B2B SaaS Data platform Ad tech

Cross Screen Media

Four years on a political advertising platform, unifying audience discovery, media planning, and campaign measurement. Company revenue grew 300% over that time.

Role

Lead Product Designer

Timeline

4 years

Platform

Web app

Worked with

Sales, CS, data science, engineering

TL;DR

Problem

Outdated, disconnected political advertising tools, and dense analytics that were hard to act on.

My Role

Lead Product Designer across core workflows, research, and cross-team alignment over 4 years.

Constraints

Legacy UX, high data density, and many stakeholder needs (sales, CS, data science, engineering).

Impact

The platform became one product. Revenue grew 300% over the same period.

Context and my role

The platform models audiences, predicts reach, and measures campaign results for political advertisers.

I was Lead Product Designer for four years. I also founded the user research function: Heap dashboards, event-tracking rules set with engineers, user funnels, and the process for interpreting and synthesizing that data. Its processes are still in use.

The problem and the evidence

The platform's services had never been connected. The data either drowned people or oversimplified the insight.

The Audience Builder showed it most. It was a confusing multi-step wizard over thousands of segments, and most of them were rarely used.

A year of research with campaign managers, account managers, media planners, and the directors making the calls backed this up. {{TODO: the key research finding}}

The bet

Cut thousands of segments to a few hundred high-value ones, and size the audience live as planners build it.

If planners could see the effect of a change before committing, they would stop guessing at reach.

Success measure: {{METRIC: success measure for the bet, e.g. time to build an audience or segments used per plan}}.

Options and trade-offs

Data density vs. clarity

We limited simultaneous chart types per view to reduce cognitive overload, even though power users wanted more on a single screen.

Customization vs. standardization

We standardized dashboard components to speed delivery, sacrificing some bespoke visuals for consistency.

Speed vs. fidelity

We shipped incremental releases to validate adoption rather than waiting for a perfect full-platform overhaul.

What shipped

Audience Builder: rebuilt over two years as a drag-and-drop canvas with real-time sizing.
Segments: thousands cut to a few hundred high-value ones.
Crosstab reporting comparing segments across geography, demographics, and media markets.
Campaign measurement across TV, digital, and CTV.
A research function: Heap dashboards, event-tracking rules set with engineers, and user funnels, plus a process for interpreting and synthesizing the data.
A design system rebuilt on MUI6 with the front-end team.
Product Blast: an internal update format the whole company adopted, the CEO included.

Results

300%

Company revenue growth over 4 years

{{METRIC: Audience Builder adoption or time to build an audience}}

Audience Builder adoption

Days → hours

Build time after the design system rebuild

What the Team Said

"I had the privilege of working closely with Andrei for four years, and I can say without hesitation that he is a rock star teammate.

Andrei is incredibly creative and brings a true multi-disciplinary approach to every challenge. He connects product, design, engineering, and business strategy in a way that drives real outcomes, not just ideas.

I was genuinely sad to see him go, but any organization would be lucky to have him."

Michael Beach, CEO at Cross Screen Media

"Beyond being a talented Lead Product Designer, Andrei is never afraid of a challenge. He built our user research function from the ground up, designing all of the processes and frameworks we still use today. He has a genuine gift for drawing out honest, actionable feedback from customers.

Any team would be lucky to have him."

Alexander Hitchcock, Head of Product at Cross Screen Media