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our story

The fVnnel started where it all started: at Facebook, of course. Mikhaela Levitas (AKA Mix) was an account manager at the world’s biggest marketing platform until a desire to put her clients’ interests ahead of Facebook’s led her to found a break-away agency. Staying true to her vision, the fVnnel is a system of partnerships built on trust and mutual success. As your business grows and strengthens, so does the fVnnel. For this reason we choose to partner with clients we believe in and who believe in us.

One Big Talented Globally-Distributed Family

We’re a team of friends who go all-in for our clients and each other. Our depth of talent, education and experience enables us to over-deliver on the varied projects we do. Every member of the team has a voice and contributes something unique, with Mix providing the leadership that keeps this talented family—clients included—on a steep upward trajectory.

meet the team

Mikhaela Levitas

CEO / Founder

Since Mikhaela (AKA Mix) entered the digital marketing space in 2015, she has worked with various sized agencies and clients of all stripes. She gained invaluable experience as an account manager at Facebook, where she was instrumental in the success of hundreds of global businesses. She founded the fVnnel out of a desire for greater transparency, genuine teamwork, and the freedom to wholeheartedly serve her clients.

A true believer in the alignment of the universe, Mix feels blessed to have attracted aligned clients whose missions she is passionate about. She loves the fVnnel family, clients and team; everything else flows from there.

When she isn’t lit up by her laptop screen she’s out doing things that light her up from within. From delving into the philosophies of Tantra, to yoga, dancing, rock climbing, hiking, and surfing, Mix loves to explore and expand.

She is currently based in Canada.

Jonathan Glover

CFO

In his previous career as a civil engineer, Jonathan worked on multi-million dollar renewable energy projects requiring high-level analytical skills and the ability to deliver on time and within budget. Mix saw how this unique skill-set would play in the field of digital marketing and brought Jon onboard as a data and project management expert in 2017.

Outside of work, Jon loves to travel and spend time recreating outdoors.

He is currently based in South Africa.

David Glover

COO

The second qualified engineer to join the team was David, Jonathan’s brother. David graduated cum laude with a BSc in mechanical engineering in 2015 and cut his teeth in the New Zealand construction industry. He joined the fVnnel in 2019 and now applies his objective-focused brain and problem-solving skills to the world of marketing funnels and spreadsheets. An optimiser by nature, David has thrived as an account manager at the fVnnel.

In his free time David loves surfing, training Muay Thai and saving the world.

He is currently based in Indonesia.

St John Nelson

Senior Account Manager

The fVnnel continued its winning streak of converting engineers into digital marketers with David’s friend, St John. Graduating in 2015 with a BSc in Mechanical Engineering, St John is known among his peers for his prize-winning final project, The Flying Car. At the fVnnel he’s known for his self-taught web development skills, ranging from building E-commerce stores to mastering back-end technologies with unpronounceable acronyms like ‘SQL’. Joining the team in 2021, St John brings his wide-ranging data skills and natural analytical abilities to his role as account manager.

Outside of work, you’ll find St John on the football pitch or teaching himself new web development tricks.

St John is currently based in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Rayne Cockburn

Creative Director

Specializing in creative strategy, Rayne is experienced in all areas of digital marketing, from SEO to Google Ads, Email marketing, Organic Social Media strategy and working with influencers and content creators. 

Rayne has been part of of the fVmily since 2018. She spent a couple of years adventuring in the world of ecommerce, where she developed a passion for multi-channel marketing, Conversion Rate Optimisation, and ROI!

In her new role as the fVnnel’s Creative Director, Rayne advocates for creative strategy grounded in a data-driven, holistic understanding of current trends and what’s working for our clients.

Outside of work, Rayne loves yoga, gardening, saunas, and spending time with her hand-reared rescue cat, Styx.

Aimee Nel

Graphic Designer / Video Editor

Aimee is the fVnnel’s creative powerhouse. Throughout her degree in Social Science and postgraduate studies in Education, she took every opportunity to tap into and develop her creativity. While living and working abroad, she trained independently as a graphic designer and has never looked back.

Aimee joined the fVnnel creative team in 2020 and threw herself into honing her design capabilities and expanding her skillset. She’s completed courses in graphic design and video editing and is currently adding web design to her repertoire.

When she’s not creating outstanding digital art for our clients, she enjoys taking care of her vegetable garden, keeping fit and exploring hidden beaches around her new home in Indonesia.

Iggy Vermaak

Head of Web Services

Iggy has over 11 years of experience managing large WordPress and WooCommerce websites. Iggy is well versed across numerous industries, with a strong focus in eCommerce. If there is anything you want done, he has done it. Iggy can turn almost any novel or niche idea into a reality. He loves solving technical challenges and extends his love for problem solving and creativity into the email marketing automation space of which he is our expert.

Choosing a quieter pace to life, nestled amongst the hills, Iggy lives on a sheep farm about 2 hours outside Cape Town. In his free time, Iggy loves to cook, spend time with his 3 cats and 2 dogs, and makes the occasional techno beat in his home music studio.

