About - Fikretcan Arsal

About Me

📍 2017 — Moved to İzmir, Started University at Dokuz Eylül

I left Istanbul to start my academic journey in İzmir at Dokuz Eylül University, one of Turkey’s leading institutions. I enrolled in the International Trade and Business program, a fully English-language curriculum following a year of preparatory education.
While I wasn’t the most academically focused student, living independently in a new city taught me adaptability, resourcefulness, and curiosity — qualities I would later apply to every marketing brief and campaign.

📍 2020 — Pandemic Shift & Academic Interest in Marketing

As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional education, I experienced the transition to remote learning — a shift that revealed the power of focus, digital productivity, and flexibility. During this period, I began to explore where my true professional interests lay.
I gradually developed a strong inclination toward marketing and strategic business functions, which led me to select related elective courses during my final years of university. These included:

Global E-Business & Trade

Global Market Analysis

Project Management in International Business

Product and Services Quality Management

📍 2020–2021 — Internships: Exploring Markets & Communication

🏢 BPA Foreign Trade – Business Development Intern

• Conducted competitive benchmarking and market research for a new medical product entering the Turkish market.
• Created digital and print-ready marketing collateral for B2B communication and trade shows.
• Gained experience in cold calling, developing my communication and objection-handling skills.

🚀 Werover – Business Development Intern at a Startup

• Performed target market analysis for B2B underwater robotics solutions.
• Supported investor pitch deck development.
• Developed and deployed custom email campaigns using first-party data, leveraging both HTML and CSS to create responsive and visually tailored templates.

📍 2022 — Graduated and Entered the Industry (GPA: 2.9)

I officially earned my degree in June 2022 and stepped directly into the fast-paced world of digital media.

📍 2022–2023 — MG Media – Junior Digital Planner Executive

At MG Media, I joined the media planning & buying department after completing a selective training program as the top participant. I worked primarily with ETİ, a leading FMCG brand, across Turkey and MENA markets.
Responsibilities included:

• Building omnichannel media strategies across Google, Meta, TikTok

• Performing audience targeting and media mix analysis

• Using competitive intelligence tools to benchmark media performance

• Optimizing campaigns based on CTR, CPM, ROAS, and other key KPIs

This role strengthened my foundation in performance media and strategic planning across diverse digital ecosystems.

📍 2023–2024 — Mindshare – Digital Media Planner

Transitioned to a global media agency and joined the Nestlé account — a key milestone in my career.
Key contributions:

• Led performance marketing initiatives across DV360, Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, TikTok Ads and Amazon Ads.

• Collaborated with the India-based hub team for cross-border campaign operations

• Measured and analyzed performance using Google Analytics and transformed insights into client-facing dashboards using Looker Studio

• Played a hands-on role in campaign optimization, budget pacing, and funnel performance tracking

I also participated in strategic briefings that focused on media efficiency, incrementality, and brand lift.

📍 2024–Present — IPG Mediabrands – Senior Digital AdOps Executive

Currently, I’m responsible for digital media strategies across İş Bankası’s subsidiaries — covering industries like insurance, pension, e-commerce, and investment. This shift brought new challenges that demand more granular, conversion-driven strategies.
My 360-degree role includes:

• Owning end-to-end campaign planning, from brief to execution

• Conducting data analysis to build insight-driven media plans

• Managing performance channels (Google Ads, Meta, TikTok, DV360, LinkedIn) for awareness, traffic, lead generation and conversion focused campaign

• Collaborating directly with clients to guide strategy, and reporting

This experience is solidifying my goal of becoming a Full-Stack Performance Marketer — someone who can bridge data, creativity, and business objectives with precision.

🎯 My Focus & Vision

In today’s performance-driven marketing world, I believe success lies at the intersection of strategy, data, and technology. That’s why I’ve chosen to specialize in key areas that allow me to drive impact across the entire funnel — from branding and awareness to conversion and retention.

Over time, I’ve developed a strong foundation in analytics, paid advertising, and programmatic media. These areas let me connect user behavior with business outcomes, make data-informed decisions, and execute highly targeted campaigns at scale. Whether it’s measuring multi-channel attribution, building efficient media plans, or creating actionable dashboards, I thrive where insight meets execution.

My goal is to go beyond just executing media buys — I aim to be a marketing professional who strategically plans, analyzes, and activates across the entire customer journey. I want to contribute to brands not only by building a strong digital presence but also by delivering measurable business outcomes.

So far, I’ve had the opportunity to work with both local and global brands across a wide range of industries, from FMCG to finance, B2C to B2B. Throughout this journey, I’ve developed a solid skill set in media planning and analytics, utilizing platforms like Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, DV360, Amazon Ads, and LinkedIn Ads, alongside tools such as Google Analytics, Looker Studio, and Campaign Manager 360.

I take a data-first approach when it comes to extracting insights, building strategic media plans, optimizing channel mixes, and evaluating performance. My ambition is not just to support marketing campaigns, but to be actively involved in building long-term digital growth strategies for brands.

That’s why I’m deepening my expertise in areas such as analytics, paid media, programmatic buying, and conversion rate optimization (CRO) — aiming to bridge technical capability with strategic thinking in everything I do.

I help brands grow through data-driven performance marketing and full-funnel media strategies. From campaign execution to analytics and conversion optimization, I turn insights into impactful results.