Curriculum vitae / 01
Afeez Adebayo
Digital Acquisition & Growth Leader
02
Profile
I am a digital acquisition and growth leader with 10+ years across SEO, GEO, paid search, paid social and performance marketing in fintech, banking, SaaS and e-commerce. I have led organic and AI search at Grey (YC W22), managed $1.5M in annual digital vendor relationships at Ecobank, and grew organic acquisition at Formplus from under 5% to 57% of new sign-ups while leading a team of seven. Experienced across Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok and X, I combine rigorous data-driven strategy with meticulous execution and thrive in low-bureaucracy environments.
03
Experience
Grey (YC W22)
Full-time · April 2026 – Present
SEO & GEO Manager (SEO & AI Search)
- Grew organic sign-ups by over 30% in 6 months, with a plan to double them (+100%) within 12 months, making SEO Grey’s biggest and lowest-cost acquisition channel.
- Protected Grey’s organic channel through Google’s 2025 shift to AI answers, which cut website clicks worldwide, bringing traffic back to 95% of pre-rollout levels.
- Established Grey in AI search as a new acquisition channel, with brand citations in ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI answers growing 15% month on month.
- Opened 5 new language markets (Spanish, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese) for organic acquisition, targeting +100% growth in non-English organic sign-ups.
Ecobank Nigeria
2023 – 2025
Manager, Growth Marketing & Analytics
- Built a customer attribution pipeline that reduced funnel drop-off and increased conversion, improving how acquisition was measured by channel.
- Built a new customer activation workflow that delivered 24% more deposits from new customers, compared with Q1 2023.
- Built SMS and WhatsApp engagement journeys that reduced inactive and dormant customers by 27% month on month.
- Managed technology, media and digital vendor relationships worth USD 1.5M a year, including Meta, Google Nigeria, MTN,
Terragon and Simpu, on regulatory-compliant performance campaigns.
Zaicon Digital Technologies
2020 – Present
Founder & SEO Lead
- Drove 56% of Topship Africa’s sign-ups through product-led SEO with programmatic pages, and led app store optimisation for its new mobile app.
- Delivered 3,371% ROI for Jerseygram, with organic traffic accounting for 51% of all sales despite a 2021 Google penalty.
- Advised B2C, fintech and e-commerce clients, with organic contributing 30%+ of client revenue.
- Built and lead SEOLagos, a 1,000+ member SEO community, and trained 500+ people in SEO in 2021, featured in Vanguard News.
Erudite Agency (UK)
July 2021 – January 2022
SEO & Growth Marketing Consultant
- Delivered SEO, data attribution and Google Ads for UK and US consumer brands including Paulton’s Park, Twinings, Compex and Neptune, with organic traffic contributing at least 30% of client revenue.
- Led content strategy, website migrations and internationalisation for e-commerce and B2C brands across the UK and US.
Eden Life
April 2022 – December 2022
Lead Acquisition Manager
- Led customer acquisition for a B2C home-services subscription across Google, Meta, Instagram and events, and served as Growth
PM for the launch of its customer loyalty programme. - Owned yearly and quarterly OKRs and reporting for the performance marketing team.
Formplus
April 2019 – July 2021
Head of Growth Marketing (SEO-led)
- Grew organic acquisition from under 5% to 57% of new sign-ups, and monthly organic traffic from 20K to 1M, within two years.
- Used product-led SEO with templated landing pages as an organic moat against larger competitors.
- Grew customer lifetime value from 8 to 13 months in 2020 (a 62% increase), partly through lifecycle email, and lifted new customer activation by 63%.
- Built and led a growth team of 7, delivering 30% quarterly growth in new revenue in 2020.
Opera Software
(2018 – 2019)
Community Manager & Product Specialist
- Part of the growth team that scaled Opera News to 20M+ users across Africa in its first year.
Hotels.ng
(2017 – 2018)
Content Specialist
- Produced SEO content for Nigeria, Rwanda and Kenya and joined the pioneering content team for the Hotels.Africa expansion.
HS Media Group NG
(Dec 2017 – Feb 2019)
Content Specialist
- Ran paid and social campaigns for the Nigeria Football Federation, UAC Foods and Simba Group; grew the company YouTube channel 300%+ in 6 months.
Shuttlers
SEO Consultant
- Provided SEO consultation on Shuttlers’ service-intent pages, covering employee transport, charter bus, airport transfer and corporate events.
