Surfside.IO
Who Surfside Is
Surfside.io is a marketing technology company that builds platforms and tools to help brands and retailers unify fragmented customer data and turn it into measurable marketing outcomes. They describe themselves as a technology partner for businesses looking to understand customers across all touchpoints — both digital and in-store — and to activate that knowledge into targeted media campaigns.
Founders Jon Lowen and Michael Blanche have backgrounds in mobile advertising and data systems, and the company has been backed by investors including Casa Verde Capital, with a seed raise reported around $4 million.
What Surfside Actually Does
At its core, Surfside provides a data and advertising platform designed to turn customer data into actionable insights and media outcomes. The way they describe their technology involves several key components: Surfside+1
1. First-Party Customer Data Integration
Surfside pulls in data from online and offline sources — web behavior, e-commerce interactions, POS transactions, visit footprints — and stitches it together into single customer profiles. This unified view is sometimes called a customer graph or customer profile hub. Surfside
2. Audience Building & Enrichment
By layering your own first-party data with Surfside’s enrichment attributes (location patterns, demographic and behavioral signals), the platform can model who your customers are and what they might buy next. Surfside
3. Omni-Channel Attribution & Measurement
Rather than guessing what worked, Surfside links ad exposure to real outcomes — online purchases, in-store visits, and more — allowing brands and retailers to measure return on ad spend (ROAS) more precisely. StartupSeeker
4. Demand Side Platform (DSP) & Commerce Media
They also provide tools to activate those audiences by running personalized campaigns across channels (display, web, digital menus, etc.) and even inside retail environments via what they call Commerce Media — ad placements on e-commerce menus that influence buying behavior at point of purchase. Projects like the integration with the BLAZE e-commerce platform show how Surfside’s ad units can be embedded directly in a retailer’s digital presence to drive visibility and incremental sales. PR Newswire
Why This Matters
For people operating flower and concentrates retail or brand development, the gap Surfside fills is this: most of the big ad platforms (Facebook, Google) are largely unavailable for regulated products. That leaves a blind spot in understanding who your customers really are and how your media is performing. Surfside tries to replace that guesswork with actual first-party customer intelligence connected to real purchase events, whether online or in your stores. Surfside
Instead of running campaigns and hoping something sticks, you get:
A unified customer profile
Better audience targeting
Attribution tied to sales and foot traffic
Media activation platforms that work even where traditional channels don’t
Where They Stand Today
They market themselves as a connected marketing platform that works with brands and stores to activate data for personalized engagement and measurement. Their technology is used to build, activate, and measure campaigns that are tied to outcomes — not just clicks. Surfside+1
Interview With Surfside
Surfside.io: Cutting Through the Noise in Digital Retail Media
December 17, 2025
The meeting started the way a lot of real conversations in this industry do—missed connections, chance run-ins, and too much noise to get the full picture. But once the room quieted, Surfside.io came into focus as something very specific: a precision tool in a market flooded with blunt instruments.
Surfside isn’t selling vibes or brand dreams. They’re built around data, pressure-tested at scale. Founded in 2017 by ad-tech veterans, the company operates as a fully managed digital advertising and commerce media platform, integrating directly with POS systems, online menus, and loyalty programs. The result is visibility into a massive portion of retail transactions across the U.S. and Canada—enough to build detailed consumer profiles and move well beyond guesswork.
Their approach is audience-first. Instead of worrying about where ads live, Surfside focuses on who sees them. Shoppers are targeted based on real behavior—where they go, what they buy, how often they return. That means geo-fencing competitor stores, retargeting repeat buyers, nudging abandoned carts, and tracking the entire path from ad exposure to purchase, whether that happens online or on the retail floor. Every dollar spent is measured against actual outcomes, not hopeful impressions.
Where Surfside really sharpens the blade is commerce media. Retailers can open sponsored placements directly on their digital menus—brand-funded, no cost to the store, with revenue shared back monthly. Brands gain prime shelf space at the exact moment a shopper is ready to buy, along with SKU-level performance data. Retailers pick up a new revenue stream without adding labor or complexity. Clean. Efficient. No wasted motion.
What stood out most wasn’t just the tech—it was the role Surfside plays in replacing chaos with structure. Many operators struggle to hire and retain teams that understand creative, data, execution, and measurement all at once. Surfside collapses that stack into a single, managed system, reducing headcount pressure while increasing accountability.
For consultants and operators already deep in pricing, inventory, and workflow optimization, Surfside represents something bigger than an ad vendor. It’s a modular extension—something that can be layered into existing services, white-labeled, or deployed surgically where marketing teams fall apart.
In a market that’s been overhandled and undermeasured, Surfside feels less like hype and more like a calibrated dose. Enough to feel it. Enough to prove it. Nothing extra.
