It’s been a tough couple of years for people working in media and marketing, including mass layoffs and uncertainty about the future of ad tech.
But while these changes have been difficult for those involved, they’ve also created fertile territory for individual consultants with in-demand expertise. These are people who either left their jobs or were laid off just as major overhauls to data-driven advertising (signal loss, anyone?) occurred, meaning they have valuable experience that is also now in short supply.
This trend isn’t exactly new. In fact, it’s a story that’s been marinating so long that many of the original consultants we planned to feature have since returned to full-time work.
Coir, a relatively short-lived privacy and advertising consultancy, was put on ice last year after co-founders Alex Cone and Julia Shullman took jobs. Cone is at Google working on the Privacy Sandbox and Shullman is now the chief privacy officer at Telly, a startup giving away free TVs in exchange for collecting data and showing targeted ads.
Meanwhile, Jana Meron, former programmatic and ad leader at Business Insider, founded Lioness Strategies in 2022, and briefed AdExchanger in early May.
But hold off on publishing, Meron cautioned. Why? A week later, she announced her new role as VP of revenue operations and data at The Washington Post.
These moves back to the full-time working world are noteworthy because they demonstrate that this new crop of marketing industry consultants is not trying to replace traditional consultancies. Most remain open to full-time gigs. Consulting allows them to be choosier about which jobs they take, while also staying sharp in ad tech.
AdExchanger spoke to five new consultants who’ve launched their businesses in the past two to three years with specialties across sales, publishing strategy, brand marketing, attribution and privacy. It’s an inexhaustive but representative list of new players in the category.
What they all have in common is a depth of experience in programmatic.
Andrew Covato
Andrew Covato bounced between Silicon Valley platforms, including eBay, Google, Facebook and Netflix. Most recently, he was with Snap as global head of measurement and insights.
In 2023, a year after leaving Snap, he started Growth by Science, a one-person attribution services consultancy, that also includes a network of experts. He helps brands and platforms develop measurement programs that work within the constraints of ad platforms and agency buyers.
Covato’s clientele falls into three buckets: brands that are creating measurement programs, measurement vendors themselves (attribution startup Measured, for instance, is a partner that brings him in on some projects), and new ad platforms, such as retail media networks that are trying to woo advertisers with measurement products.
Covato has also invested in three measurement startups himself, and taken equity rather than cash in exchange for consultancy work, “especially,” he said, “for companies I feel strongly have potential.”
One service he’s developing is to help advertisers avoid the paid media fees taken by online ad platforms for what are actually organic sales.
There’s an irony in that marketers have to pay just to find out whether what they already paid is working – and the price of measurement services and analytics tools is mounting. But the cost of doing marketing measurement correctly is still worth it, Covato said.
“Right now, there’s an implicit cost to doing measurement that advertisers aren’t seeing, so they ignore it,” he said, in reference to how much advertisers spend on paid media with online platforms for what should be counted as organic sales. “My proposition is that that’s way bigger than the cost of doing it right.”
Eric Danetz
When Eric Danetz left news sales in January – after four years at Reuters as global CRO – he wasn’t sure what the demand would be for a bespoke consultant with his experience.
But it’s been a pleasant surprise, he said.
Aside from media sellers, Danetz said his clients include a cybersecurity firm, other consultancies, VCs and brand marketers he’d previously pitched as a publisher. (Though, he added, he wouldn’t work with a direct competitor of Reuters, like Associated Press or Bloomberg, because of the bad optics and “friction.”)
Danetz helps publishers sell ads or develop their own ad sales programs.
The deal terms are flexible. A couple startups offered equity, he said but most projects are a straightforward retainer, while some are “eat what you kill” arrangements based on sales.
Danetz is open to moving back into an executive position so that he can work around like-minded people. It can be tough as a consultant, he said, as a “cog” and not a true part of the team.
One way he gets around that – and advertises his services – is to “be everywhere.” Meaning he tries to be present at the office of companies he works with and is on the circuit of major industry events.
This will be the first year he personally pays out of pocket to attend Cannes. Which … ouch. But Danetz said most of his projects have come from in-person interactions, including bumping into people he knew from years ago.
“You got to be there to do it,” he said.
Madan Bharadwaj
Madan Bharadwaj, an attribution industry vet from Visual IQ, Nanigans and Measured, branched out with his own business, M^2 (pronounced M-squared), in December 2022.
It’s the only consultancy on this list that’s grown into a team. There’s now a baker’s dozen of full timers, Bharadwaj said, and dozens of freelance experts in specific business categories and types of marketing. He described the network as an “Uber for attribution services” that he might call on based on the particulars of a project.
M^2 is preaching a new mantra dubbed “triangulation.” Not that Bharadwaj coined the term, but he said it best captures the most effective way to think about attribution. The big platforms provide a baseline of attribution reporting, but brands also need to consider incrementality testing and marketing mix modeling as the other two sides of the triangle.
Some brands M^2 works with, he said, including Instacart and Zillow, are “proving this approach.”
Another service is what M^2 calls a “crash course for attribution,” which is two days of classes that bring marketers together to discuss attribution without a “vendor-centric” or sales focus.
Ditching the vendor-centric mindset is part of M^2’s pitch, too.
“I am more convinced than ever that a B2B SaaS mousetrap [which is to say, a traditional attribution tech provider] is not the way to solve attribution,” Bharadwaj said.
Scott Messer
After more than a decade with the Leaf Group, ending as SVP of media, Scott Messer left the company in October 2022. He took a few weeks to regroup, but “didn’t want to take a break from media.”
Messer’s first day as a non-Leaf Group exec was Programmatic IO New York City in 2022, he said. Talking to people at the event, he got the idea to start a consultancy for publishing companies, leading him to found Messer Media shortly after.
He does still keep abreast of some full-time job opportunities – “the door is open, as they say” – but consulting work means he can be more selective about a potential role.
For instance, one product Messer Media has developed is “AdTech Therapy,” which seeks to disentangle a company’s programmatic and data practices. It’s like real therapy, he said. “People cry.”
Before Jana Meron took her new role with The Washington Post, she and Messer would sometimes run these ad tech therapy sessions in tandem.
Consulting work “suits my disposition,” Messer said, in that he likes working on distinct projects and doing educational services to uplevel a team.
“[But] I miss having a larger sense of camaraderie on a team and focusing on a larger project and goal,” he said. “That’s part of what keeps me interested in going back to a full-time role.”
Simon Halstead
Simon Halstead started UK-based Halstead Incubation Partners a little over a year ago after leading Yahoo’s international supply-side and exchange business, which Yahoo shuttered last February.
The consultancy work has two facets, he said. There are individuals he works with for career mentorship, and also more straightforward B2B consulting. For example, he has a unique selling point for US companies that are expanding into Europe or launching privacy tech products as “a person on the ground for them.”
Another potential business line he’s considered is bespoke headhunting. Halstead said he has placed people for open jobs, but in an informal “pay it forward” way – at least for now.
One fun thing about consulting work is the variability, he said. The “sweet spot” is to work on three or four projects at a time, most of which are not meant to retain over the long term.
“You never know what’s around the corner,” he said.
If the right job offer floated by, Halstead said he’d consider. “[But] I’m enjoying the journey so far.”
