Sam Karow is the founder and CEO of Effective, a media agency delivering digital and traditional media research, planning, buying and measurement services. Sam has 27 years and over $1B in media investment management experience.

Founded in 2009, Effective has developed innovative, data-driven paid B2B and B2C media programs to achieve positive ROI for over 100 companies of all sizes from startups to companies in the Fortune 500. ​ Effective offers big agency talent on-demand without big agency overhead. The agency deploys proprietary systems for budget setting, insight development, conversion modeling, partner selection and performance reporting. ​

Sam began the first 13 years of his career at Starcom Mediavest Group, the world’s largest media agency. He led planning and buying teams on Bank of America, Gillette, Hanes, Kellogg’s, Miller Brewing Company, Sara Lee and many others.

At Loyola University’s Quinlan School of Business, Sam served as an adjunct professor of integrated media planning. Sam received his Master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communication from the Medill School at Northwestern University. He received undergraduate degrees in advertising and telecommunications from Michigan State University.