budget for a channel I do not think will work for you. I will say so and point you at what will.
Working with one person
Is The Growth Desk a one person business?
Yes, on purpose. You speak to the person who opens your account. It also means I take a limited number of clients at a time, and I will say no when the fit is wrong.
What happens when you are on leave?
Campaigns keep running, they do not depend on somebody being at a desk. For anything urgent there is a number. For planned leave you get told in advance and the account gets left in a stable state rather than mid-experiment.
Why not go with a bigger agency?
A bigger agency is the right fit for a business that needs many disciplines at once. What it is worse at is the thing most small and mid-size advertisers actually need, which is one experienced person paying close attention. You are choosing between depth of attention and breadth of service.
Do you still teach Russian?
As a hobby, yes, and I enjoy it. It is not what The Growth Desk does, but it is a fair warning that I will explain things until they are clear.
Have a look at what you are running
Send access or a screenshot of the last ninety days and you get an honest read on it, whether or not it turns into work.
8am to 5pm AEST, Monday to Friday. I answer the phone myself, and if I am in the middle of something I ring back the same day.
- 01Send
Read access to the account, or screenshots of the last ninety days.
- 02I read it
And write back in plain language: what is working, what is wasting money, what I would do first.
- 03You decide
No pitch deck, no follow-up sequence. If the account is fine, I tell you that and we are done.