Robert Perine is the Head Of Product at Digital Media Solutions, where he leads product strategy and execution across the company’s technology and data platforms. With more than 20 years of experience in product management and over a decade in ad tech and lead generation, Robert brings a sharp focus to building performance-driven systems that accelerate growth.
Q: As Head of Product, what are your top 3 areas of focus at DMS right now?
Robert: First, deeply understanding where value is being created, and constrained, for our customers and our internal teams, and building trust so those realities surface early. Second, avoiding wasted effort by validating ideas quickly and focusing on work that actually changes outcomes. Third, creating shared understanding so we’re aligned on what problems we’re solving, why they matter and how progress shows up across the organization. When priorities and ownership are clear, momentum becomes visible.
Q: Performance marketing and ad tech continue to evolve quickly. From a product perspective, where do you see the biggest opportunities emerging over the next few years?
Robert: The opportunity is being clear about the ideal end state for an advertiser: they understand customer value, can align acquisition cost to lifetime value and can scale without operational strain. Getting there is harder now because measurement is noisier, privacy constraints are real and regulatory changes raise the bar for compliance. At the same time, consumer discovery is shifting toward more conversational and answer-driven experiences, which changes how high-intent consumers show up and how we capture interest. Our job is to help advertisers succeed within their constraints. We do this by following consumer behavior, tightening feedback loops and building systems that stay stable even as platforms and market conditions change.
Q: What have you seen successful product teams do particularly well when building systems for performance marketing and marketplaces?
Robert: Strong teams invest deeply in understanding the problem before committing to solutions, design systems with feedback loops and failure modes in mind and avoid one-off optimizations that don’t scale. They measure success by changes in behavior, confidence and economics, not by how many features shipped. Simple, intentional systems win over time.
Q: How do you approach building and aligning high-performing product teams across product, engineering, data, growth and operations?
Robert: Alignment comes from shared context, clear ownership and realistic planning. I also prefer framing work around what we can meaningfully achieve in a fixed time period, rather than guessing how long a single solution might take. That encourages creativity, collaboration and lower-risk approaches instead of locking into one plan too early. When teams understand the problem, constraints and time horizon, they make better decisions independently and move faster together.
Q: When you’re not focused on product strategy and execution, how do you like to spend your time?
Robert: I enjoy staying active, spending time with family and friends, and being outdoors as much as possible. I love skiing, playing volleyball and the occasional garage band jam sesh.