Remitly
A paid acquisition engine for Remitly's WhatsApp product — Spanish-speaking US, regulated category, no audience targeting, no creative queue. 15× lift in volume. Up to 95% reduction in CAC.
Read the full Remitlycase study →The operator who 15×’d acquisitions for Remitly will run your account personally.
400% more MQLs at -55% CPL for Brightwheel. $200M+ in pipeline driven for Salesforce. Same operator from audit to scale — no junior team, no handoffs, no agency lag.
Run by Shan Mahmood
If we miss your target in 90 days, I keep working at no cost until we hit it.
- Salesforce
- Prezi
- Brightwheel
- Remitly
- Zinnia
- VMware
Track record built across B2B and B2C SaaS.
$200M+
in pipeline driven
For Salesforce — multi-region enterprise paid acquisition program.
15×
acquisition lift
For Remitly's WhatsApp product — Spanish-speaking US, regulated category, $40k/mo.
400%
more MQLs at -55% CPL
For Brightwheel — non-brand search restructure with offline conversion tracking.
12+ years
running paid programs
At agencies and in-house roles, including 6 years operating solo.
Five pillars. Every account. Every time.
Most agencies sell strategy and deliver execution gaps. This is the operating model that’s worked across B2B SaaS, B2C consumer, and regulated categories — applied the same way every time, by the same operator.
01
Conversion tracking comes first.
Ad platforms only optimize for what they can measure. Most SaaS accounts arrive with partial or broken conversion tracking — offline conversions missing, GA4 misconfigured, CRM signals not feeding back to platforms. Step one is always rebuilding it from the CRM out. No campaign work happens until the data is clean.
02
Channels run as one program, not silos.
Google, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn — managed as a single portfolio with budget and learnings moving across channels as signal emerges. The Remitly program ran Google search for intent, Meta for steady volume, TikTok for the breakout. One operator made those calls daily. Most agencies silo channels across specialists who never talk.
03
Native creative, produced in-house.
Strategy isn't the bottleneck most agencies have. Velocity is. Three-week creative queues kill scaling programs. The Remitly engagement scaled because UGC video, statics, and copy were produced and iterated in days, not weeks — by the same person managing the campaigns.
04
Senior operator on every account.
The audit, the strategy, the campaign builds, the creative direction, the optimization, the reporting — same person, every step. No account manager who hands off to a specialist. No junior media buyer behind the scenes. The person who pitched the engagement is the person running the engagement.
05
Reporting tied to revenue.
Pipeline. CAC. LTV-adjusted ROAS. Month-over-month revenue. The metrics that go in the board deck — not impressions and clicks. Every weekly report ladders up to whether the program is generating profit, not whether it's generating activity.
Two engagements. Two categories. Same playbook.
Brightwheel
A non-brand search restructure with offline conversion tracking. 4× MQLs while cutting CPL by 55% — and 215% growth in closed-won sales.
Read the full Brightwheelcase study →The agency math you’re already doing.
Two columns. The same problem most marketing leaders run into when they shop agencies.
Senior strategist on the pitch, junior account manager on the day-to-day
Same senior operator on the pitch, the strategy, and the daily account work
Channels split across specialists who don't share data
One operator managing Google, Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn as a single program
Creative queue measured in weeks. Programs stall waiting for assets
Native creative produced in days. UGC, statics, copy in-house
Reporting full of impressions, CTR, and “campaign optimization” updates
Reporting tied to pipeline, CAC, and revenue — the numbers your CFO asks about
Onboarding takes 60+ days before strategic work begins
Audit shipped in week one. Conversion tracking rebuilt by week two
Account size grows because the agency needs the headcount, not because you need the spend
Engagements stay narrow on purpose — capacity capped to maintain operator-level work
The operator on every account.
Shan Mahmood · Founder & Operator
12+ years running paid acquisition programs for SaaS companies — across in-house roles, agency seats, and now solo at Evo. I’ve operated paid programs for Salesforce ($200M+ pipeline), Remitly (15× WhatsApp acquisition lift), Brightwheel (4× MQLs), and Prezi. Today I run a small senior-only practice — no juniors, no offshore team, no account managers. Every engagement is operated by me directly.
When I’m not at Evo, I’m building KinlyPets — a B2B SaaS product for veterinary clinics. The builder’s perspective changes how I run paid for other SaaS founders.
What it’s like to work with a senior operator.
“
Shan was a great partner to work with at Remitly. He brought a sharp performance marketing lens to our acquisition efforts and was always focused on finding the next lever to improve results. I appreciated his ability to challenge assumptions, dig into the data, and bring practical recommendations that helped materially reduce CAC and move the work forward.
Carmen Zabel
“
Evo helped us generate 75+ sales-qualified leads in our first month. Shan ran the program end-to-end, handling strategy, execution, and optimization. The results showed up in our pipeline immediately. Easy to work with, fast to iterate, and consistently delivered.
Miranda Satterly
“
Since bringing Shan on, we're seeing better click-through rates, more efficient spend, and stronger lead quality. He's hands-on with every account. Every recommendation comes from someone who's actually inside the data, not someone handing things off to a junior team.
Morgan Morrill
Frequently asked.
What's the typical engagement structure?
Monthly retainer engagements — usually $15–25k/mo depending on scope. Three-month minimum, then month-to-month. I work with three to five SaaS companies at a time. Capacity capped on purpose: the senior-operator model only works at small scale.
How fast do I see results?
Audit shipped in week one. Conversion tracking rebuilt by week two. First campaign optimizations in week two-to-three. Most engagements show meaningful efficiency improvements within the first 30–45 days. The bigger structural lift — what Remitly and Brightwheel showed — typically takes 90–180 days to fully compound.
Do you offer a results guarantee?
Yes — the engagement targets are set in writing in week one (usually a CAC or pipeline number tied to your unit economics). If we miss the target at the 90-day mark, I continue managing the program at no cost until we hit it. I've never needed to extend an engagement under that clause, but it's there because the operator model requires putting skin in the game.
What budget level makes this work?
The economics work best when monthly ad spend is $30k+. Below that, the senior-operator hourly cost is hard to justify against the upside. If you're under $30k/mo and growing, I'm happy to recommend operators or boutique agencies who specialize at that stage.
Do you work with B2B SaaS, B2C SaaS, or both?
Both. The methodology applies — clean tracking, integrated channel programs, native creative, senior operator. The differences are in execution: B2B is pipeline and CAC-payback math; B2C is CAC and LTV math. I've operated both extensively (Salesforce and Brightwheel on B2B; Remitly on B2C consumer fintech).
Will you work with my in-house team?
Yes — and I prefer it. Most engagements involve teaching the in-house team the playbook so they can extend it after the engagement ends. The Remitly engagement explicitly transferred a TikTok-native creative playbook to their internal team. Senior-operator engagements should leave the client more capable, not more dependent.
Do you build websites, set up CRMs, do email marketing?
No. I run paid acquisition programs and the conversion infrastructure that makes them work. For everything adjacent — lifecycle email, content, web design, CRM implementation — I refer to specialists I trust. Single-discipline focus is what makes the senior-operator model viable.
Two paths from here.
Pay senior strategist rates for junior delivery.
At $15k/month, that’s $180,000 a year for reports about impressions and CTR — and a 6-month wait for the senior person you actually pitched to escalate every question.
Get a free account audit.
30 minutes on a call. I’ll review your accounts and tell you what I’d do — whether or not you end up working with me. No slide deck. No pitch. Just an operator’s read on what’s there.
Get a Free Account Audit →