2020 Trends: Holiday Shopping

by | Oct 26, 2020 | Industry Insights

What’s Going On? Changing Shopping Behavior

This year, amid a U.S. presidential election and global pandemic, we’re entering the most unusual holiday season any of us have experienced before. With the pandemic serving as an accelerant to online purchasing, and operations and fulfillment in many sectors already stretched as a result, sellers are bracing for some busy, and potentially chaotic, weeks ahead. Many advertisers—now tasked with getting ahead of the customer, whose shopping has started earlier and earlier in recent years—are wondering how they’re going to reach target consumers given their new newfound buying behaviors. The 2020 holidays will truly test retailers’ flexibility and adaptability. Where e-commerce and retail have previously played different roles in the customer shopping journey, this holiday season these two worlds will converge. An increased focus on health and safety, combined with financial concerns, will result in a shift in the way consumers spend their holiday budget.

 

 

 

Consumer Spending on the Mend?

 

The pandemic has greatly affected consumer spending across all income brackets. Though consumers may not be completely putting the brakes on gift spending, they are planning to spend less than they have in previous years. About 22% of consumers said they’ll compare prices more than usual, while 21% said they’ll be giving fewer presents to family members this year. The share of U.S. consumers planning to spend $300 or less on gifts has increased over 2019.1

One in five consumers said they’re worried about finances. Unsurprisingly, these financial concerns will directly translate to the type of gifts people buy. Most plan to give practical gifts, like those that can be used at home, or fun or entertaining gifts. In early August, 59% said they planned to buy gifts from their go-to brands, while 51% planned to explore new brands when shopping for holiday gifts this year.2

 

Not Business as Usual

 

This year will be one of the most promotional holiday seasons ever, especially in the apparel industry, due to excess inventory in stores that closed. These factors should translate to the largest online holiday shopping season to date across the e-commerce industry. However, most things have been thrown for a loop— consumer demand is fluctuating, inventory forecasting has become unpredictable, and supply chains are challenged. While some fortunate brands have experienced a surge in sales, overwhelming their supply chains, others have had to close stores and furlough employees as sales decreased. 

More consumers are shopping online. For consumers, the acceleration toward digital has shown them the benefits and ease of online shopping, particularly in categories they previously might not have considered buying on the web prior to the pandemic, such as groceries and household essentials. 

In 2019, U.S. holiday retail sales increased by 3.7% to about $1.01t, exceeding $1t for the first time. This year, eMarketer projects sales from e-commerce to grow 13.9% to $157b during the holidays, while Deloitte pegged digital sales growth during the period at somewhere between 25% and 35% year over year, generating between $182b and $196b.

According to the 2019 Adobe Digital Insights Holiday Recap report, 84% of online holiday season growth came from smartphones. While smartphones contributed a third of all holiday spend last year, actual buying metrics were quite different than shoppers coming from desktops. In fact, smartphones served more of an information tool than a buying one. Completing the buying process lagged compared to desktop metrics; 3.0 v. 5.9 checkouts per 100 visits with higher cart abandonment: 50% v. 33%.

 

 

It’s the Most Competitive Time of the Year

 

As more consumers spend time with digital content, advertisers in turn will compete for screen space. Achieving visibility will be crucial for brands for a successful holiday season. With the season starting earlier than ever, the annual spike in delivery demand will last even longer than usual, making it that much more challenging (and important) to stand out. Advertisers should start promoting sales earlier to take full advantage of less competition and avoid shipping bottlenecking in November and December. The weeks leading up to the traditional holiday shopping season that have been previously overlooked by advertisers are a valuable opportunity to build brand awareness and keep brands top of mind among online consumers.

 

 

New Ways of Shopping

 

Providing an optimized, seamless digital customer experience will provide retailers with the advantage needed to withstand the current holiday season. Innovations in e-commerce and advanced technology are creating a frictionless experience for online shoppers which is especially important given consumers’ concerns about their health and safety. There has been a jump from fast to free shipping, and even an introduction and experimentation of drone deliveries. With online shopping expected to surge through the end of the year, alternative purchase methods could help brands connect with consumers and sustain sales demand. Different click and collect options include:

  • Buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS)
  • Curbside pickup
  • Package lockers

Buy online, pick up in-store surged 259% YoY in August 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. As of August, about three-fourths of the top 50 U.S. store-based retailers offered curbside pickup, according to Coresight Research, an advisory and research firm that specializes in retail and technology. The convenience of touch-free shopping will likely cause permanent shifts in consumer behavior.  

