Case study · Mastercard

Media efficiency and leadership of a regional operation

Regional Performance Manager · Carat August 2022 – December 2025

Key results

−27%
CPM
on DCO campaigns vs. comparable traditional campaigns
97%+
brand safety
across the account's campaigns
75%+
viewability
across the account's campaigns
90%+
impression share
in the relevant campaigns
The challenge

Mastercard ran a large-scale regional digital media operation, with teams, processes and objectives specific to each market.

The challenge was to make media investment more efficient, uphold demanding media-quality standards and coordinate regional initiatives across markets with different needs and characteristics.

There was also room to improve internal organization, speed up campaign implementation and free up more time for optimization.

Strategy and execution

Three initiatives

  1. 01

    Rolling out Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO)

    I led the implementation

    I led the regional rollout of campaigns using Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO), technology that adapted ad creative to contextual variables such as location, weather conditions or day of the week.

    The project meant coordinating multiple parties: the Programmatic, Social and AdOps teams, a creative agency and the DCO technology provider. Activation ran on platforms including DV360, Adsmovil's DSP and Meta.

    My role was to lead coordination across all parties, organize the implementation process and make sure campaigns were activated correctly. The approach required more planning and operational effort than traditional campaigns, but it improved investment efficiency.

    1 · CONTEXTUAL VARIABLES
    • Location
    • Weather conditions
    • Day of the week
    2 · DYNAMIC CREATIVE
    The creative adapts to context
    3 · ACTIVATION
    • DV360
    • Adsmovil DSP
    • Meta
    4 · RESULT
    −27%
    CPM vs. comparable traditional campaigns
    BASIS FOR COMPARISON Same period, same market and equivalent awareness objectives. No observed drop in reach or in the main indicators analyzed.
  2. 02

    Programmatic inventory optimization

    I led the transition

    In the markets under my responsibility, I led the shift from a programmatic investment split of 40% Open Auction and 60% Private Marketplace (PMP) to a strategy based on 100% PMP.

    Before
    40%
    60%
    After
    100%
    Open AuctionPrivate Marketplace (PMP)

    The goal was to prioritize higher-quality inventory, gain more control over where ads appeared and strengthen brand safety standards.

    This change was part of a media quality strategy that achieved brand safety above 97%.

  3. 03

    Regional standardization and operational efficiency

    I designed and implemented the methodology

    I identified opportunities to improve coordination between the planning and implementation teams, especially in how requests and media plans were handed over.

    I designed and implemented a regional working methodology built on three components:

    • AStandardized templates
    • BAlignment meetings with planners
    • CQuality control (QA) at each stage of implementation

    The initiative cut unnecessary back-and-forth between teams, sped up campaign activation and made deadlines easier to meet. As a result, the team could spend more time optimizing campaigns and tracking the account's objectives.

Results and impact

Regional management combined three complementary dimensions.

01 · Technology adoption
−27% CPM

Implementing DCO delivered a 27% lower CPM vs. comparable traditional campaigns.

02 · Media quality
97%+

The inventory strategy helped meet brand safety standards above 97%.

03 · Ways of working
Coordination and responsiveness

The operational reorganization improved coordination between teams and responsiveness.

The project involved managing an operation with more than USD 5 million in annual investment, coordinating teams of up to 9 professionals and multiple vendors, platforms and LATAM markets.