About Muhammad Asif Afzal
I learned paid media on budgets where every dollar had to count.
That habit stuck. Since 2020 I’ve managed $20M+ in ad spend, and I still start every account by asking what a sale is actually worth to you.
2020
Learning inside local agencies
I started in 2020 at local agencies, running paid media for a long list of clients at once: ecommerce stores, clinics, service businesses. Budgets were small, which turned out to be a good teacher. When you only have a few hundred dollars, you learn quickly which clicks pay for themselves.
Agency work also taught me that tracking has to be right before anything else. On a lead generation budget, you can't afford to pay for calls that never turn into jobs.
Two-person team
The job that taught me the most
The turning point was working for a solo operator who was completely hooked on paid media. It was just the two of us running a long list of accounts. He brought the work in, and I learned by doing it: building campaigns, fixing tracking, answering for the numbers.
Because there was nobody else, I got exposure most people take years to get: real estate, ecommerce, local service providers, and accounts spending over $100K a month. That's where I learned Google Ads properly.
International
Moving to international clients
Then I moved to working directly with brands in the US, the UK and the Gulf. Bigger markets meant bigger budgets and tougher competition, and on Upwork every client could see every review I'd ever earned. That kept me honest.
Today I hold Top Rated Plus status, a 100% Job Success score and a 4.9 rating from 25 public reviews. 88% of my clients have stayed with me longer than 90 days.
Scale
Bigger accounts, the same habits
I now manage budgets from $3K to $100K a month. I built Google Ads from scratch for a US apparel brand that went on to average about $47K a month, scaled a supplement account from zero to around $52K a month in three to four months, and ran accounts in the US, the UK and Saudi Arabia.
On larger brands I work inside the team. From September 2025 to February 2026 I ran Google acquisition for a D2C brand that did $9.01M in sales on $1.18M of total ad spend.
Now
One specialist, start to finish
When I work directly with a founder, you talk to the person who audits the account, builds the campaigns and reports on them. On bigger brands I join the agency or in-house team and own a defined part of the work, because one person can't run every channel at that size.
Away from the accounts, life is simple: I work from home with my wife and our son, on US hours, so we overlap through your working day.
How I think about paid media
Real growth over comfortable numbers
Plenty of accounts are steered toward numbers that look good in a monthly report. I'd rather show you the real figure, even when it's uncomfortable, and then fix it.
Meta's job is creating demand
On Meta, results come from a steady creative pipeline, a clean offer and a product people actually want. Targeting tweaks don't rescue a weak offer.
Google can do more than collect brand searches
Many brands use Google only to pick up the demand Meta already created. I run it as a full channel: capturing demand where it exists and creating it where it doesn't, profitably on both sides.
Fix tracking before adding budget
If conversions are counted twice, every bid built on them is wrong. Tracking gets checked before anything scales.
Certifications
- Google Ads Search Certification
- Google AI-Powered Shopping Ads Certification
- Meta Certified Digital Marketing Associate
- Meta Social Media Marketing (Coursera)
Find me elsewhere
My full review history is public on Upwork. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.
Or go straight to the results →If any of this sounds like how you'd want your account run, let's talk.
Book a free 30-minute review or send me the details first. I'll tell you what I'd fix first, whether or not we end up working together.