Additionally, QR codes, the little black and white squares that rose to popularity in the early 2010s, are making a resurgence in an increasingly contactless world. QR codes offer a touch-free way for brands to interact with customers who may be nervous returning to stores, and retailers are desperate to do just that.

 

 

How are Retailers Impacted?

 

Given the uncertainty that the pandemic has brought, tone and messaging of advertisements are more important than ever. Consumers want reassurance from brands they trust. Advertisers will be doubling down on feel-good campaigns and end-of-year sales to make up for lost revenue and foot traffic during mandatory stay-at-home orders. Retailers should focus on addressing the customer service issues that will arise this season, particularly with the spike in online shopping. Improvements to e-commerce or mobile capabilities, as well as curbside pickup and returns could help attract shoppers. 

 

 

While different aspects of the entire retail industry have been affected, lowered media ad rates and increased organic site traffic, as a result of consumers turning to online shopping more, have actually helped alleviate some pressure for smaller retailers and direct-to-consumer brands that faced challenges regarding online customer acquisition even before the pandemic. Direct-to-consumer brands should focus on aligning logistics, making sure items are in stock and improving shipping capabilities, so products arrive on time and customers are happy.

With e-commerce predicted to overtake in-store shopping this holiday season, Target got an early start on its digital deals by announcing a new holiday kickoff called “Target Deal Days”, which will run in-store and online, where consumers can find “Black Friday” pricing on items from October to December. The sales specials began on October 13, the same day Amazon Prime Day launched. Target Deal Days is the retailer’s response to Amazon’s digital sales dominance, helping it attract online customers looking for low prices. Though Prime Day typically occurs in the summer, the pandemic pushed it back, opening up a new opportunity for competitors like Target to take advantage of the upcoming holiday season to run digital sales of their own.

 

 

Prime Time

 

Amazon’s decision to move Prime Day from mid-July to October 13th and 14th threw an even bigger wrench into an already rocky season. This move has resulted in a different focus: de-emphasizing products for summer and back-to-school, and making the event an early lead-in to this year’s holiday season. Electronics, home fitness, toys and gaming, beauty products, and home goods are expected to be top categories this season. 

In its first-ever forecast for Prime Day, eMarketer expects that Amazon will generate $9.91b in sales worldwide, including $6.17b in the U.S. Heightened pandemic demand for eLearning, in-home entertainment, cooking, and sanitation products—once mundane categories—will resonate in a way they never would have previously.

 

 

October is the New Black (Friday)

 

Black Friday is historically the unofficial kickoff to holiday shopping, with many consumers even starting on the night of Thanksgiving following their family dinner. However, larger chains have, to an extent, canceled Black Friday this year. Big-box stores—including Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, Best Buy, JCPenney, and Foot Locker—started announcing as early as July that their brick-and-mortar locations will not be open on Thanksgiving Day. Retailers typically offer their biggest Black Friday deals over Thanksgiving weekend, but now they’re starting them earlier so shoppers don’t crowd stores all in a single day, creating a potentially dangerous situation during the pandemic. This year, 59% of consumers said they expect to start their holiday shopping online before November 1st.3

 

 

Reaching Consumers

 

Traditionally, marketers often look at last year’s holiday trends to understand how to plan this year’s holiday advertising campaigns, but looking to the past won’t be enough to prepare for the 2020 holiday season, advertisers need to be strategic with their media plans. Choosing the right channel that will help advertisers stand out among all of the noise will be crucial to surviving this year’s pre-holiday shopping season. Industry experts expect to see paid search, social, and OTT/CTV being utilized this season—as more consumers, especially in younger cohorts, move away from traditional mediums like television and toward streaming platforms. The consumer path to purchase starts with search, mostly on their mobile device. 57% of consumers turn to search when they don’t have a brand in mind, and 91% of searches on the Microsoft Search Network were non-branded in the 2019 holiday season.4 

Authentic, personalized experiences, optimized content, and advanced audience targeting are key but winning consumer hearts will require reaching them in the first place (and holding their attention long enough to make a connection). With many holiday shoppers avoiding physical stores to some degree, advertisers can look to meet consumer needs by focusing their marketing efforts on placing contextually relevant digital ads in safe and suitable environments. The good news is consumers still value advertising. 89% of consumers reported that they find online advertising important in discovering new products and promotions, while 31% said they believe that they are more receptive to ads during the holiday season.5

