About CitrusAd

CitrusAd is a Retail Media Platform that is delivering a new generation of identity-led retail media, both on and off-site. 


Since launching in 2017, it has emerged as the retail industry’s preferred Retail Media Platform for sponsored product, banner and email ads, brand pages and off-site ads. 
 
CitrusAd allows users to reach more customers, across a range of channels, from a simple, unified platform. 
 
Its genius is its ability to get retailers to market quicker than competitors. If retailers use multiple tools, it can take them two or three years to get ads off the ground. In many cases, CitrusAd has been able to help users start running ads on their site within four weeks. 

"The engagement with Patient Zero enabled us to get from delivering one product line to delivering eight product lines concurrently in the space of 6–12 months"


Adam Skinner
Chief Operating Officer

The Challenge

As CitrusAd grew, it identified the need to rapidly scale both its technology delivery and people capabilities. 


It considered an outsourced or offshore model but decided that would not be able to deliver the process and organisational transformation required to help the organisation scale sustainably. 


Instead, CitrusAd sought out a partner that could introduce best in class use of technology and architecture into its existing teams, as well as providing an efficient and productive Way of Working. 


That’s where Patient Zero came in. 

The Solution

Through deploying multiple teams into CitrusAd, Patient Zero helped the organisation rapidly scale-up from delivering one feature and product at a time, to delivering eight product lines concurrently across multiple development teams. 


CitrusAd Chief Operating Officer Adam Skinner said that the lasting cultural and process transformation was the biggest benefit of this unique engagement model. 


“The biggest thing we took away from the engagement with Patient Zero was the fact that we went on a transition journey from being a start-up to a proper scale-up,” Adam said. 


He also pointed to the speed of the transformation as a key benefit. 


“The engagement with Patient Zero enabled us to get from delivering one product line to delivering eight product lines concurrently in the space of 6–12 months,” Adam said. 


“Even to this day, we’re still using the Way of Working that Patient Zero is built on.” 

The Outcome

The proof of the lasting impact of this partnership is the success that CitrusAd is experiencing locally, and globally, even as they expand to have offshore delivery and service capability across the Publicis network.


CitrusAd now services over 170 retailers globally, supported by 320 team members across the world. 


When asked what underpins all this success, Adam points back to the transformation that Patient Zero helped drive within CitrusAd. 


“All of this is underpinned by the process transformation and the architectural transformation that we went through with Patient Zero.”