CitrusAd Names Mark Williamson SVP Client Development

Mark Williamson joins CitrusAd as SVP client development. Over the last ten years, Williamson built and scaled retail media programs inside two multinational retailers—Sam’s Club and Ahold Delhaize USA. In these roles, he was charged with converting marketing innovations into profitable realities for the respective organizations.

Williamson leaves Ahold Delhaize after nearly six years of tenure, including his recent role as VP and head of media partnerships at Peapod Digital Labs. Prior to his roles at Ahold Delhaize, Williamson held multiple emerging media and marketing positions including director of digital activation and partnership marketing at Sam’s Club.

“The accelerated convergence of retail media, shopper marketing and ecommerce marketing has formed a new frontier of connected and programmatic media solutions that improve the performance of both digital and physical merchandising, representing a massive opportunity for retail industry growth as a whole,” said Williamson in a statement. “Now feels like the right time to shift my focus from a single retailer to the broader retail industry. Not only am I doubling down on retail media, I’m also betting big that strengthening and right-sizing the retailer/ad-tech relationship will rise the tide for all players—including my past employers. I want to be a part of the solution that helps all types of retailers build strong, future-proof and ownable media programs.”

“Mark’s diverse strengths and experience will provide a wealth of value as retailers commence new endeavors and look to expand their footprint in retail media onsite, offsite and instore, leveraging first-party data for all customer marketing. With his passion, wisdom and background, he can improve retail organization structures, speed and efficiency of implementation, retail media as a core function for growth, and add value to our exciting platform innovation and upcoming feature launches in 2022,” said David Haase, CEO, Americas at CitrusAd.

Mark Williamson

“Retail media as an industry has massive headroom and is entrenching itself as a legitimate player in the advertising marketplace,” said Williamson. “The opportunity is such that all retailers can win. The more retailers that are oriented as mature media and data publishers, the more retail media will elevate brands and category sales, and more ad dollars will follow.”

CitrusAd serves a growing list of companies including Albertsons, Lowe’s, CUB, Gopuff, Shipt, Groupon, Petco, Hy-Vee, Wakefern Food Corp and more that are combining the strength of first-party data with CitrusAd’s retail media technology to help brands connect with shoppers in a more relevant and personalized manner.

The company was named a leader by Forrester, a global research and advisory firm, in The Forrester Wave: Sell-Side Retail Media Solutions, Q3 2021. As cited in the report, “CitrusAd offers superior onsite search, display media, and measurement capabilities in an easy-to-use platform.” CitrusAd also ranked highest in the performance, and measurement and reporting criteria, and received the highest scores possible in nine other criteria, including partner ecosystem.