Now is the time for advertisers to reevaluate media plans and reallocate spend from low-performing channels and invest those dollars in channels that deliver the biggest ROI. But how do you know what is best? Advertisers looking to increase sales, attract new customers, improve conversion rates, and bridge the gap between retail and online should consider a partnership with Digital Remedy. Our 20+ years of experience and innovative media solutions will set brands up for a successful holiday season by identifying the best media types to boost ROI, effectively connecting brands with consumers across devices and screens, and continuously optimizing campaigns based on real-time measurements across customer journey touchpoints.

 

 

Flip, the Digital Remedy Approach

 

Flip is a competitively intelligent OTT/CTV ad platform, which allows advertisers to optimize their campaigns in real time—pinpointing exactly where conversions and revenue are coming from—to effectively maximize ROI and drive future marketing decisions. By measuring and breaking out delivered impressions across the following variables, Flip identifies and optimizes towards the best performing variables, shifting budgets appropriately including publisher, channel, device, creative, geo-location, daypart, and audience.

 

 

 

Use the following links to learn more about Holiday Shopping Trends and how you can reach the right audience at the right time using our cookieless targeting capabilities and innovative Flip solution.

 

The Way We See It

 

David Zapletal – Chief Innovation & Media Officer

“It’s imperative that advertisers have the proper media mix and balance of various channels in order to reach target audiences. The right mix should focus on prospecting and ultimately closing the customer. With this in mind, prospecting from social while utilizing narrow datasets and then following the future customer through other channels, like display, will lead to the best ROI. As advertisers consider targeting tactics, it’s important to remember that not all contextual targeting is created equal, as some providers look for simple keywords on a page or url instead of looking at the full content of the page. Advertisers with a strong digital strategy prior to COVID-19 now have a significant advantage and will dominate the retail space moving forward—providing consumers with new experiences and fueling the growing preference of online shopping.”

 

 

 

Sources:

  1. eMarketer, October 2020, “Consumers Plan to Spend Less on Holiday Gifts This Year”
  2. Morning Consult, September 2020, “How COVID-19 Is Changing the Holiday Shopping Season”
  3. ChannelAdvisor Survey, August 2020
  4. Microsoft Advertising, October 2020
  5. Integral Ad Science, September 2020, 2020 Consumer Study on Holiday Shopping Habits

Mike Seiman

Mike Seiman, CEO & Chairman, is the founder of Digital Remedy, a digital media solutions company leading the tech enabled marketing space he co-founded while still a college student at Hofstra University in the early 2000s. The company has grown quickly and is now a major player within the crowded digital advertising landscape. The rapid growth of Digital Remedy, formerly CPXi led to its inclusion on Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest growing privately held advertising/marketing companies in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2014. Mike was selected as a semi-finalist in Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year initiative in 2010 and 2013 and as a finalist in 2009 and 2014. In his free time, Mike serves on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, Hofstra University. He also focuses on numerous philanthropic initiatives including sitting on the boards of the H.E.S. (Hebrew Educational Society non-profit community center) and Children International, where he spearheaded the development of community centers in both Guayaquil, Ecuador in 2010 and Barranquilla, Colombia in 2014.

David Zapletal

Before graduating in 2005 with degrees in Retail and Consumer Science (with an emphasis in eCommerce) and a Minor in Public Business Administration at the University of Arizona, David Zapletal had already successfully grown a start up ad network from serving an initial 1 million impressions per day to over 10 million impressions per day. It was his deep understanding of internet advertising during the industry’s beginning stages that led him to another start up at the time, CPXi. More than 8 years that have passed and Zapletal currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for Digital Remedy. In that role he continues to help grow and implement optimization tactics across various ad serving platforms, oversee daily operations of the account management and trafficking groups and maximizes ROI for Direct Response advertisers as well as for Publishers. Outside of Digital Remedy, Zapletal commits his efforts to an organization called Camp Dream Street, a camping program for children with disabilities, where he serves on the Board of Directors.

