Ask Olivia Tomka about her perfect morning routine, and she’ll laugh. There’s no Instagram-perfect ritual here. The founder of Olivetree Marketing developed a European marketing perspective while growing up in Hungary, where she honed a global perspective before building one of Australia’s top results-focused marketing agencies. This has helped her develop a business philosophy to marketing that flies in the face of almost everything the marketing industry preaches.
That perspective recently earned recognition where it counts most. Olivetree Marketing was recently named Outstanding Employer of Choice at the 2025 Western Sydney Awards for Business Excellence (WSABE), which has honoured outstanding businesses in the last three decades. For a marketing agency built on doing things differently, the recognition proves that foundation-first thinking works both for nurturing clients and building innovative teams.
The journey to create her own marketing agency was never mapped out. After years of climbing the corporate ladder across Europe and Australia and witnessing how marketing operates on a global scale, Olivia witnessed a disconnect between the marketing function and the businesses it serves that she felt needed to be addressed.
“I kept seeing the same pattern everywhere,” she shares. “Great talent was overlooked, cultures were toxic, and companies were throwing money at campaigns without understanding their customers. Agencies spoke about reach and impressions, but never how these tied back to real business results. At Olivetree, I was determined to build the opposite: a place where people are recognised, culture comes first, and results truly matter.” Olivia adds.
The Question-First Philosophy
Tomka believes in marketing that delivers results. When she founded Olivetree Marketing, she set out to prove a simple theory: when you take time to get to know a business and its audience, everything else falls into place.
Years later, that perspective has made her agency the go-to choice for Australian businesses that recognised they need more than pretty campaigns to succeed.
“Working with international organisations taught me about strategy and scaling best practices,” Olivia reflects, “but I found myself wanting to get back to the fundamentals: knowing my clients’ businesses inside and out.”
Between running her agency and making sure her team delivers results that actually matter, she’s learned that marketing that delivers real results comes down to asking better questions.
According to her, success is about showing up consistently for the businesses that cannot afford to get their marketing wrong. “I see so many businesses that have incredible services, but they’re trying to sound impressive instead of being realistic about how they can help.”
Tomka adds that the industry obsesses over flashy campaigns. “Everyone wants to jump straight to the exciting stuff, particularly the allure of “viral content”. Understandable, of course. However, if your foundations lack strength, none of that matters.”
For her, going back to basics means starting with the simplest questions: Who exactly are you trying to reach? What problem are you solving for them? And why should clients come to you rather than your competitors?
Tomka’s back-to-basics philosophy often surprises new clients who expect to discuss complicated strategies in their first meeting. “We build from the ground up, making sure every decision is based on research and measurable outcomes.”
Rather than forcing clients to juggle multiple agencies or piece together different specialists, Olivetree Marketing covers the full spectrum: from building websites that convert visitors into customers to advertising and search engine optimisation (SEO) that helps people find those websites in the first place. The team also handles the creative side, developing branding and design that reflect what makes each business stand out.
Moreover, Tomka’s team immerses themselves in the client’s entire business ecosystem. This means grasping not only what a company does, but also the challenges they face daily, and what success truly looks like for them.
“It’s part of our methodology that we become students of our clients’ industries,” she explains. “After all, you cannot create good marketing if you fail to understand the world your client operates in.”
Communication and Integration as Foundation
Communication separates successful agencies from the rest, and for Olivetree Marketing, it forms a non-negotiable foundation. Her team maintains regular scheduled contact with clients, providing updates on what works, what could be improved, and what adjustments will be made.
“Many people don’t realise that marketing requires constant attention and innovation,” she explains. “The modern business landscape changes so fast, and we need to stay ahead of those changes while keeping our clients informed every step of the way.”
Moreover, she shares how she has witnessed too many businesses struggle because they treat marketing as a collection of separate activities instead of an integrated experience. According to Tomka, a beautifully designed website means nothing if it cannot be found through search engines. Meanwhile, great SEO gets wasted if it drives traffic to a poorly converting site.
“Every element should be designed to work together.”
The focus on integration means Olivetree Marketing evaluates every component of a client’s marketing ecosystem to identify weak links. Whether it’s social media that fails to align with the website’s messaging or email campaigns that fail to complement the advertising strategy, every element must strengthen the others because results come from consistency across all touchpoints.
This serves clients in sectors where potential customers research extensively before making contact; every touchpoint must reinforce the same message. After all, a poorly optimised website undermines even the best referral network. Strong social proof means nothing if the website fails to convert that interest into action.
Creating a Workplace Worth Staying For
What most people get wrong about running an agency is that they think the secret is in the flashiest tools. However, the real secret has always been the people, and Tomka is a big proponent of nurturing her team.
“My team is my biggest asset. Not in the corporate-speak way where you say it because it sounds good, but in the actual, practical sense where everything we deliver traces back to them: every client relationship that lasts and every problem we solve that seemed impossible at first,” she explains.
Olivetree Marketing’s recent award by WSABE confirmed something she’d built the entire business around. While other awards celebrate revenue growth or market expansion, this one measured something entirely different: how you treat the people who contribute to the success of the business.
“This award matters more to me than anything,” she shares. The vision on team culture came from years of watching what happens when companies get it wrong. Agencies hire amazing teams, load them with impossible expectations. Then, act surprised when people burn out or leave. She saw the same destructive pattern too often and knew she had to find a better way.
The connection between internal culture and client results could not be clearer. After all, you can only help other businesses grow when your own team has what they need to thrive.
The businesses Olivetree Marketing helps succeed benefit directly from the fact that the team comes to work genuinely engaged in solving problems and creating value.
As a leader, Tomka believes that building a successful business is only part of her role. Equally important is creating an environment where people can do their best work — without compromising their well-being along the way.
“You cannot fake a healthy work environment or put some values on a wall and call it culture,” the founder said. “You have to “live” it every single day, in how you communicate, how you handle deadlines, how you respond when someone makes a mistake, how you support people during difficult periods .”
Olivia’s Lessons from her marketing journey so far:
- Foundation-first beats flash every time. While competitors chase viral moments, sustainable growth comes from understanding your audience and building systems that work consistently.
- Take time to know your clients. Understanding your clients’ businesses inside and out matters more than following the latest marketing fad.
- Integration multiplies individual tactics. Isolated efforts waste resources and may confuse customers. Every marketing element must work together, from the website to social media, and all the touchpoints in between.
- Transparent communication builds unshakeable trust. Clear, regular, transparent updates about what is working and what is not create partnerships that build sustained success and weather most business storms.
- Team culture is not a periodic focus. Olivetree Marketing’s Outstanding Employer of Choice award proves that investing in your people creates the competitive advantage competitors struggle to match.
What’s Next for Olivetree Marketing?
When asked about her 5-year goals, Tomka replies that it is centered around sustainable growth, innovation, and impact. Specifically:
- Scale with Purpose by expanding the client base globally, specifically in healthcare and professional services, where the company already has significant success and strong expertise
- Grow team not just in size, but in impact.
- Focus on more training and personal development, and staying innovative.
- Nurturing a culture of honesty, trust, and collaboration at the core
- Continue to give back to the local business community
As for Olivia, she will continue to focus on excelling at building client relationships that no algorithm can replicate, treating clients the way she would want to be treated, and celebrating her clients as if they were her own.
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