AYR: Programmatic Revamp

Overview / The Challenge

Programmatic advertising can easily become a "black box" of wasted spend— impressions served to the wrong people on the wrong sites. At AYR, our performance was uneven: creative was generic ("lifestyle" shots), segmentation was broad, and vendor support was modest, at times. The challenge was to take a channel running on autopilot and apply some operational rigor to validate its true ceiling. I needed to rebuild the program around structured audience segmentation and creative experimentation, proving that digital ads could actually drive measurable revenue and customer growth.

Strategy / The Blueprint

Smarter Segments, Louder Creative. We abandoned a less-focused approach and rebuilt the account around three distinct pillars:

Audience Architecture: We did not treat all users the same. We triangulated segments across three specific dimensions:
- Geography: Strict radius targeting around store locations.
- Lifecycle: Funnel-based splitting (Acquisition vs. Retention vs. Lapsed).
- Product Preference: Distinct creative sets for "Flower/Pre-roll" buyers vs. "Processed Product" (Edibles/Vapes) shoppers.
Creative Rigor: Realizing that "brand compliant" often translated to "invisible," we pivoted to High-Contrast, Hyperlocal creative. We ran frequent multivariate tests on color palettes (Blue vs. Black) and messaging hooks (Value vs. Local Pride) to prioritize performance over uniformity.
Active Governance: We better operationalized vendor management, moving to more intentional, weekly performance reviews.

Using audience segmentation around geography, recent purchase behavior, and product preferences, along with A/B tested visuals, display performance increased substantively.

Execution / The Build

The Creative Pivot: We ran continuous A/B tests across messaging and visual hierarchy. The data quickly proved that high-contrast visuals and hyperlocal headlines outperformed lifestyle imagery. We didn't just sell cannabis; we sold "Somerville's Cannabis."
AdOps Governance: I increased the cadence of vendor reviews, forcing deeper reporting on flight pacing and device mix. We stopped allocating budget to what should work and shifted it to what actually converted.
Sequencing: We implemented a flow where users saw "Prospecting" ads first, followed by "Retention" offers after visiting— creating a digital funnel that mirrored the customer lifecycle.

Results / The Metrics

By tightening the screws on segmentation and creative, we achieved the rare feat of increasing efficiency while scaling spend (Q4 2023 to Q1 2024).

Revenue Growth: Online revenue attributed to the channel grew by +46% ($227k to $333k), adding over $100k in quarterly revenue.
Scaling Efficiency: Typically, as spend increases, efficiency drops. We defied this gravity: while we increased spend by 27%, our ROAS actually improved from 10.8x to 12.5x.
Engagement Lift: Click-Through Rate (CTR) exploded from a stagnant 0.13% to 0.62% (a ~4.7x lift), validating that the "High Contrast" creative was cutting through the noise.

In a measure Quarter-Over-Quarter performance, AYR greatly improved the performance of their display advertising.

Learning / The Takeaways

Richer segmentation = Richer returns. Programmatic is at times treated as a "set it and forget it" volume play. But volume without relevance is waste. We found that the deeper we sliced the data—triangulating Geography, Lifecycle, and Product Preference, the harder our budget worked. If you aren't leveraging the full depth of your customer data to segment your buy, you’re leaving revenue on the table.

AYR: Programmatic Revamp