Jeff Reitzen

Jeff has worked in multiple facets of the online industry, from sales to operations as well as consumer engagement, content analytics and most recently in data optimization. His career began as a wedding, bar mitzvah, and Sweet 16 DJ where he learned the delicate balance of crowd energy management. Quickly, this skill made him incredibly successful in managing online sales for Geico. He joined CPXi at its startup stage as employee number 4 and has been a key driver of continued growth. His unique knowledge of what converts in the digital ad space, the application of data, and how to optimize platforms for efficiency continues to be invaluable to Digital Remedy clients. Today, Jeff is responsible for innovating and optimizing all Digital Remedy offerings including platforms, systems, tools, and internal processes—ensuring the organization remains on the precipice of the marketplace.

Mike Juhas

Mike Juhas, has over 13+ years of experience in ad tech client services, working with brands, agencies, and publishers ranging from top 10 advertisers to small regional organizations, to rep firms, holding companies and independent shops. An integral member of the Digital Remedy team, Juhas leads all client relationships, including facilitating onboarding and integration, establishing relationship protocols, overseeing Quarterly Business Reviews and status meetings, navigating financial coordination, and overseeing 24/7 team support. His specialties include consultative services, planning strategy, and account management disciplines. Juhas lives in New Canaan, CT with his wife and two daughters, and their dog, Perry–the unofficial company mascot.

TJ Sullivan

TJ Sullivan has over 20 years of media sales and leadership experience. His knowledge of the digital media landscape, ability to develop strategic solutions that solve brand challenges, and talent for motivating sales teams, have made him a vital member of several media and ad tech organizations. Before joining Digital Remedy, Sullivan was VP, Connections at iHeart Media, a cross-divisional group that enabled national advertisers to seamlessly work with multiple iHeart business units; CRO of Reelcontent, a video distribution company for brands; SVP of sales at AdoTube, a video ad network; and was Co-Founder and SVP of video measurement company, OpenSlate—for which he is still an advisor.

Sullivan had served as the President of 212, New York’s Interactive Advertising Club, and currently advises many early stage start-ups in the programmatic and video space. Notably, RUN (sold to Publicis in 2014), Futures Media, Transmit.Live, and Kubient.

Outside of his work in the media industry, Sullivan sits on the Board of St. Elizabeth School in Wyckoff, New Jersey and the Advancement Committee of St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City, New Jersey. He resides in New Jersey with his wife and four children.

IP Zone: Leverage the relationship between users and the location of their IP addresses in a cookie-free, safe and scalable way.

Behavioral: Combine first party with network analytics and enormous scale to define custom audience channels that are optimized to sites with high brand engagement.

Demographic: Reach the right audience based on demographic characteristics such as age, gender and income.

Mobile Device: Target users by mobile device type (Smartphone, tablet, etc.), carrier and operating system.

Geo-Location: Target your audience residential cluster, proximity to retail locations, campaign level DMAs and more.

Contextual: Place a relevant ad in front of a user who is reading content that contains specific terms.

Buying Power and Quality

Let’s be honest. Your ad ops are limited by your access to only a handful of channels and DSPs. You want more reach and better prices, but don’t want to sacrifice quality in order to achieve those goals. Digital Remedy has access to a vast multitude of channels based on relationships we’ve cultivated over nearly 20 years in business. That means we get the best prices, have personal relationships, and don’t get sent to voicemail when we call.

It also means that we can execute omni-channel ad ops for better prices than an internal team, while ensuring the quality is up to industry standards. On top of access to all sorts of specific audiences we’re able to to leverage first- and third-party data across all your campaigns and pivot across platforms based on results. Any campaign, any budget, any platform, any audience. Digital Remedy backed by AdReady is restriction free ad ops….and what could be better than that?

Resources, Time, and Overhead

When was the last time you enjoyed balancing budgets, reading resumes, dealing with aggressive sales teams, or wasting years of time for small gains in performance. By partnering with Digital Remedy you get the full support of $30m in OPEX including marketing teams, sales teams, and a dedicated 24/7 ad operations team. No hiring new employees for media optimization, business development, or account management. No months of training and on-boarding. No long meetings crafting sales materials. Just your team focused on making deals, and our teams and tech focused on supporting and executing those deals in a tech-enabled, digital ecosystem designed to get the most out of any KPI.

