By: Sophie Allen Apr 15/2026
Following the enjoyment of last year’s interviews with the experts, I sat down with our Director of Creative Services, Nilo, who has been with Snaptech almost since day one. This naturally means that Nilo has experience with more than just design. He’s also our resident Google Analytics and Tag Manager expert, is a self-proclaimed National Foosball Champion, and might also be Snaptech’s reigning champion in corn hole and go karts. On a somewhat personal note, Nilo has the biggest heart, gives the best hugs, and is never too busy to help out when anyone on the team has a question. He is a vital part of the Snaptech team while also being our harshest critic when it comes to how we sing Happy Birthday.
Keep reading for Nilo’s take on designing for marketing, how he stays motivated when things get busy, and to get the inside scoop on pet monkeys [editor’s note: Warning. I am sorry].
What does the Director of Creative Services do?
I know you do things outside of that role, too, so what do you do?
As the Director of Creative Services, my role is to oversee and elevate the user experience life cycle across both our organization’s and our clients’ digital platforms. This means making sure that every design decision is intentional, scalable, and aligned with business goals. I also oversee analytics and track implementations, including Google Tag Manager and Analytics, just to make sure our clients have accurate data to measure platforms and user behaviours. This data plays a critical role in informing design decisions and optimizing user experience over time.
I also work closely with the development team, providing design, technical support, and guidance throughout the website build process to ensure all the executions are in alignment between design functionality and performance. In general, my goal is to support this by creating a system of strong collaboration, helping our clients achieve a measurement of success through the design of their website.
What do you like about working in digital marketing?
What I enjoy the most about working in marketing is that no two clients are the same. Every business has its own positioning, audience, challenges, and growth objectives. That diversity forces me to think strategically rather than rely on repetitive formats. I like marketing because it combines strategy, psychology, and all those little things like data and creativity into one discipline, and it constantly pushes me to go and refine my thinking.
What is the most enjoyable part of your role?
I would say it’s turning data into clear, actionable decisions. I like analyzing user behaviours, identifying pain points, and transforming those insights into strategic improvements to drive measurable results. There’s something very satisfying about seeing how small changes and adjustments to a project can significantly improve the performance.
I remember when we did the design for one of our clients, and I did a CRO audit and reformulated the design structure, thinking about the goal based on the pain points of that client, and we saw a very good transformation between what we had and the performance and conversions after. It was very satisfying to see.
What would you say is the most challenging aspect of your role?
The most challenging aspect of my role is aligning strategy with expectations. Sometimes you expect things to go a certain way, and you make tweaks to make sure you can get there, but maybe it takes longer or doesn’t work out as expected. You have to adapt to it.
Another challenge is keeping up with the constant change; what works today may not work tomorrow. You have to focus on staying adaptable, learning continuously, and testing before making a decision.
What keeps you motivated? Especially when things get busy.
Focusing on clear goals and making progress step by step. Prioritize tasks and break complex projects into smaller steps so I can complete everything in the time frame. I oversee several projects at once, and I have to prioritize them and break them into smaller steps because I cannot work on only one big project; I have to be looking at the other ones and make sure I can deliver them all on time.
So you stay motivated so that you don’t fall behind because you have so much to do? Oh no.
Yes, and sometimes it’s good to focus on one project, but I cannot stay like that for a long time because I have many things that need to be delivered around the same time. So, breaking it into parts or steps for bigger projects and then focusing on a small piece, then switching to another client and working in a different platform. This way, by the end of the week, I’m able to have everything completed.
What made you interested in a career in design?
I’d say initially what attracted me to design was creativity. I enjoyed the ability to transform ideas into visual solutions, I would say, to create something great from a blank canvas. But over time, however, my perspective shifted a little bit because I discovered the design is not only about aesthetics, it’s about solving problems. And the combination of creativity and data analysis completely changed how we approach projects today.
