Hrudhai Kumar Damidi · Melbourne

Bold ideas are just guesses. Until they're measured.

I make brave work earn its keep: media that gets seen, from billboards to feeds, a message that sticks, and the machine that proves it worked. Performance marketer, computer science degree. Here is the story.

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6 chapters · about 3 minutes

Hrudhai leaning on a boardwalk railing above a long sandy isthmus, the road stretching ahead — The Neck, Bruny IslandRoad ahead

Once upon a timeHyderabad · to 2017

I taught a machine to read faces.

My final-year computer science project was a facial expression recogniser. It pulled micro-patterns out of images and classified seven emotions, from anger to surprise. I also built an Android app that reminded parents when vaccinations were due.

Both taught me the same thing: a machine only sees what you teach it to see. Feed it a bad signal and it gets very confident about the wrong answer.

Bachelor's Computer Science
ML · SVM · Python
Java · Android

Years later, that sentence would turn out to be worth a lot of money.

Every dayHyderabad · 2018–2022

I learnt advertising from inside the machine.

At Mediamint I ran full-cycle campaigns for Coca-Cola, McDonald's, AT&T, Subway and Publix, and helped build Vericast Media's in-house ad buying platform. I saw how bidding logic actually works, not how the sales deck describes it.

Then came leadership. At Cognizant I led a team of 80 growing Google's ad products. At Dentsu I ran paid social and display for Lexus, Amex and IBM with a team of 7, and introduced the QA process that caught errors before clients did.

80 person team
Built a DSP
US & Canada clients

Then I packed two suitcases and flew 9,256 km to start again.

Hyderabad Melbourne Mediamint2018Cognizant2020Dentsu2021Principle Media2022Master's, Kaplan2024pay.com.au2025

Hyderabad · 2022

Four years in. Time to go.

Coca-Cola, Lexus, Amex and a DSP build behind me. One question ahead: could I do it all again in a new market?

In the air

0 km

Two suitcases. One new city. A whole new media market to learn.

Melbourne · 2022

Landed.

Agency life at Principle Media, a Master's at night, then in-house at pay.com.au.

Until one dayMelbourne · 2022–2024

The dashboards and the bank account disagreed.

At Principle Media Group I managed the media for Sportsbet, Swisse, BobJane T-Marts, Gordon Legal, Marketplacer and Life Space. Not just screens: the full media plan, from a billboard on the freeway to the search ad that catches the same person that night.

OOHBillboards & outdoor
AudioRadio & streaming
VideoBVOD & YouTube
ProgProgrammatic
SearchGoogle & Microsoft
SocialMeta, LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit
PartnerCreators & brand partnerships

I rebuilt one eCommerce account and cut its cost per conversion by 60%. But I kept seeing the same gap. The platforms reported one number, and the business saw another. Browsers block cookies, people switch devices, and a billboard never gets the credit it earned.

Real customers

What the platform sees

Illustrative. The gap varies by site, browser and consent.

So I went back to study it properly: a Master's in Business Analytics, covering forecasting, data pipelines, machine learning and data ethics.

That's when I stopped trusting the dashboards and started rebuilding what feeds them.

Because of thatMelbourne · 2024–now

I got to build it from the ground up.

After a stint consulting for Australian brands, I joined pay.com.au, a B2B fintech, as Paid Media Specialist and stepped up to Paid Media Manager a year later. I now own the media mix end to end and guide the paid media pod.

Digital is the engine, but not the whole car. Outdoor, audio and video build the memory. Programmatic and creator partnerships widen the reach. Search and social catch the demand all of that creates. I moved budget into what worked, cut what didn't, and launched Reddit, Microsoft Advertising and more programmatic so growth stopped depending on two platforms.

I also work on the message with brand and design: the angle, the offer, the first three seconds. Media only scales what the creative earns.

+300% qualified leads
−30% CPA
8-figure annual budget
Above & below the line

But the real unlock wasn't in the media plan.

Because of that, tooThe machine room

I stitched the ad to the actual customer.

Every impression starts a journey that runs through a website, an app, a CRM and a bank transaction. Most marketers only see the first step. I work with engineers to connect the whole chain and send the truth back to the platforms.

ReachAd or billboardSearch, social, video, audio, outdoor, programmatic
TagWebsite & appClean tagging and consent, events named once and used everywhere
ServerServer-side taggingEvents sent from our own server, so blockers and browsers can't drop them
CAPIConversions APIHashed, privacy-safe signals sent straight to Meta, Google and others
StitchAnalytics & warehouseAd exposure joined to sign-up, first payment and revenue
Return ↺Back to the platformsFirst-party audiences and value signals, so bidding chases real customers

Then I automate the rest. Weekly performance summaries are built and posted by workflows, not copy-paste. Reporting pipelines feed the team clean, channel-level data, and audits run on a schedule. The hours saved go back into strategy.

GTM & server-side GTM
Conversions API
GA4 & attribution
Reverse ETL audiences
n8n automation

Which leaves one question: what do you call someone who does all three?

06 · Until finally

Media × Message × Machine.

Most teams split these across three people who rarely talk. The interesting results sit where they overlap. That's where I work.

Tap a circle

Each one is a different part of the job. The centre is the overlap.

Bolder ideas,
measured

Brands along the way

Tap a brand to see where it fits in the story.

Agency work credited to the agency where I was employed.

Epilogue · your chapter

Got a bold idea?Let's measure it.

Tick what's already true for your marketing. Nine quick checks across media, brand and tech. You'll see where the growth is hiding.

SocialYour social ads get fresh creative every few weeks, not the same five ads on repeat
SearchSearch catches the demand your other channels create, not only people typing your brand name
OutdoorOutdoor, radio and video are planned with digital, not in a separate silo
BrandA stranger could say what your brand stands for in one sentence
CreativeNew ads are tested like experiments, not picked by whoever has the strongest opinion
PartnershipsCreators or partners take your message further than paid media alone
CAPIConversions reach the platforms from your server, through Conversions API
DataSign-ups and revenue flow from your CRM back to the ad platforms
AutomationWeekly reporting runs itself

0/9

Plenty of room to grow. The good news: the first fixes are usually the fastest wins.

Or message me on LinkedIn ↗