Keith Pieper, Product Manager in Louisville, KY, United States
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Keith Pieper

Verified Expert  in Product Management

Product Manager

Louisville, KY, United States

Toptal member since July 16, 2021

Bio

Keith builds digital products and creates data-driven solutions that solve customer problems by bridging technical resources and business objectives. He's a calculated risk-taker who can quickly identify opportunities and simplify complex problems into a shared vision. Collaborating with engineers to understand how technology functions, Keith works backward to build a prioritized roadmap and deliver the best possible solution, translating benefits into a go-to-market strategy.

Project Highlights

Finding Opportunities Buried in Big Data
Identified eight opportunities from 20 thousand internet service provider households generating 1 billion rows of raw traffic data per month.
Social Media Ad Platform Pivot
Completed a prioritized roadmap to transform a small business social marketing tool into a SAAS social media advertising platform.
Idea to Prototype in Two Weeks
Led a small team of software engineers to build a digital, cross-device streaming video Super Bowl advertisement measurement prototype in two weeks.

Expertise

  • Data Privacy
  • Data Strategy
  • Digital Advertising
  • Patents
  • Product Management
  • Product Strategy
  • SaaS
  • Startups

Work Experience

VP of Data & Exchange

2021 - PRESENT
iMedia Brands
  • Led the retail media ad exchange to 48% year-over-year revenue growth compared to the industry average of 3%.
  • Integrated a yield optimization service into our exchange that uses machine learning algorithms to send only the best matching advertising opportunities to ad buyers, resulting in a 40% reduction in request volume and a 20% increase in CPM prices.
  • Developed a DRTV model for connected TV advertising, experimenting with various technologies and video media tests to optimize tactics that performed the best.
  • Streamlined and consolidated disparate divisions, corporate and product privacy policies, and opt-out mechanisms from various acquisitions to meet CCPA regulations.
  • Groomed the backlog of product requirements built up over time, addressing both front-end and back-end problems arising from a lack of recent investment and accumulated technical debt.
  • Scoped, sized, and prioritized a comprehensive product roadmap, which included identifying gaps in the current backlog and future business needs that could be classified as big bets.
  • Built a data team to develop data products and analytics by combining multiple internal data sets to create an API data feed for internal and external customers.

No Code Developer

2004 - PRESENT
Freelance
  • Created an email holder to send all emails on a fixed time daily using make.com. This allowed releasing all emails from starred Gmail contacts immediately.
  • Built a custom-curated news website from bookmarklet to email newsletter delivery. It also included content summarization, standardization, categorization, and image selection.
  • Developed a custom strategic planning, goal, and employee objective alignment tool with Knack.
  • Built a semi-automated paid search campaign creation wizard for Google AdWords with FileMaker.
  • Created a domain name sales data scraper and multi-model resale price valuation tool using FileMaker and Semrush.
  • Built a multi-job board search tool driven by a resume, using artificial intelligence to extract search concepts and execute a query with Bubble, Google Cloud, and Make.com.

VP of Product Operations

2019 - 2021
Sovrn
  • Increased team productivity by 35% and 66% without additional hires.
  • Boosted team culture and Net Promoter Score (NPS) by 3.5x with 100% participation.
  • Delivered a sales prospect profile scoring model for scoring leads within Salesforce, statistically optimized toward ideal clients.
  • Collaborated with data science to develop RTB ad exchange bid request optimization to reduce AWS and White Ops infrastructure costs by 10% without impacting revenue.
  • Worked with executive and product teams to create a comprehensive digital identity data product strategy to minimize the reliance on third-party cookies.
  • Designed and led the first phase of the operational process and workflow integration and automation.
  • Managed four business line teams using the project management solution for entrepreneurial operating systems, Traction Tools, enabling Sovrn to meet quarterly 2020 revenue goals.
  • Created an operational alert and troubleshooting flow with Grafana and Splunk.

VP of Product Management

2017 - 2019
MediaShift Technologies
  • Delivered a verified, household GIVT probabilistic targeting data model based on ISP data enhanced with 10 third-party data sources, with accuracy as good or better than Digital Element.
  • Provided an IP video measurement minimum viable product (MVP) for real-time, cross-device reach and frequency streaming video content and advertising.
  • Delivered a self-service SaaS analytics reporting MVP from 1 billion monthly rows of streaming ISP traffic data using Tableau.
  • Managed back-end big data of 27 million HTTP requests from 20,000 anonymous ISP subscribers daily.
  • Designed a linear addressable TV advertising POC joining the household's ISP geolocation with cable set-top box service group data.
  • Delivered a personal preferences data privacy and IP-based opt-out MVP for consumer households.