Samantha Balie

Community manager

Samantha has a deep love for people and community and that’s what drew her into Hairdressing. Since then Sam has taken her social skills online. Sam’s social spirit now soars high as the fVnnel’s Community Manager, where she uses her amazing EQ (emotional quotient) to engage with the fVnnel’s clients communities. Community is the essence of what we do here and who better to support our clients than Sam. In her free time Sam enjoys reading, listening to music, being around animals and really anything creative. Sam is the fourth vegan on our team. That’s a win for the fVnnel!

Samantha is currently based in Durban, South Africa.

Luke Gravett

Account Manager

Luke is the fourth engineer turned digital marketer to join the team. Luke joins our team with many skills that go beyond the analytical and problem solving capabilities of an engineer. Luke is a very experienced web designer and developer too. If that’s not enough to impress you he is also a master project manager and design engineer. He has managed many multi-million dollar engineering projects during his time living in New Zealand. Luke applies his analytical mind and engineering thinking in his current role as an account manager specializing in paid advertising. We welcome Luke’s ability to bridge the gap between the creative and analytical skills that makes for a great digital marketer.

When he’s not optimizing ad campaigns, Luke can be found in the gym or the garage. He’s always up for a new challenge, whether it’s building a custom bike or exploring a new marketing strategy.

Yuri Govender

Account Manager

The fVnnel’s secret sauce is hiring engineers and converting them into marketers and yes, you guessed it, Yuri is the next engineer to join our team.

Yuri has a diverse background involving marketing and sales, audiovisual production and business management. He even developed his own meltable vegan cheese product that retails in stores all over South Africa. Having already started his own business, Yuri brings a range of skills to the table, most importantly a holistic business approach.  Yuri enjoys the satisfaction of problem-solving and has a passion for growing, learning and overcoming new challenges. 

Yuri loves music and in his spare time, you’ll find him playing the guitar, practising a new instrument, or recording new tracks.

Jari Salminen

Web Services

Jari is our ever-curious, seeker of knowledge. A history buff who always has his nose in a book, it seems he is in an endless pursuit to learn and understand human creativity more deeply. This dogged determination effectuated his graduation from York University in Toronto in 2008, majoring in History. In his post-scholastic career, his journey focused on the creation and fabrication of custom instruments, art, and installations.

Most recently Jari is a self-taught programmer helping to fill out the fvnnel’s back-end requirements, bringing to bear all of the patience and problem solving acumen he has accrued from his past occupation in fabrication and carpentry.  

Outside of work Jari loves growing exotic plants and fruit trees, reading Russian literature, writing poetry and trail-running.

Originally from the bustling northern metropolis that is Toronto, Canada, Jari now works from various locations across North America.

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contact

Now you know our story, we can’t wait to hear yours. Schedule a call or email us and let’s discuss your business.

Pre-Launch

This timeline is dependent on the client being responsive and completing all tasks related to the launch. This includes:

  • Assigning access to necessary platforms to the fVnnel,
  • Creating video content,
  • Completing landing page edits where relevant,
  • Approving copy and graphics, or if making their own copy and graphics providing it within that week and able to make any edits the fVnnel requests.

Please refer to our website www.thefvnnel.com to learn more about what services we offer.

Need to Know:

  • With our global team we are pretty much available around the clock for support and questions and can be flexible in the way we work based on your preferences and needs. This is why we consider ourselves a boutique agency. We become a part of your team while we work together.
  • We do not work on the weekends, so please do not expect responses from us over the weekend unless it has been prearranged for us to be available. If we are in the middle of a very large launch 50k + and being available on the weekends has been agreed upon, then of course we’ll be available. If it is prearranged we can work on the odd weekend with no issues, ideally we require a month’s notice to arrange this. Work life balance is important to us.
  • You can expect a response from us relating to an email you send within 24 hours. If we haven’t gotten a response from you within 24 hours and it’s urgent you can expect us to follow up within 24 hours.

During the Launch/Evergreen

If you have any outstanding questions relating to our process please don’t hesitate to reach us any time.

Ideally we request that we have a 10% increase in budget for testing for a week prior to launching. If the budget can not be spared we will take that 10% from the existing budget.

Need to Know:

  • Please do not expect a full layout of our intended strategy, targeting plan or daily emails

– We are very flexible and are happy to provide you with as much transparency as you like but this is not done as a standard operating procedure.

– Just let us know if you want more insights and then maybe a 30-minute weekly call is a better way to discuss strategies and plans than lengthy emails.

– We are in your account multiple times a day assessing the data, strategizing and pivoting. The more time we have to focus on this the better for all of us.

  • Please know that we will very seldom touch a campaign for the first 72 hours because it takes 72 hours for the campaign to stabilize and a minimum of three days for campaigns to exit the learning phase but it can also be a lot longer, depending on budget, costs of clicks and other important metrics as well as if we’re running tests, how many ads sets we have, number of ads etc.

– The only time we’ll touch a campaign in the first 3 days is if it’s necessary and the early signs show that the campaign as it is will never reach our goals, then we’ll pivot.

  • There may be more creativity for you to approve throughout the launch as we introduce countdown ads, reminder ads and sales ads.

– Often we will make these during the launch as they are less important to prioritize in that first week when we are trying to launch opt-in or sales ads.

  • Between 3-7 days there is a lot of machine learning going on.

– We will be making minor adjustments to bids, budget etc. but ideally we can see the first week as a data acquisition week, then we start optimizing once we have enough significant data and test results.

Post-Launch