In 2012, at the start of the DTC boom, Katya Constantine founded DigiShopGirl Media. The digital agency used two relatively new technologies at the time—digital media and programmatic advertising—to turn startups into household names.
Some of her star clients have now included luggage brand Away, Rent the Runway, skin care firm Starface and weight-loss program Noom, and DigiShopGirl currently counts more than 150 clients and manages more than $100 million in ad spend. However, getting there was much easier said than done.
The benefit of startups
Constantine didn’t come to advertising from the agency world. Instead, she got her start as a consultant at Accenture and held roles starting customer loyalty programs and digital marketing initiatives at Expedia and Amazon.
But from her perch among big corporations, she got drawn into the array of problems facing startups trying to grow a brand. Constantine took up mentoring at the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator and kept a blog on digital marketing trends.
“I found that I really enjoy how startups think about the world, how quickly they move, how hungry they are to kind of think outside the box,” she said. “I just found that really inspirational.”
When Constantine was discovering her love for working with startups, she was also picking up on key changes in the media landscape: 10 years ago, the notion that the majority of ad dollars would go to digital platforms and that marketing could be granularly measured was not widely accepted. Startups were more game to structure their marketing efforts around digital.
“Startups were not afraid to adopt,” Constantine said. “They were not afraid to test.”
Set the pace
In building DigiShopGirl, she employed an approach that was anathema to the culture of fast-growing, venture-capital backed startups: Slow and steady wins the race.
The agency has no salespeople, growing only through word-of-mouth marketing, and has been focused on profitability rather than growth from day one.
“If we do good work, people will come to us,” Constantine said. “Then we will grow as our clients grow.”
Finding purpose in work
This diligent outlook helped guide Constantine not just professionally but also during her own challenging personal journey: Eight months into founding the agency, and after quitting a job at Amazon, Constantine was diagnosed with chronic leukemia.
“It completely reshuffled what was important. And as I came out of that, I found myself realizing that I wanted to have a career in something where I have complete control of my destiny,” Constantine said. “I wanted to build an environment where everything was focused around organic and healthy growth.”
Turning her passion project into a career when she launched DigiShopGirl was a grounding force as she underwent treatment.
“When you get sick, you have this sense of loss of control because you don’t know what tomorrow will be,” said Constantine, who is currently in remission. “With the work I was doing, I felt this was the one thing I could control. And I truly believe that if I did the things I believed were right, that they would be successful.”
Work history
Constantine developed a loyalty program for travel site Expedia, then went to Amazon, where she was part of a team that developed an ad product that allowed users to post about their purchases—linking shopping to viral moments, and led efforts to sell and evolve that ad product. At DigiShopGirl, the majority of Constantine’s clients have been with the agency for over three years, and several are founding their second or third companies with DigiShopGirl’s help.
This story first appeared in the July 2023 issue of Adweek magazine. Click here to subscribe.
