Video Ads

Overview

Flipp identified video as a fast-growing format in publisher network advertising and needed to enter the space before being competitively locked out. My role was to translate that business signal into a testable, shippable product, owning the work from initial research through to a scalable production system.

The Problem

Flipp had no existing video ad format. Clients were increasingly requesting it, competitors were moving on it, and there was no internal process or tooling to produce video ads at any kind of scale. Before investing in infrastructure, we needed to validate whether the format would actually perform.

Discovery & Concept Development

I started with competitor research to map the landscape and identify format opportunities worth pursuing. From there, I generated multiple concepts and ran user research to evaluate them, producing findings that informed which directions were worth developing further.

To keep early testing fast and unblocked, I manually produced the initial ad iterations myself. It wasn't scalable, but it didn't need to be yet. The goal was to get real signal before committing to a production model.

The Scalability Problem

Once the format showed promise, the constraint shifted. Manual production was the bottleneck, and solving it became the core design challenge. I approached it from two directions simultaneously.

Internal Workflow

I identified that the path to scale ran through cross-functional alignment, not just design output. I brought together PMs, visual designers, and engineers to map a repeatable production workflow. Through that process, the engineering team built scripts that could generate ads programmatically. I designed the process and facilitated the collaboration; they built the tooling. That system is now live and handles all current ad production without my involvement in the day-to-day.

External Vendor Evaluation

In parallel, I researched third-party tool providers as an alternative or complementary path. I met with vendors, assessed their offerings, and built a scoring matrix to evaluate each against Flipp's scalability requirements and constraints. My findings fed into the final vendor decision, which was owned by the PM. One external tool has since been onboarded and is in the training phase as the next stage of scaling.

Outcomes

• $850k+ in net revenue generated within the first year
• 3x target adoption rate exceeded
• Consistently performing at 2–3x industry benchmarks
• Internal scripting workflow operational and running at scale
• External tooling onboarded, with further scaling underway

Current Focus

With the foundation in place, my focus has shifted forward, working on how this product evolves, where the format goes next, and what opportunities exist to extend it further across Flipp's publisher network.