Founder Audrey Zarlenga joins APPM (Associação Portuguesa dos Profissionais de Marketing)
We’re proud to share that Audrey Zarlenga, founder of Pulso Social Marketing, is now an associate of APPM (Associação Portuguesa dos Profissionais de Marketing), the Portuguese Association of Marketing Professionals.
What is APPM?
APPM has represented the marketing profession in Portugal since 1967. That is almost six decades of shaping how marketing is practised, taught and recognised in this country.
It is a private, non-profit association. Its role is simple and ambitious: to represent marketing professionals and the discipline itself, in Portugal and abroad. It speaks for the profession with the market, the media, other organisations, and international institutional networks.
In practice, APPM brings the Portuguese marketing ecosystem together through:
- More than 60 events a year from the APPM Growth Infusion Forum and APPM Marketing storm to the Influencer Marketing HUB and sector conferences in areas such as healthcare and textiles.
- Regional marketing clubs, connecting professionals beyond Lisbon and Porto, in regions such as the Algarve and the Alentejo.
- Professional certification (CPM), with four national levels, from Marketing Technician to Senior Marketer, plus a European level. Specialisations include Digital, Branding, Communication and Sales & New Business.
- The APPM Marketing Awards, recognising the best marketing work in Portugal each year.
- Course and event accreditation, setting a quality benchmark for marketing education.
- APPM Next, a mentoring programme developing the next generation of marketers.
- A Code of Conduct for marketing professionals, defining ethical standards for the industry.
In short: APPM is where Portugal’s marketing leaders meet, learn, benchmark and raise the bar for everyone.
Why this matters for Pulso Social Marketing
Pulso Social Marketing is based in Funchal, Madeira, and our roots are Portuguese. Joining APPM anchors us officially in the national marketing community. For our clients, that means working with an agency plugged into the local market: its consumers, its media landscape, its regulations and its business culture. It is the kind of knowledge that no market research report can fully replace.
It also gives us direct access to the wider marketing ecosystem. Our industry moves fast. AI, privacy changes, platform updates and shifting consumer behaviour rewrite the playbook every quarter. Through APPM, Audrey is connected to the people, research and conversations shaping the industry in real time. That intelligence flows straight into our work, with sharper go-to-market strategy, better channel mix decisions and campaigns built on current best practice, not last year’s.
Membership is also a matter of standards. Anyone can call themselves a marketer, but belonging to a professional body signals something different: accountability, ethics and a commitment to continuous professional development. When you hand us your brand positioning, your ad budget or your customer data, you should know that the person leading the work holds herself to recognised industry standards.
Finally, APPM strengthens the bridge between our Portuguese base and our European reach. We’re established in Portugal, but we don’t think in borders. Audrey brings over ten years of international marketing leadership across France, the United Kingdom, Australia and Portugal, including a senior European role covering more than 15 countries in the Saas and defence technology sector. We work in Portuguese, English and French, supporting UK and French businesses expanding into Portugal as well as European companies scaling internationally. With APPM, both sides of that bridge get stronger: deep local roots, and a professional network that connects Portuguese marketing to the wider European community.
What this means for our clients
For our clients, it means a marketing partner who keeps learning alongside the country’s leading practitioners, so every recommendation reflects where the market is heading.
Pulso Social Marketing is a founder-led agency: Audrey works directly on every project, bringing senior expertise from the first strategy session through to execution and reporting.
Everything we do is data-driven marketing built around measurable outcomes. We track what moves your business forward: qualified leads, pipeline growth, customer acquisition cost and return on ad spend (ROAS). Each campaign is measured, optimised and tied to your commercial goals.
As a full-scope, 360 marketing partner, we connect every part of your marketing into one strategy. Branding and positioning set the tone. Performance marketing across Google Ads and Meta Ads drives targeted traffic and convert quickly into leads, while SEO builds your searchability over time, and conversion-focused landing pages turn that traffic into enquiries. Social media management and content strategy build visibility and trust over time. Email marketing, CRM and marketing automation nurture every lead along the customer journey, and our B2B lead generation and demand generation campaigns fill your pipeline with the right prospects.
Now, that work is backed by a wider network, one that includes one of the longest-standing marketing institutions in Portugal.
Looking ahead
We’ll be active in the APPM community: attending events, meeting with peers and contributing where we can. We’ll bring back what we learn and share it here, on the blog.
If you’re looking for a marketing agency in Portugal that combines local knowledge, European experience and a strategy-first approach, let’s talk.
Ready to see what this looks like for your business?
📞 +351 915 786 022 ✉️ info@pulsosocial-marketing.com 🌐 pulsosocial-marketing.com