- Shaped the SEO for the newly launched vehicle rental marketplace: location and vehicle-type page structure, with a rental calculator on every page.
- Set technical SEO standards, including structured data for rental and service pages and AI-crawler access.
- Worked with the internal team on an organic growth plan prioritising B2B and rental. The target was positions 1 to 3 for core keywords in Lagos and Abuja.
Topship
SEO & Paid Marketing Consultant
- Grew organic traffic 4x in under 3 months through product-led programmatic SEO.
- Made organic search the source of 55% of daily sign-ups.
- Built landing pages for international and interstate shipping routes, capturing high-intent shipping searches.
- Led app store optimisation for Topship’s new mobile app, reaching top rankings for shipping keywords.
Hingees
SEO Consultant
- Ranked Hingees second on Google for “sweatpants” in Nigeria, behind only Jumia and ahead of Amazon.
- Grew organic search to 33% of all orders in 2025.
- Grew organic search to 28% of all website traffic in 2025.
- Credited by the founder as the driver of the brand’s search breakthrough.
Lessonnotes.ng
Founder
- Grew the site to about 300K monthly page views within 6 months of launch.
- Peaked at 1M monthly page views in exam-season months, with 99% of traffic from organic search.
- Built a programmatic content structure by class, term, subject and topic, aligned to the Nigerian curriculum and the Unified Scheme of Work.
- Built weekly SEO reporting in Looker Studio from Search Console data, so visibility changes were spotted and acted on quickly.
Syllabus.ng
Founder and Marketing Lead
- Grew Syllabus.ng to 1.6M page views and 409K users in 2025, its first full calendar year. With over 85% organic
- Built SEO into the main channel, with organic search delivering over 70% of all traffic and 55% of revenue.
- Turned free PDF downloads into a verified CRM audience of 80,000+ active contacts, with lifecycle automation from onboarding through exam season.
- Reached roughly 1 in 4 Nigerian teachers surveyed, who had used, visited or been sent the platform’s materials.
Content Specialist
Thehospitalbook.com
- Produced SEO content
MockExam.ng
Content Specialist
- Produced SEO content
Grey (YC W22)
Full-time · April 2026 – Present
SEO & GEO Manager (SEO & AI Search)
- Grew organic sign-ups by over 30% in 6 months, with a plan to double them (+100%) within 12 months, making SEO Grey’s biggest and lowest-cost acquisition channel.
- Protected Grey’s organic channel through Google’s 2025 shift to AI answers, which cut website clicks worldwide, bringing traffic back to 95% of pre-rollout levels.
- Established Grey in AI search as a new acquisition channel, with brand citations in ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI answers growing 15% month on month.
- Opened 5 new language markets (Spanish, French, Arabic, Indonesian, Portuguese) for organic acquisition, targeting +100% growth in non-English organic sign-ups.
Ecobank Nigeria
2023 – 2025
Manager, Growth Marketing & Analytics
- Built a customer attribution pipeline that reduced funnel drop-off and increased conversion, improving how acquisition was measured by channel.
- Built a new customer activation workflow that delivered 24% more deposits from new customers, compared with Q1 2023.
- Built SMS and WhatsApp engagement journeys that reduced inactive and dormant customers by 27% month on month.
- Managed technology, media and digital vendor relationships worth USD 1.5M a year, including Meta, Google Nigeria, MTN,
Terragon and Simpu, on regulatory-compliant performance campaigns.
Zaicon Digital Technologies
2020 – Present
Founder & SEO Lead
- Drove 56% of Topship Africa’s sign-ups through product-led SEO with programmatic pages, and led app store optimisation for its new mobile app.
- Delivered 3,371% ROI for Jerseygram, with organic traffic accounting for 51% of all sales despite a 2021 Google penalty.
- Advised B2C, fintech and e-commerce clients, with organic contributing 30%+ of client revenue.
- Built and lead SEOLagos, a 1,000+ member SEO community, and trained 500+ people in SEO in 2021, featured in Vanguard News.
Erudite Agency (UK)
July 2021 – January 2022
SEO & Growth Marketing Consultant
- Delivered SEO, data attribution and Google Ads for UK and US consumer brands including Paulton’s Park, Twinings, Compex and Neptune, with organic traffic contributing at least 30% of client revenue.
- Led content strategy, website migrations and internationalisation for e-commerce and B2C brands across the UK and US.