Reporting and Support

How nice would it be to have all of your data and insights in one location. We don’t mean an excel sheet sent out once a week with complicated charts, or an XML file with pages and pages and pages of tables (what is this, 2003?). We mean a fully customizable dashboard reporting in real time, or as real time as possible. You get to decide the how, what, and when of the reporting you’re seeing. And that’s ALL of the how, what, and when’s. If you want to see breakouts of all of the individual campaigns in your system, done. If you want broad scope comparisons of all of the campaigns in the last year, done. If you want to see CTR’s for specific audiences and compare them to CPM for your best performing advertiser but limit the scope to campaigns greater than 30k, done. All of this is at your fingertips with the AdReady Dashboard, all in one place.

Jessica Cortapasso

With more than a decade of experience in human capital management, Jessica Cortapasso serves as SVP, People at Digital Remedy. After graduating from Muhlenberg College, she quickly recognized her passion for people and entered the workforce in Human Resources where she gained expertise in employee relations, designing strategic benefit plans, and the development, implementation, and curation of corporate engagement initiatives for big-name brands and small companies alike. Becoming a member of the Digital Remedy family in 2013 while simultaneously acquiring her Masters Degree in Human Resources Management and Development from New York University, Jessica has steered company culture through significant events ranging from acquisitions and a rebranding, to the development and application of our Core Values that shape our daily business practices. Cortapasso resides in Brooklyn, plays competitive volleyball, and loves spending time with her nieces.

Erez Feld

Responsible for the financial and legal practices of Digital Remedy, Erez brings 22 years of experience in precision financial analysis, growth management practices, strategic acquisition, and investment leadership. A graduate of Hofstra University, Erez began his career modeling for corporate finance, and expanded his accounting prowess in the real estate sector. Erez joined Digital Remedy in 2008 as a senior accountant, and helped to create and build an accounting department that could support the rapid growth of the company and aligned with those needs. Over the past 12 years he has evolved through various positions at the company within the finance discipline, supervising and mentoring additional finance personnel, while growing under the tutelage of Michael Fleischman, former CFO of Digital Remedy. Today, he leads the Finance Department by supporting high-level projects such as acquisitions and restructuring, and is responsible for overseeing all financial assets, establishing financial procedures, controls, and reporting systems.

Michael Fleischman

After a successful career as an accomplished Fortune 500 financial professional leading Corporate Finance and Strategic Planning at Cablevision Systems Corporation and its programming subsidiary Rainbow Media Holdings, Michael currently plays a role in the overall management of Digital Remedy including direct responsibility for all financial-related activities including accounting, financial planning, M&A, legal, insurance, real estate and banking relationships. Michael brings more than 25 years of media experience at Cablevision and Rainbow Media and during his career was instrumental in the launching and managing of a number of cable television networks including 10 Regional Sports Networks across the US, American Movie Classics, Bravo, and the Independent film channel as well as the structuring of corporate partnerships with companies including Liberty Media, NBC, Fox/NewsCorp and MGM. Additionally, he was the finance lead on a number of professional sports team acquisitions including Madison Square Garden, the successful IPO of Cablevision and a tracking stock at Rainbow Media.Michael was involved in the creation and launch of Rainbow Advertising Sales which was one of the Cable Industry’s first Local Advertising Sales Divisions.

Tony Pascal

With over two decades of experience in the design, product, and technology space, Tony joined Digital Remedy as a graphic designer in 2007. His responsibilities quickly expanded, landing him in leadership roles across multiple disciplines including creative direction, analytics, monetization optimization, and management of platform development. He continued to grow with the organization over the last fourteen years, overseeing all design, development, and execution of Digital Remedy products and platforms. In his current role as SVP, Product & Technology, Tony leads product and technology development for the company and acts as the go-to liaison across teams, ensuring alignment on all aspects of internal and client-facing technology initiatives.

Prior to Digital Remedy, Tony built and ran his own direct response company from 2002-2007 after graduating from New York Institute of Technology, where he learned the fundamentals of digital advertising and optimization strategies that still remain relevant today.

In a previous life, Tony was a ski instructor and still remains an avid skier today. When he is not leading product development, he can be found working on old cars, rock climbing and hitting the slopes.

Gayle Meyers

Gayle Meyers is an entrepreneur, venture partner, investor, and operating resource in the digital media and marketing industry, with over two decades of executive leadership experience. After launching a management consulting firm, Growthing which is focused on optimizing growth strategies for executive leaders and their organizations, Meyers has frequently been tapped for high-profile consulting and advisory positions to help marketing technology companies enhance their in-market presence.

