‍PulsePoint’s Trader Hall of Fame: Owen Diaz

We are proud to partner with hardworking clients who are pushing the boundaries of programmatic and putting the right medications in front of HCPs and patients at the right time. PulsePoint established the Trader Hall of Fame to highlight their efforts and give others a closer look at the individuals shaping this quickly evolving industry. This month, we welcome Owen Diaz, programmatic media manager at Brado, to the Trader Hall of Fame.

Owen’s journey to programmatic healthcare

Owen began his career while studying marketing at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. As part of Marist’s multicultural talent pipeline and career track program, Owen was able to connect with a media agency and secure a summer internship.

“I was actually lucky enough to be put and assigned to the programmatic team there,” he said. “Pretty specialized in digital display and video ads right from the jump, which was cool. My first exposure to marketing and advertising was programmatic.”

Owen spent that time learning as much as he could about the industry, and after graduation he decided to continue pursuing a career in programmatic. He’s been in programmatic trader roles since, including three years now at Brado. “It’s been a lot of learning, a lot of trial and error, but it’s been a very interesting industry to be in.”

Owen’s favorite parts of the job

When asked what he enjoys about his role at Brado, Owen first gave a shout-out to his coworkers:  “I like working with my team. They’re fantastic.” 

Some of his favorite projects are the ones that allow him to do a deep dive into client work. “I like building the campaigns and figuring out the best ways to execute things in each of the programmatic platforms I work in,” he said, adding that he enjoys solving the puzzle of how you can relate a client’s goal to what programmatic can do.

But, overall, his favorite part of his job is the data analysis.

“I find that as I’ve gotten more and more comfortable in these platforms and with programmatic media and programmatic media metrics, the analytical side of my brain has really taken a liking to digging into data.”

It’s time-consuming, he admits, but it is his favorite thing to do; he likes interpreting the story the data is telling. 

Thanks to his role in programmatic, he’s gotten very comfortable with Excel—and he even uses it in his personal life to analyze his own data. “That’s been fun, to take things I’ve learned in this space back into my personal life to help me do things better, be more efficient, make better decisions.”

Owen’s advice for newcomers to programmatic health marketing

When offering advice to programmatic newbies, Owen first would want to offer his congratulations. “Media agencies and the media world and advertising are great career opportunities. So good work so far in getting your foot in the door.” 

Although it can be uncomfortable, he recommends asking questions. Curiosity is key—and not just for your own experience but for the good of the entire team. “That kind of curiosity is going to accelerate your learning curve,” he said. “By being curious, by asking questions, you’re not being disruptive or being a pain to your supervisor or manager or mentor. They love that stuff because it gets them thinking too.”

He added, “You’re going to get to see how everything works much more quickly if you’re curious and you ask questions when the time allows for that.”

And as anyone even slightly familiar with programmatic knows, there’s a lot to learn. “The more curious you are, the more you ask questions, the faster you’re going to get the lingo and then start to understand broader concepts, and then start to be able to take action on your own.”

“That curiosity is the seed that allows that flower to grow.”

Owen and PulsePoint

Owen first worked with PulsePoint at a previous agency. “I remember from my first interactions with it just being really blown away by the team at PulsePoint,” he said. He appreciated that the PulsePoint team seemed very tuned in and excited about new features.

Of the PulsePoint platform itself, he said, “I really like the simplicity of the platform and the different levers you can pull that are health-specific.” 

Programmatic ads in the healthcare space can be complex, he noted, but PulsePoint offers a “tried and true template” to get started. “One of my favorite things is the targeting capabilities, especially on the HCP side,” he said. “It’s about as thorough as it gets.”

He added, “We can do some awesome targeting in there, and I find that it’s a no-brainer for a lot of my clients.”

And like others in the industry, Owen has his concerns about the loss of third-party cookies when it comes to targeting and attribution—but he appreciates PulsePoint’s cookieless targeting options and said, “I’m hopeful that the minds at PulsePoint, the minds at other DSPs and in this space and in this industry are going to come up with great solutions, privacy-safe solutions where we can still deliver value for our clients.”

Owen outside of work

Owen loves to travel, and thanks to the shift to remote work, he’s been able to do just that. For the last two years, he’s been traveling back and forth to Florence, Italy, where he lived part-time with his wife. “It was an interesting transition, living there part-time, but it’s been a lot of fun.”

Owen comes from a big family (he’s one of eight kids), and he said he looks up to many of his relatives who have shown resilience, hard work, and the ability to rise above challenges. “So many people in my life have had an amazing influence on me.”

“I have an amazing family. I’m very lucky,” he added. “Getting to be around those individuals in that big family, I learned a lot over the years.” He credits them with making him who he is today.