VP of Technology

2014 - 2017
Boulder Heavy Industries
  • Achieved 1% TracFone eCommerce revenue growth at 12x ROI through improved cross-device media attribution measurement.
  • Gained a 30% client-wide campaign CPA reduction through an optimized 37% viewability increase and a 24% reduction in bot frauds.
  • Delivered a self-serve social media keyword advertising platform.
  • Developed workflow automation systems for distributed quality control teams by integrating internal and third-party platforms like Knack.com.

Director of Product Management

2013 - 2014
SpotX
  • Upgraded a geo-based Census data inventory forecasting tool to a web self-serve, audience-centric methodology.
  • Immediate $250,000 savings by integrating a data management platform (DMP) Lotame.
  • Secured a $10 million client by collaborating on custom feature developments.
  • Generated $1 million in revenue by rolling out an ad quality and fraud solution.
  • Evaluated and integrated third-party ad quality technology DoubleVerify.

Entrepreneur

2010 - 2013
Pretarget
  • Bootstrapped a startup of 10 people, achieving profitability on revenue of $1 million in the first year.
  • Designed, patented, and developed a cookieless, keyword-based advertising targeting algorithm.
  • Received four US patents for cookieless behavioral keyword display ad targeting products on a mobile and desktop web.

Product Director

2005 - 2010
Interpublic Group (IPG)
  • Led the customization and integration of Turn DSP to create the Cadreon agency trading desk (now called Matterkind), increasing team media revenue by 25% and gross margins by 10%.
  • Increased Universal McCann's performance media team revenue by 25% by creating a centralized ad retargeting network for Microsoft media.
  • Developed standard media plan offerings and automated standard processes for $50 million in spending across 51 Microsoft clients.

Product Marketing Manager

1997 - 1999
Excite@Home Matchlogic
  • Developed bandwidth targeting and rich media digital ad products.
  • Created and managed Rich Media Days in three cities to educate the market on rich media advertising.
  • Authored product marketing material for external customers and marketing communications, including website, collateral, and customer letters, and ghostwriting for executives.

Programmatic Advertising Industry's First Agency Trading Desk

Founder of the digital programmatic ad industry's first agency trading desk, Cadreon.

What started as a simple consolidated service to manage retargeting buys for numerous Microsoft clients evolved into the Cadreon Trading Desk. I convinced an ad network (Turn) to white label and license their platform to Universal McCann to make retargeting management easier. We built on this with data target and private "first look" media deals. My role included everything from the primary value proposition to hiring the first few people and convincing management of the opportunity (ad networks took 10% but added little value). Then I worked with Turn to develop the features we wanted white-labeled and ultimately needed. I trained teams across the country and was the subject matter expert when educating clients, such as Chrysler, Microsoft, and Intel.

Finding Opportunities Buried in Big Data

Identified eight opportunities from 20 thousand internet service provider households generating 1 billion rows of raw traffic data per month.

I hypothesized the types of data available (parameters, field names, IDs, source domains, etc.) and worked with data scientists to find these signals within the data set. When found, I analyzed how prevalent each signal was and the ease of transforming the data into a useful product.

Social Media Ad Platform Pivot

Completed a prioritized roadmap to transform a small business social marketing tool into a SAAS social media advertising platform.

I completed market research and analysis to uncover the various features available to paid search and social media advertisers in Google, Twitter and Facebook. I polled an informal group of target customers to better understand their needs. I compared the features to current capabilities for understanding our gaps. Each feature was bucketed by similarity (theme) and scored based on strategic importance, timeliness and revenue impact. I collaborated with engineering to understand the effort and cost of delivering each feature. Then I presented a roadmap of the features based on ROI and dependencies, in a general timeline of ASAP, Near Term, Long Term.

Idea to Prototype in Two Weeks

Led a small team of software engineers to build a digital, cross-device streaming video Super Bowl advertisement measurement prototype in two weeks.

