30+ TROPHIES 01
Tennis
I've played competitively for over ten years and I'm a regional umpire: I organise and run tennis and padel tournaments across the Veneto region. It's the sport that taught me consistency and how to lose without drama.
ELEVATION +100 — ABOUT
Design, measure,
then optimise.
I'm Francesco Sguotti, 22, working as a freelance performance marketer and web developer in Monselice, northern Italy. I build and optimise campaigns, websites and e-commerce for companies and professionals, and I'm studying Computer Science at the University of Padua in parallel. The thread that holds it together is a way of thinking: first I understand how a system works — from the inside, not the surface — then I measure it, then I improve it.
VERTICAL SECTION — LAYER BY LAYER
HOW I GOT HERE
A hybrid path, built on purpose.
It wasn't a linear path, and that was a choice. I started with economics — a diploma in Business Administration, Finance and Marketing — where I learned how a company's numbers work. Then I moved into digital, with an ITS in Digital Marketing & Innovation that I finished at 96/100, where I first started working with real data, campaigns and behaviour. Today I study Computer Science in Padua, to reach the deepest layer: how machines work.
Along the way I worked. I developed Shopify themes in Liquid for B2B and B2C e-commerce, built WordPress sites for SMBs and professionals, and for a couple of years I've been running Meta and Google Ads campaigns on my own with budgets in the 10–15k euro a year range, handling tracking (GA4, Conversion API), conversion optimisation and reporting. At twenty-one I also taught: cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and coding courses for primary and secondary school teachers.
The full version, step by step, is on the Journey page.
HOW I THINK
Analysis first, opinions later.
I'd describe myself as an analytical, curious person. I care about the "why" behind things more than settling for them just working, and I tend to optimise almost everything I do, starting with time. It's an attitude that comes from computing and security, which I've followed since I was a teenager: observe a process, take it apart, put it back together more efficiently.
The other half of the job is people. With clients, what matters is really listening, explaining choices clearly and deciding on data rather than gut feeling: it's the most honest way to manage someone else's budget. I recognise myself fairly well in the INTJ profile, with one difference — strategy, to me, only makes sense when it's useful to someone.
Outside work I read a lot, a bit of everything: non-fiction, science, marketing. They're the three worlds that hold me together, and probably why a border job like mine suits me.
ONE PROBLEM, THREE VIEWPOINTS
I don't keep development, marketing and data apart.
To me they're three ways of looking at the same thing. That's why I can coordinate traffic, offer and technology without bouncing them between three different vendors: whoever writes the code also understands the campaign numbers, and vice versa.
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Development
Websites and e-commerce, but also custom management software and applications. I work as a programmer: front-end, WordPress, Shopify in Liquid and software development.
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Marketing
Meta and Google Ads campaigns built for return, not impressions. Tracking, funnels, CRO.
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Data
GA4, Conversion API, reporting. Decisions come from numbers that are actually measured.
EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
A NOTE IN THE MARGIN
As a teenager I read The Lord of the Rings and it stuck with me — more for how it's built than for the story. Tolkien didn't write a novel: he designed an entire world, with languages, maps and centuries of history, with the same care you'd put into designing a system. It's the same kind of layered construction that interests me in my work too: something that works on the surface and has a serious structure underneath.
BEYOND WORK
I don't just sit in front of a screen.
Three things that say as much about me as the work does. And when I need to switch off, I dance salsa and bachata.
50+ PEOPLE 02
Mountains
I founded the Giovani Montanari association, a group that organises hikes. It started for one simple reason: to bring together people who would otherwise never have met.
PRO BONO 03
Community
I build and maintain, free of charge, the websites of Tennis Club Monselice, the Lions Club, a dance school and a University of Padua project.
ELEVATION −200 — BASE CAMP