Here’s what you need to know about Perplexity’s Andrew Beck — the exec convincing advertisers to get involved

And what a task it is: leading the AI startup’s bold attempt to challenge Google’s auction-based ad system, where marketers bid for sponsored links against search queries. Instead, Perplexity’s model lets marketers sponsor questions, generating AI-produced answers approved by the advertiser. The twist is its reliance on CPMs over CPCs, an unexpected approach for an AI-powered search engine.

These ads launched in November, and calling it a baptism of fire for Beck would be putting it mildly. He’s had to drum up interest from advertisers in the shadow of News Corp’s lawsuit while getting up to speed in an industry where he’s still an outsider. Which is to say, Beck is very much the personification of his employer: ambitious, unproven and learning on the fly. Granted, building an ads business is a team sport, but Beck’s one of those getting his hands dirty.

“In the very few email interactions I’ve had with Andrew Beck, he’s been extremely courteous, eager to review capabilities with us and very open with what they were looking for in the initial charter ad options,” said group vp of search media solutions at Basis Technologies Robert Kurtz, who spoke with Beck about potentially testing opportunities through the last quarter of 2024, as well as into Q1 2025. “And we have been invited to meeting engagements in person at industry events. He occupies a role that is typical for ad tech companies that are trying to make inroads with major ad buyers.”

While Beck’s role may be typical of platforms chasing ad dollars, he is anything but.

Over the past decade, his previous three staff roles at Gopuff, rideOS and Uber saw Beck lead business development tasks, but rarely did that straddle advertising. But this non-advertising experience along with his outsider status in the industry could be a real win for Perplexity. After all, while the tech company is trying to get a foothold with advertisers, Perplexity is still trying to approach advertising in a completely new way.

“I want more dynamic folks that also have a product skill set because we’re literally building the product with the advertisers,” said Perplexity’s chief business officer Dmitry Shevelenko. “We didn’t want to just say here’s a spec sheet, take it or leave it. We wanted to have this be an inclusive process.” So in the case of Beck, “that’s a very different skill set than a commission driven ad sales rep so it’s very intentional,” he added.

And as with any startup, each team member, as a result, will be wearing many hats as the team builds out. That’s not to say traditional ad sales execs won’t be needed at all. In fact, Perplexity has already hired Taz Patel specifically to lead advertising, along with a few individuals who also join Beck and Shevelenko in the new year.

Shevelenko — Beck’s boss — pointed out that he knew Beck could thrive in an ambiguous environment and help create something entirely new, that didn’t follow the old traditional advertising playbooks.

“It was an intentional choice to not have someone with lots of ad experience because that person would have blinders on and would just fall into the trap of rebuilding the old rails,” he said.

That outsider status, however, may be exactly why Perplexity hired Beck for this big job. Bringing on someone like Beck — untethered to the traditional ad playbook — frees Perplexity from the legacy thinking that often shapes the industry. His experience scaling businesses and navigating uncharted territory positions him to approach advertising with a fresh perspective, one that aligns with Perplexity’s ambition to challenge the status quo.

Case in point: Perplexity’s decision to embrace a CPM model over CPC. Maybe that choice doesn’t happen without someone like Beck. It’s a move that pushes marketers to rethink their instincts, signaling that Perplexity isn’t here to play by the old rules.

After all, there will always be some advertisers who are keen to be first movers to a new platform, and internally capable of doing so. On the flip side, there will also always be more conservative advertisers who follow the traditional playbook and find challenges with new things that step outside of that.

Simply put, none of these marketer concerns phase the Perplexity team. It simply comes with the territory of introducing a brand new product to the advertising space that goes against the traditional grain.

It’s going to be challenging for both Perplexity and for marketers during this transitional period, according to Michelle Merklin, vp of paid search innovation and growth at Tinuiti.

“This is a new approach that’s squarely in a gray zone, relying on convergence of various previously disparate marketing mentalities — and oftentimes separate marketing teams for that matter,” she said. “Similar to how we’re seeing that convergence in search of social, like TikTok Search Ads, it’s going to take the same kind of shift in perception for how to put together a media strategy for this new addition to the ‘messy middle’ of marketing.”

