“Success isn’t just about generating sales. What truly matters is delivering those sales at the lowest possible cost. The key is aligning strategies with client priorities, not just focusing on metrics that look good on paper.”
Entrepreneurs Today reached out to Parth Midda, an entrepreneur, IIM alumnus, and the founder of Vision Activated, to learn more about his journey and the importance of performance marketing for businesses.
Parth decided to build his own company after a 5-year corporate tenure at Google India, Urban Company and V-Guard Electricals. His decision to leave behind his corporate career came from his interest in helping struggling online businesses achieve long-term independence. Reflecting on the years before founding Vision Activated, he says,
“My interest and passion has always been in performance marketing with the core focus of empowering small to medium-scale enterprises to become self-reliant and free from high-commission charging marketplaces!”
Parth’s professional journey began in 2017, soon after graduating from Delhi University. He kickstarted his journey at Google India, where he supported brands from the North American market to increase their ROI from Google advertising. After completing his MBA from IIM Nagpur, he worked on various live projects at organisations like Urban Company, Peesafe and Outlook. Parth was also recognised as the Google Ads Top Marketer by excelling in the Google Online Marketing Challenge in 2021. His last stint was working at V-Guard for 2 years as an Assistant Manager, where he played a pivotal role in setting up the D2C channel of a 45-year-old household brand. Looking back, he mentions,
“From a young age, I noticed the passion that the women around me had for building something of their own. Whether it was a small business, a creative venture, or a project close to their heart, they had the drive and the means to make it happen. However, I also saw that many lacked the resources or the platform to get started and connect with the right people. I wanted to create a space where women could not only get the tools they needed—like a professional website to showcase their ideas—but also a sales channel that would help them connect directly with their potential buyers. My goal has always been to empower these women to turn their passions into sustainable businesses by giving them the digital presence they deserve.”
About Vision Activated
“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world!” – Joel A. Barker
A boutique marketing agency, Vision Activated helps small & medium-scale businesses in India generate and scale their online businesses via Performance Marketing. Founded in 2021, it has helped more than 120 brands across 16+ industries like apparel, jewellery, home decor, beauty and more. Over 75 percent of its client roster comprises women-led businesses, and Vision Activated helped them generate 100+ orders/month from their website. Regarding the work the team is doing, Parth says,
“Since day one, our mission has been to make entrepreneurs feel more empowered by reducing their dependence on online marketplaces. We have opened up a new sales channel for them in the form of a website that not only acts as a branding showpiece but also generates profit for their business. They are able to make as much as twice the money from a single order via our performance marketing campaigns than they were able to do while selling on marketplaces.”
Vision Activated has also been generating over INR 2 Cr of GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) or ad revenue per month and 5000+ website orders per month for the active brands through performance marketing campaigns.
Moreover, while focusing on empowering MSMEs, Vision Activated also helped funded startups and companies increase their revenue from online businesses like Looks Salon, Chunmun Stores, Luzo App, Little Farm Co., Buna Studio and more. Parth reveals,
“We are the official performance marketing partner of Fynd Commerce, a Reliance-acquired company. Together with Fynd Commerce, we are striving to work towards the mission of digitally transforming homegrown online brands, niche offline stores and Indian MSMEs by developing their e-commerce portals and helping them to generate sustainable online business via performance marketing capabilities. As a part of this partnership, we have digitally transformed over 50 Fynd brands and scaled their online business from scratch.”
Toil and Tribulation
One of the major challenges Parth faced while building his service-based agency business was onboarding new clients in the first 2 years. Pretty soon, he realised that there had to be more he could do than just inbound marketing, outbound client pitching, and client referrals. The traditional way of finding clients was just not sustainable, so he started looking for companies that wanted to collaborate with performance marketing agencies. He reveals,
“That’s where the partnership with Fynd Commerce and some influencer marketing and media companies happened. By collaborating, we were able to digitally transform brands—from setting up their e-commerce stores, integrating all necessary services like shipping and payment gateway, improving their branding and influencer outreach, and then helping them to generate online orders in a sustainable and scalable way with performance marketing.”
Despite the initial struggles, Parth is extremely proud of his team for achieving an 86% client satisfaction rate, i.e., the percentage of brands that have continued their service with Vision Activated after a probation of 3 months. He considers his business to be a ‘start-up’, a group of individuals who still make mistakes; however, they continuously learn from their mistakes and make themselves better every passing day!
Future Looks Bright
While the primary focus until now has been to help online businesses, Parth looks forward to his agency foraying into helping offline businesses with well-settled retail stores. He adds,
“With increasing competition from e-commerce and quick commerce marketplaces, which are basically selling anything to everything now, offline stores have started experiencing a gradual dip in their footfall.”
Parth further shares that the agency did a recent experiment with a renowned multi-category retail store in Delhi to boost footfall. The experiment involved deploying performance marketing tactics focused on a defined geographic radius, targeting both local residents of that area and the occasional visitors in real-time. The campaign’s data-driven approach successfully increased the store’s offline visits by 10% compared to the average monthly figures observed over the past year.
Moreover, Vision Activated is also looking to help personal brands, influencers and make-up artists with performance marketing in the near future. While acknowledging that the performance marketing space shows much promise, Parth notes,
“With more and more Gen-Zs opting for such creative professions, competition to get an organic online presence amongst the creators has been increasing rapidly, as a result of which performance marketing can become a breakthrough in attracting more online engagement, domain authority and greater social reach.”
Words of Wisdom
Over the course of his journey, Parth has learned several lessons. One of the crucial takeaways was to understand the importance of time management and communication skills with the clients as well as the team members.
He further adds that being a leader takes much more than just delegating work; one needs to motivate the people around while setting clear expectations. No matter how much time it takes, a leader needs to adapt their communication style to fit each situation, whether it’s about communicating with a prospect, understanding the vision of a client or guiding the team.
As he signs off, one message he leaves for the budding entrepreneurs is:
“Don’t fear leaving your current job and taking that leap of faith to build your idea. As long as you feel you always have a backup to rely on, it may be difficult for you to devote the necessary time and resources to fully develop your idea.”
