Andrea Atzori

Andrea Atzori

Co-founder & Director

Leading the team is co-founder and director Andrea Atzori. It’s fair to say that Ambire is a little like one of his children, and he is proud to watch it go from strength to strength and consistently deliver impeccable service and results to clients.

He has over 20 years of experience working in the digital marketing industry and has managed campaigns for globally recognised brands like Nike, PlayStation and Virgin.

After graduating from university, he worked in the travel industry where he was really first exposed to digital as a web-designer. These days, he wishes he understood what he does know about the huge potential of SEO and digital marketing more generally.

He does joke that if he’d understood the goldmine that SEO truly was, then he’d be a millionaire by now.

Then, he moved to the big smoke of London and, although he remained client-side, he was extensively involved in most aspects of digital marketing campaigns – especially Paid Media and PPC.

The jump to agency-side happened in 2007 when he joined Steak Digital, one of the hottest digital marketing agencies in the word at the time. Life was hectic, work was fast-paced, Google AdWords was still in its infancy and the concept of work-life balance was but a far off dream.

Nevertheless, he thrived in such an environment and was later made Account Director at OMD International where he worked with major clients like PlayStation and Infiniti. Here, he became adept at running Paid Media campaigns across a variety of channels including the big guys Google and Microsoft. He was also heavily invested in analytics, email marketing, SEO and social media.

In 2011, he made the big move across the world to Australia where he joined what was then AtomicSearch as their Head of Search. He continued to deepen and expand his knowledge of all things digital marketing during his five years at the agency. He is also very proud of having worked on clients such as AMP, Interflora and nib as well as Nike Australia and Origin Energy.

However, as all good things must come to an end, he moved to iProspect where he had the realisation that he wasn’t cut out for office politics and bureaucratic red tape.

It was this desire to cut back on management and hierarchies in the office and really get back to basics that led to the birth of Ambire in 2017.

Today, Andrea is going to give us a little bit of insight into who he is, and what he does when he’s not working (if that ever were to occur).

Meet the team: Fast-fire round with Andrea Atzori

Ambire comes from the Italian word for ambition, so tell us, what does ambition mean to you?

Ambition for me has always been about the notion of pushing myself to achieve more than I thought possible. It’s the thing that gets me up at 4am every morning and into the office before anyone else (and usually the last to leave). Ambition is what keeps me in front of a tricky campaign for hours, working out the holes in the strategy or keeping tabs on competitors. Ambition is that key ingredient that makes hard work worth it.

What’s been a career highlight along the way?

A career highlight would definitely be starting my own company, Ambire, and putting my heart and soul into it every single day. Sure, it’s not quite as glamorous as the agencies were back in their heyday, and there does seem to be a lot of blood, sweat and tears, but I’m really proud of myself to have taken the leap of faith and of the team for signing up to this crazy ride.

What’s your favourite part about your day-to-day?

Definitely client strategy meetings. Now, I won’t say that meetings are always incredible – after all, we’ve all been in those sessions that seem to drag on for hours (I’m looking at you Google), but getting together and listening to clients’ pain points as well as successes, and figuring out how to help them, reminds me why we are doing all of this.

What’s something you don’t want to be doing this time next year?

Anything to do with having to write! It’s my least favourite part of the job – keyword research, ad copy, all of it! I think I need to get better at delegating that to the rest of the team.

What career did you see yourself in when you were growing up?

When I was a kid I actually had zero interest in technology, instead, I was fascinated with ocean life and always thought I’d be a marine biologist. Somewhere along the way, I fell a little bit out of love with science and found myself in digital. Plus, the course was not available near my hometown, and it would have meant moving up to northern Italy.

So, was science your favourite subject at school?

Well sort of, my favourite subject was actually maths. I’m most definitely a numbers guy at heart, although I also enjoyed physics. Don’t judge, ok! This love for numbers has served me really well in my career as it means I can cut quickly through big chunks of data and get to the meaning.

What do you do to rewind in the evenings?

I work! Joking, of course (well, maybe it’s a little bit truthful)… but, I’m Italian through-and-through and I love getting the whole family together for the evening meal. It’s a time of day where we all put the stresses of work and school behind us and rejoice in something I’ve knocked up.

I do love cooking, so much that I sometimes take all of my equipment and ingredients to our clients’ offices and make traditional pizza for them… and believe me when I say you won’t find any pineapple on mine. Nonna would most definitely not approve.

What about the weekends? Where could we find you on a Sunday morning?

Sundays are for anything but working – that is the golden rule I live by. I either try to get to North Sydney Olympic pool for a swim, or the whole family will head to the beach or a park for a picnic!

Ok, a couple of light-hearted ones to finish up. What’s your favourite movie?

I most definitely cannot pick one favourite film, but any mafia movies are always go-tos. I’m thinking Donnie Brasco and Carlito’s Way.

Lastly, how about an ode to our beautiful city – what’s your favourite place in Sydney?

You’re right, Sydney truly is a beautiful city, and I think it’s fair to say that my favourite places are any of the beaches in the North. Manly is a particular favourite of mine, I love the walk down to Shelly Beach in particular.

If you want to get in touch with Andrea to find out how his years of expertise can be put to use for the benefit of your business, contact him via andrea@ambire.com.au.

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