Did you know that Nike’s sales hit $28 million just 14 years in — skyrocketing to $51.36 billion in 2024?
But it didn’t achieve that without some hiccups. Dan Sava, founder of performance media agency Neon Growth and former global director of paid media & growth at Nike, says incrementality remains one of the most important puzzles for brands with large budgets to solve.
And for large brands like Nike, where he managed its $500 million ad budget, attracting new customers is just as crucial.
In our interview with Dan, he reveals the lessons he learned during this time — and how brands can apply these lessons to their own campaigns and unlock their growth potential.
Who Is Dan Sava?
Dan Sava is the founder of Neon Growth, a performance media agency focused on turning advertising budgets into profit. With over 14 years of experience in hyper-growth marketing, Dan has worked with big names like Nike, where he managed $500 million in digital ad spend and crafted campaigns that made a measurable impact. He also created marketing campaigns for the SNKRS app, which resulted in 14x growth ($70 million a year to over $1 billion a year) during his tenure at Nike.
While managing Nike’s massive budget, Dan learned the delicate balance between driving immediate results and nurturing long-term growth.
He says there’s always a trade-off between long-term investment and short-term returns, especially for businesses with many stakeholders.
“It’s easy to think short term you should focus on promotions and return on ad spend (ROAS) to show quarterly performance, but if you forget the brand hype, the sparkle starts to fade over time.
Effective digital advertising still does require both performance and brand magic,” he explains.
For brands looking to replicate Nike’s success, finding this balance is crucial for driving sales and ensuring lasting customer loyalty.
The first step, Dan says, is to identify your “hero” products — the items that naturally have high demand and sell well. Scale those first and foremost instead of trying to expand product lines, something that often leads to spreading your budget too thin.
Watch our video to learn more about what on-demand marketing aims to do:
But before you start advertising, make sure you have a good grasp of your financials.
“For example, if you have an average order size of $100 and your cost is $30, that means you have $70 to acquire a customer and earn a profit. If the average customer acquisition cost (CAC) in your industry is $30, you’re probably in a healthy spot.
You’ll also need to determine your pricing strategy — do you need to earn a profit on the first order? Or do you want to break even and maximize growth? A good marketing partner will help you work through these financials to refine the approach,” Dan explains.
In addition, Dan believes it’s important to know when to push the gas pedal and when to hit the brakes.
“Normally, when you scale up, you lose a little efficiency. But, during periods of high demand, this equation changes.
In peak demand periods, the worst thing you can do is under-invest, and leave money on the table because you’re not reading the signals.”
To capitalize on these moments, Dan advises brands to stay agile and constantly monitor market trends, ensuring they don’t miss key windows of opportunity. This approach allows businesses to maximize ROI without the risk of stagnation.
Mastering Multi-Channel Marketing for Scalable Growth
According to Dan, attribution is the backbone of decision-making when deciding which marketing channels to focus on. However, determining how marketing tactics contribute to sales becomes even more crucial when managing over 30 channels.
“The more you spend, the more overlap channels will naturally have. Every channel wants to take credit. Having attribution and modeling you can trust is critical to setting an effective multi-channel strategy.
All of your channels need to be operating on the same parameters for attribution. But there are also nuances, for example, you can’t base your entire strategy on the last click and ignore view-through, otherwise, you’ll be led to under-invest in valuable upper funnel channels,” Dan explains.
At the end of the day, impressions matter. For example, he notes that companies like Coca-Cola and Nike have built legacies off of channels such as billboard ads.
To this end, Dan says your attribution modeling has to account for all touchpoints and the roles they play in gaining and retaining customers.
He saw this in action during his time at Nike.
“It was incredible to see how selling out a product fuels more demand for future launches.
Working on the biggest shoe launch in history taught me the power of watching audience trends to plan campaigns more effectively.
You really do need to keep your customer and their reasons to buy front and center. Both in media planning and creative strategy,” he says.
Key Lessons from a Decade of Hyper-Growth Marketing
Over the years, Dan has refined strategies that consistently drive scalable growth. He shares three of the most crucial lessons he has learned about scaling advertising strategies throughout his career:
- You need demand-based media planning.
- You need ads that people understand.
- You need a wide creative net that captures multiple audiences.
Additionally, you also need to be able to fulfill what you sell, he says.
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Dan explains that agency partners didn’t always provide what he needed to drive brand growth. As such, he gained perspective from both sides, which helped him focus on the broader business dynamics that fuel success.
“For example, our scope of work might be managing Meta ads — but we can see that the average order value (AOV) is the blocker to hitting the client’s goals.
So then, we would work on both advertising and merchandising strategies to break through the bottlenecks,” he adds.
This approach is crucial to addressing underlying challenges that can hinder growth. Furthermore, Dan believes that challenger brands looking to compete with industry giants should clearly communicate what sets them apart:
“Are you using better materials? A different manufacturing technique? Are your products limited edition? Essentially, why should a consumer choose your product?
Navigating the Future of Digital Advertising
Generally speaking, brands that want to scale profitably must pay attention to several key factors. According to Dan, this includes good ads, good website conversion, good AOV, and good retention.
“If you ignore any of these critical components or don’t at least get them to average levels, you’re leaving money on the table when you scale.
It’s similar to training your whole body at the gym rather than just your biceps,” he says.
He shares that brands often reach out wanting to see better ROAS. However, as he previously stated, this can be attributed to better media planning or clearer ads.
But the key to growing sustainably, he says, is to optimize your whole funnel, and to constantly be improving.
“The most significant changes of course have been the shift from very manual optimizations to more strategic decisions. Machine learning now does a lot of the bidding, and privacy changes mean we have less control over who specifically sees an ad.
These trends mean that today, your offer and creativity need to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to finding your audience.
People also have more distractions than ever before, so advertising needs to be not only captivating but also very clear. The faster someone can understand your message and value proposition, the more effective your marketing will be,” he explains.
For brands aiming to thrive in a crowded digital marketplace, understanding what resonates with their audience and investing in strategies that balance short-term wins with long-term growth is key to achieving lasting impact.