If you could go back to when you were just starting out and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
Focus on building depth, not just speed. Early in my career, I was eager to deliver quickly to prove my value. But over time, I learned that the real impact comes from taking the time to understand the overall project. This is really essential for me.
You want to show more work, that you are capable of doing these things. For me, I always thought that way because I wanted to do more and more to prove that I could actually help the company, but I realized that, when you step back a little and think more about the project, you don’t need to review and come back and make changes all the time. You can have a very good strategy to focus on that specific approach and deliver that in the way you were expecting between all the other things you have to do.
What would you say has been a career highlight for you?
For me, I’d say building projects where design and data-driven decisions led to measurement improvements. How can I answer that? I like increased conversions and better user experience. I think it’s very satisfying to see a client appreciate the growth I was able to help drive for the business with my implementations. So, that’s a big highlight for me.
If you weren’t in marketing, what industry would you want to be in?
It’s a funny question, because I probably would have ended up in dentistry. Most of my family is in that field, and I even started my career planning in that direction to be a dentist. I remember helping my sister with a dentistry project, and I found myself most excited about sculpting the mouth and bringing it to perfection because she needed my help with it. That’s when I realized that I love the artistry more than the clinical side of treating patients, and that was the trick for me to become a design artist.
Any final words you would like to say?
I am curious and eager to learn. I see every new project as an opportunity to explore new approaches and push my skills further, and that mindset is what gets me motivated and excited about what I do every day.
Fun Question Time. You’ve mentioned in the past that you used to own a restaurant. What did you do, and what made you decide to switch careers?
I pretty much did everything. I was a bartender, I was a chef. I learned a lot from the other chef, so I had to cook when he was sick. I was a cashier, taking care of the financials. I really enjoyed that, but at the time, I was working with IT already, so this was my secondary job.
What I liked most was the opportunity to meet new people, and you know, when the environment is different every time, it’s pretty much like design, if you think about it, you don’t have the same day as the other one. Everything is different, something new happens, and you have to solve the problems. I can tell you, it’s very stressful.
One of the reasons I decided to move on from it was that I had this restaurant in Brazil, and sometimes the corruption between the employees, like treating clients or those things, I didn’t feel good about it. I didn’t like to see that. I had a different approach for my restaurant, and I wanted to see everybody pretty much the same, from the owner to the employees. I treat everybody as family, but sometimes what we expect….is not the final answer.
My other reason was that I always planned to have a good life, a better part of life, and to immigrate to Canada. Someone from Canada came to Brazil and did a webinar, and I got interested in immigration. I was also with my wife, and she wanted to go, too. I had my family business, my restaurant, and I was working in IT as well, and I would think, ‘I’ve been doing too much, I’m not in the life that I would like to enjoy.” So I came here to Vancouver for another experience, and enjoyed the life, the people, the culture, and I felt safe. When I returned to Brazil, I got the opportunity to see this webinar, and that was the whole trigger to change everything. So I left my restaurant and everything and focused on the immigration process.
Final question. I know you’ve also previously mentioned having pet monkeys, and that announcement came with a lot of follow-up questions from the team. What can you tell me about that?
It’s not a common thing, even in Brazil. We had different kinds of animals at my parents’ place. We had four monkeys, sanguines [editor’s note: tamarin monkeys], they have very white ears, and they’re very small. They are wild; they had a cage, but we didn’t keep them closed in the cage, we left it open. They’d jump in the trees, come inside to eat, and eat on the table. They’d be in your hair looking for things. I was 13 or 14, but I remember that we left them free; they belonged to the forest, which was really far from the city I lived in. Because we left them free, they ended up going to the posts with a wire, and they got electrocuted. They didn’t know, and they didn’t expect it. It was a time when we thought it would be nice for them, but they didn’t know about the power, and they suffered for this, so we stopped having these kinds of pets.
On that tragic note, if you’re interested in learning more about our Creative Services or the Snaptech Team, feel free to reach out.
About the Author
Sophie Allen