Household, cross-device streaming video reach and frequency measurements were highly fragmented. Nielsen is a dominant service for analog television measurement but applies similar methodologies to digital video, which is a very different ecosystem. I led a small team of software engineers to stand up an R&D lab for a better understanding of streaming video data across numerous apps and household devices, including a laptop, tablet, game console, and smartphone. Once we understood how to normalize and interpret the data, I worked with the team to formulate graphical models to represent real-time viewership and eliminate duplication for accurate reach measurement. We identified known Super Bowl advertisers and used the same in-home web data stream to identify visitation to advertiser websites. During the Super Bowl, users could see deduplicated, in-home reach of viewership alongside visitation to Super Bowl advertiser websites, providing a glimpse into the power of Super Bowl advertisements.
1992 - 1996

Bachelor's Degree in Business

Creighton University - Omaha, NE

Tools

Jira, Slack, Google Docs, Google Slides, Zapier, CloudConvert, Intuit QuickBooks, Cloze, Evernote, Google Workspace, Mailchimp, FileMaker, FileMaker Pro, Microsoft Power BI

Paradigms

Data Product Management, Agile, Key Performance Metrics, Agile Product Management, Requirements Analysis, Agile Software Development, Scrum, Design Thinking

Platforms

Integromat, Demand-side Platforms (DSPs), Digital Advertising Platforms, IFTTT, The Trade Desk, Google Ads, Pinterest, Docparser, Clearbit, Confiant

Industry Expertise

High-tech Startups, Copper

Other

Real-time Bidding (RTB), Advertising, Customer Discovery, Market Fit, Customer Analysis, Audience Targeting, Market Segmentation, Customer Segmentation, Data, Product Strategy, Workflow Analysis, Product Roadmaps, Feature Prioritization, Data Analysis, Data Strategy, Process Automation, DSP, Digital Media, Digital Advertising, Market Research & Analysis, Product Management, Strategy, Business Planning, Product Planning, Product Leadership, Data Privacy, Feature Roadmaps, New Products & Services, Product Development, Product Vision, Head of Product, Market Strategy and Research Product Manager, Business Analysis, Information Gathering, Product Design, Product Discovery, Product Research, Innovation, Backlog Management, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Lean Startups, Online Auctions, Marketing Attribution, Digital Platform Development, Airtable, EOS, Knack, Management, Marketing, Customer Development, Customer Research, Market Entry, Market Sizing, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Big Data, APIs, Algorithms, Patents, Coaching, Vendor Management, Vendor Selection, Business Strategy, Analytics, Cross-departmental Collaboration, Troubleshooting, Roadmaps, Wireframing, Go-to-market Strategy, Product Marketing, Product-market Fit, Due Diligence, Technical Research, System Design, Data Integration, Workflow Optimization, User Requirements, Collaboration, Mockups, DMP, Bots, Fraud Prevention, Identity, SSP, No-code Development, API Integration, Google Calendar, Google, Google Drive, Google Sheets, User Workflows, Semrush, SimilarWeb, Startups, Entrepreneurship, Media, Media Planning, Media Buying, Data Visualization, Stakeholder Management, Business Modeling, Product Operations, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Web Applications, B2B, Dashboards, Dashboard Design, Product Ownership, Reporting, Portals, Technical Project Management, Team Leadership, SaaS, Data Analytics, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Competitive Strategy, Information System Audits, Metrics, Technology, Competition Research, Research, User Research, Digital Product Management, Automation, Workflow, R&D, Minimum Marketable Product (MMP), Discovery, Continuous Discovery, Project Planning, User Stories, Streaming Data, Advertising Campaigns, Team Mentoring, Business to Business (B2B), Software as a Service (SaaS), Request for Information (RFI), Request for Proposal (RFP), Data Science, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Data Products, Data Product Manager, Data Science Product Manager, New Product Development, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Salesforce Sales Cloud, Finance, Statistics, Data Modeling, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Program Management, Project Management, Business Process Automation, Optimization, Technical Hiring, Technical Support, Market Research, MVP Design, Video Streaming, Video Ads, Go-to-market Plans, Social Media, Integration, Social Media Optimization, Story Mapping, eCommerce, Lead Generation, Paid Advertising, Hypothesis Testing, Agile Sprints, Quality Control (QC), MonkeyLearn, Google Vision API, Salesforce, Google Cloud API, PayPal, App Integration, Google Cloud, WordPress, WordPress API, Bubble, Buffer, JSON API, Feedly, Meetup API, Pinboards, Product Hunt, System Integration, Regex, Webhooks, JavaScript Bookmarklets, BuiltWith, Early-stage Startups, Retargeting Pixels, Paid Search, Opportunity Assessments, Product Analytics, Product Owner, Statistical Data Analysis, Risk Management, CRM Systems, GDPR, Corporate Planning, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Copywriting, Technical Product Management, Consulting, JSON, Content Creation, Snowflake, DoubleVerify, Domain Name System (DNS), IP Networks, Event Planning, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Procurement

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