Rafael Andrade, Head of Business Development & Strategic Partnerships at illumin, joins E-Coffee with Experts to talk about what it really takes to scale programmatic advertising partnerships without compromising on quality.

Drawing from his experience in affiliate marketing, ad exchanges, and now leading partnerships at illumin, Rafael shares why trust, transparency, and genuine relationships still matter so much in digital advertising, even as the industry becomes increasingly automated.

We also dive into illumin’s Journey Advertising Platform and how visual journey mapping can give teams a much clearer picture of what’s actually happening across a campaign, beyond the usual line-item dashboards. Rafael breaks down why CTV has become one of the strongest-performing ad formats, how audience targeting is moving beyond basic demographics toward behavior and intent, and how AI is making segmentation more dynamic without taking humans completely out of the equation.

Rafael also shares the metrics marketers should be looking at beyond last-touch attribution, from incremental performance and journey engagement to customer lifetime value.

To wrap things up, he shares four principles for building stronger advertiser strategies in an AI-first world: stay customer-focused, build a solid data foundation, keep testing and learning, and take ownership of your AI strategy instead of relying on someone else to do it for you.

If you work in programmatic advertising, partnerships, or marketing strategy, this episode is a practical look at where the industry is heading, and why the fundamentals of building trust and strong partner relationships still matter.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 02:06: Interests Outside Work & Industry Connections

02:06 - 05:06: The Power of In-Person Networking

05:06 - 07:22: Scaling Partnerships at illumin

07:22 - 09:05: What illumin Actually Does

09:05 - 11:37: Signals of a Strong Partnership

11:37 - 14:06: Trust, Guidance & Partner Relationships

14:06 - 17:38: Visual Journey Mapping Explained

17:38 - 21:23: Why CTV Leads in a Post-AI World

21:23 - 25:19: How Audience Segmentation Is Evolving

25:19 - 28:11: Metrics Beyond Last-Touch Attribution

28:11 - 30:20: 4 Principles for AI-First Durability

30:20 - 31:18: Closing & Where to Find Rafael

 Connect with Rafael Andrade

 https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafael-andrade-perez-cossio/

 https://illumin.com

 FOLLOW US

Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./