Scaling Search Strategy Across Global Brands and Platforms
Website: davidiwanow.com · Last updated: October 2026
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David Iwanow is an Amsterdam-based search strategist with more than 18 years of experience in digital marketing and search. In 2025 he started The Lost Agency to bring enterprise-grade search strategy to clients as an independent consultant. Before that, he built his career inside some of the largest multi-site organizations in the industry: as SEO Product Manager at Marktplaats (eBay Classifieds) in the Benelux, as Global SEO Manager at Schibsted across 22 classified platforms, at Danone overseeing 379 digital properties, and as Head of Search at Reckitt, responsible for more than 800 websites spanning brands including Dettol, Durex, Finish, Nurofen, and Strepsils.
Iwanow's career started in Australia, where he worked as a freelance consultant and agency contractor. In 2008 he re-started the Brisbane SEO meetup and later expanded it to Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, an early sign of the community focus that would follow him throughout his career. He is also a published author: together with Harold Davis he co-wrote the second edition of "Google Advertising Tools" (O'Reilly, 2009). In 2018 Search Engine Roundtable featured him in its series honoring members of the search community.
His expertise spans SEO, App Store Optimization (ASO), paid search, digital strategy, international SEO, reporting automation, and AI in search. He has shared that knowledge on international stages with talks such as "Automate or DIE!" (Search Elite, 2017), "Learning from ASO testing at scale" (App Promotion Summit London, 2018), "Keywords and content for global SEO" (International Search Summit London, 2019), and "Maximising Global SEO Performance" (Pubcon, 2019), as well as a session on data visualization and tracking and reporting automation at SMXL Milan. The recurring themes are clear: search at global scale, experimentation, and automating the reporting work that otherwise consumes SEO teams.
Iwanow's philosophy is grounded in patience and evidence. His advice to search marketers is to "Measure, wait and make decisions based on data where possible", and to share learnings and stay positive along the way. Looking at the broader search landscape, he warned that "the big issue SEOs are going to face in 2023 is cutting through the noise", pointing to the growing number of search surfaces, from paid search and image results to TikTok and Amazon search. In a 2023 Search Engine Roundtable vlog he stressed that search professionals need to keep reinventing themselves to stay relevant, especially with the rise of AI and ChatGPT.
What sets Iwanow apart is the scale at which he has operated. Managing search for hundreds of websites across dozens of brands and markets requires a different skill set than optimizing a single site: governance, prioritization, automation, and the ability to align many teams around one search strategy. His experience across classifieds, consumer goods, and apps, combined with his background in paid search and ASO, gives him a broad view of how people find products and brands, a perspective he now brings to clients through The Lost Agency.
In 2025 David Iwanow started The Lost Agency to bring enterprise-grade search strategy to clients as an independent consultant. He previously worked as SEO Product Manager at Marktplaats (eBay Classifieds), Global SEO Manager at Schibsted, at Danone overseeing 379 digital properties, and as Head of Search at Reckitt.
As Head of Search at Reckitt he was responsible for more than 800 websites, spanning brands including Dettol, Durex, Finish, Nurofen, and Strepsils.
His expertise covers SEO, App Store Optimization (ASO), paid search, digital strategy, international SEO, reporting automation, and AI in search.
His talks include "Automate or DIE!" (Search Elite, 2017), "Learning from ASO testing at scale" (App Promotion Summit London, 2018), "Keywords and content for global SEO" (International Search Summit London, 2019), and "Maximising Global SEO Performance" (Pubcon, 2019).
"Measure, wait and make decisions based on data where possible." He also stresses cutting through the noise of an ever-growing number of search surfaces, and continually reinventing yourself to stay relevant in search.