For every marketer who has bristled at this approach, in particular around Perplexity’s use of CPMs in a traditionally CPC-driven world, there are others who see its potential. CPMs, for example, effectively shift the focus away from clicks to brand awareness. But the team isn’t trying to get people to click out of Perplexity. Which is why a CPC model, in this instance, doesn’t make sense, when the value for advertisers is the impression and the consideration.

“These less intrusive, but higher funnel, ad options make sense, however they may not align with how most in the industry view search engine ads and KPIs,” said Kurtz. 

Which simply means advertisers would need to tailor their approaches to fit Perplexity’s unique capabilities and audience behaviors. “While many in the ad industry are comfortable with normal Search Ads, it’s refreshing to see a new spin in a known space,” he added.

The fact is, this is going to take a shift in marketer mindset — and such things rarely happen quickly. After all, the hardest, and often slowest thing to change is human behavior. With that said, Perplexity seems committed for the long haul. And Beck, for his part, comes across as fair and measured.

“I definitely got the sense that advertising was 100% new for him [Beck] and his team,” said a media buyer at one of the holding companies. “But they were quick to learn, asked all the right questions, and I felt like they were responding to the market. Each week, Andrew was better prepared — I looked at him as a partner throughout the journey.”

It’s a perspective shared by another ad exec, who preferred to remain anonymous, who said Beck came across as polished and confident in their interactions. “I came away thinking he was someone who at least had a good handle on the way they were planning to roll out advertising and why they made the decisions they made,” they said.

These opinions will undoubtedly evolve. Beck has only been at Perplexity for six months at the time of writing. But the longer he stays, the more visible he will become — particularly as Perplexity works to get ahead of its rivals in monetizing generative AI. 

To do so, it’s targeting the demand generation budget, or rather spend, that is otherwise going toward brand social or brand display. So while it might take a minute for CMOs to come to grips with Perplexity’s new concept, Shevelenko highlighted that there’s already buy-in from the CEOs and individuals who are at the top of the organizations they’re targeting. Why? Because they’re already Perplexity users.

Speaking of the future, if the first six months for Beck were hectic, then the next 12 months will be pivotal. 

Perplexity’s product roadmap is set to include improving targeting on the platform, and finding ways to incorporate the entire marketing funnel into one answer, as well as have an action embedded in the same place. It is still unclear just how many advertisers are actually on board, as Shevelenko only pointed to the ones that Perplexity is currently publicly disclosing: Indeed, Whole Foods Market, Universal McCann and PMG. Though he did say that there will be more announcements soon.

Another area the team is keen to address is control, whereby marketers advertise against queries, but the response to those queries is still unknown and could throw up any answers. “We’ve already built a lot of guardrails around brand safety,” Shevelenko said. “I think that’s going to be a powerful horizon where it’s truly personalized advertising.”

Further down the line, Perplexity will even be looking to add self-serve tools to support small and medium-sized businesses, albeit no timeline is set for this. Right now, the focus is securing a core advertising base and building out from there.

As Shevelenko said, he wants to see Perplexity become an essential platform for the advertising partners they work with.

To achieve that, Shevelenko continued, at the CMO level, organizations should have a long-term commitment to Perplexity, though he didn’t share specifics regarding deal type or figures.

“We want to have them feel that Perplexity is core to how they grow and succeed, in terms of their brand being aware of our audience,” he said. “That’s what success looks like, and I’m confident we can scale up from there.”

Which is to say that while Beck might have his work cut out for him, having a familiar team in Shevelenko, along with some other colleagues who all previously worked together at Uber, will make the journey feel that much more supportive. 

“He [Beck] occupies a role that is typical for ad tech companies that are trying to make inroads with major ad buyers,” said Kurtz. “If Perplexity were to grow rapidly, Andrew can have a significant role in the industry.”