“Gayle is widely recognized as a leading strategist with years of expertise in the ad tech space,” said Mike Seiman, Chairman and CEO of Digital Remedy. “Her career in discovering and integrating game-changing technologies in the marketing industry will serve as an invaluable resource as we continue to enhance our product suite in the months ahead.”

With expertise spanning multiple disciplines, Meyers frequently serves as a keynote speaker at industry conferences for companies such as Google, Verizon, Omnicom, LiveRamp, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Oracle. A list of her notable past clients who have benefitted from her unique insights to increase shareholder value includes Tinuiti (acquired by New Mountain Capital), Adometry (acquired by Google), MediaForge (acquired by Rakuten), Integral Ad Science (acquired by Vista Equity Partners), and Tapad (acquired by Telenor).

Matt Sotebeer

With 14+ years of experience in ad tech and emerging technologies, Matt Sotebeer brings an uniquely innovative approach in his role as Chief Strategy Officer at Digital Remedy. As CSO, Matt focuses on the intersection between the product, product marketing, tech, data, and sales teams, while fostering productive cross-functional company-wide relationships to inform and influence sales, educate clients, and optimize company performance.

Matt has an extensive knowledge in the integration of data science, creative, and media solutions to drive sustainable growth for companies, with a focus on designing customized, scalable solutions leveraging machine learning alongside human intelligence. Throughout the tenure of his career, he has successfully managed global teams aligned to common goals, encouraged collaborative problem solving, and supported talent growth for entrepreneurial companies including MiQ, Rocket Fuel, and Audience Science.

Jeremy Haft

A proven strategic, revenue, and team leader with over 20 years of experience managing and scaling revenue in the competitive ad tech landscape, Jeremy serves as Chief Revenue Officer at Digital Remedy.

Before joining the team in October 2022, he served as CRO at Channel Factory, where he reorganized the revenue team for sustainable growth and increased the sales team by 3x to drive predictable and more accountable revenue. Prior to that, he served in a decade of leadership positions. Most notably, as SVP of Sales at Amobee and as VP of North America Sales at Viant/Adelphic. At both organizations, Jeremy successfully built and scaled platform and business solutions from their infancy to achieve the desired corporate goals.

Jeremy graduated from The University of Vermont and currently resides in New Jersey with his wife and two children. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling to tropical locations, dining out, cooking feasts with friends, and any new fitness trend he can get his hands on.

Randall Rothenberg

Randall Rothenberg has been a prominent leader in marketing, media, and advertising for 40 years. Most recently, he led the transformation of the IAB into one of the largest and most potent media and marketing trade bodies in the world, helping to develop technical standards, self-regulation, government regulation, market and consumer research, global digital content marketplaces, and professional development programs. Under his leadership, IAB opened the industry’s first major public policy office in Washington, D.C., launched the IAB Tech Lab to oversee digital marketing technical standards, started an industry-leading training program that has certified more than 14,000 digital media sales professionals, created the IAB Digital Newfronts and Podcast Upfronts, and published comprehensive research on brand disruption, the evolution of video, and the economic impact of the ad-supported Internet ecosystem. During Rothenberg’s 14 years as CEO, IAB quadrupled its association membership and quintupled revenue.

Randall has served on numerous nonprofit and commercial boards, including the Ad Council, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council, the Chamber of Progress, the International Center of Photography, and the Executive Advisory Board of EDO, Inc. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University with an A.B. in the classics.

He is also an avid nature, urban, and portrait photographer—and Jazz guitarist.

Martin Kristiseter

Martin Kristiseter is an accomplished entrepreneur and digital executive with over 18 years of experience in digital media, ad technology, and programmatic solutions. He currently serves as the Managing Director of Compulse, a marketing technology and managed services company built for local media and agencies.

Prior to Compulse, Krisitiseter launched the digital advertising business at Marketron that transformed a declining revenue management & radio traffic business (SaaS) into a growth company through Pitch — an omni-channel workflow, sales enablement, fulfillment, and reporting platform for media companies.

He is a graduate of the University of Colorado, where he earned a BA and MBA in Finance.

Can we use your data to tailor ads for you? Our partners will collect data and use cookies for legitimate business purposes, ad personalization and measurement. We also collect anonymized personal data for legally necessary and legitimate business purposes. Read our PRIVACY POLICY.