Eden Life
April 2022 – December 2022
Lead Acquisition Manager
- Led customer acquisition for a B2C home-services subscription across Google, Meta, Instagram and events, and served as Growth
PM for the launch of its customer loyalty programme. - Owned yearly and quarterly OKRs and reporting for the performance marketing team.
Formplus
April 2019 – July 2021
Head of Growth Marketing (SEO-led)
- Grew organic acquisition from under 5% to 57% of new sign-ups, and monthly organic traffic from 20K to 1M, within two years.
- Used product-led SEO with templated landing pages as an organic moat against larger competitors.
- Grew customer lifetime value from 8 to 13 months in 2020 (a 62% increase), partly through lifecycle email, and lifted new customer activation by 63%.
- Built and led a growth team of 7, delivering 30% quarterly growth in new revenue in 2020.
Opera Software
(2018 – 2019)
Community Manager & Product Specialist
- Part of the growth team that scaled Opera News to 20M+ users across Africa in its first year.
Hotels.ng
(2017 – 2018)
Content Specialist
- Produced SEO content for Nigeria, Rwanda and Kenya and joined the pioneering content team for the Hotels.Africa expansion.
HS Media Group NG
(Dec 2017 – Feb 2019)
Content Specialist
- Ran paid and social campaigns for the Nigeria Football Federation, UAC Foods and Simba Group; grew the company YouTube channel 300%+ in 6 months.
Shuttlers
SEO Consultant
- Provided SEO consultation on Shuttlers’ service-intent pages, covering employee transport, charter bus, airport transfer and corporate events.
- Shaped the SEO for the newly launched vehicle rental marketplace: location and vehicle-type page structure, with a rental calculator on every page.
- Set technical SEO standards, including structured data for rental and service pages and AI-crawler access.
- Worked with the internal team on an organic growth plan prioritising B2B and rental. The target was positions 1 to 3 for core keywords in Lagos and Abuja.
Topship
SEO & Paid Marketing Consultant
- Grew organic traffic 4x in under 3 months through product-led programmatic SEO.
- Made organic search the source of 55% of daily sign-ups.
- Built landing pages for international and interstate shipping routes, capturing high-intent shipping searches.
- Led app store optimisation for Topship’s new mobile app, reaching top rankings for shipping keywords.
Hingees
SEO Consultant
- Ranked Hingees second on Google for “sweatpants” in Nigeria, behind only Jumia and ahead of Amazon.
- Grew organic search to 33% of all orders in 2025.
- Grew organic search to 28% of all website traffic in 2025.
- Credited by the founder as the driver of the brand’s search breakthrough.
Lessonnotes.ng
Founder
- Grew the site to about 300K monthly page views within 6 months of launch.
- Peaked at 1M monthly page views in exam-season months, with 99% of traffic from organic search.
- Built a programmatic content structure by class, term, subject and topic, aligned to the Nigerian curriculum and the Unified Scheme of Work.
- Built weekly SEO reporting in Looker Studio from Search Console data, so visibility changes were spotted and acted on quickly.
Syllabus.ng
Founder and Marketing Lead
- Grew Syllabus.ng to 1.6M page views and 409K users in 2025, its first full calendar year. With over 85% organic
- Built SEO into the main channel, with organic search delivering over 70% of all traffic and 55% of revenue.
- Turned free PDF downloads into a verified CRM audience of 80,000+ active contacts, with lifecycle automation from onboarding through exam season.
- Reached roughly 1 in 4 Nigerian teachers surveyed, who had used, visited or been sent the platform’s materials.
Content Specialist
Thehospitalbook.com
- Produced SEO content
MockExam.ng
Content Specialist
- Produced SEO content
03
Education
University of Lagos
Sep 2023 - Aug 2025
Executive Master of Business Administration, Marketing/Marketing Management, General
Grade: Distinction
University of Lagos
Oct 2010 - Sep 2015
Bachelor's Degree, Geology
03
Licenses & Certifications
Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate
Issued Sep 2024
Skills: Data Visualization, Data Analytics, +3 skills
Software Engineering Bootcamp (Backend)
Issued Jan 2023
Zulfah
Skills: MySQL, MongoDB, +2 skills
Google Adword Certification
Issued Feb 2018
Skills: Adword, +2 skills
Digital Marketing
Issued Jul 2016
Skills: Digital Marketing, Ads, +2 skills
