Effectv Taps Former Snap Exec Chris Vail to Head Political Sales

The appointment comes as the company’s longtime political sales lead, Dan Sinagoga, ascends to a senior advisor role.

Vail and Sinagoga are stepping into their new posts as the company continues to spearhead industry thought leadership and innovation in areas such as multi-screen advertising, addressability and the shift toward audience-based buying.

Effectv, the ad sales division of Comcast Cable, today announced two key talent appointments in its political sales sector, one of the company’s major verticals.

Chris Vail, who was most recently Head of Government, Political and Omni-channel Advertising at Snap, is joining the company as VP, Political Sales. Dan Sinagoga, a well-respected industry veteran who most recently held the post, will now become a senior advisor to the company.

In his new position, Vail will lead Effectv’s political sales arm and oversee its relationship with internal groups such as Comcast Government Affairs, as well as industry partners like Ampersand. Sinagoga, meanwhile, will continue to work closely with the political sales team and Effectv leadership in a strategic advisory role as the company gears up for – and helps customers navigate through – the 2024 presidential election cycle.

The company announced these two talent appointments as the industry – and the U.S. – prepare to head into a pivotal presidential election year.

“At Effectv, we firmly believe that talent is our greatest asset. Having Chris join and bring to Effectv a wealth of digital experience and passion for building and motivating high-performing teams, while also retaining Dan and his years of deep industry knowledge, is wonderful for our nation-wide team of political sellers. As we enter a major presidential election season, these moves allow us to have two of the industry’s top political ad experts bring their best to serving our customers,” said Pooja Midha, EVP and GM, Effectv.

Chris Vail, VP, Political Sales, Effectv

Vail joins Effectv this month and brings more than 16 years of experience building, growing, mentoring and inspiring high-performing political ad sales teams at both start-ups and global brands such as Amazon and, most recently, Snap. At Snap, he led multiple teams across the U.S. and Canada and focused on growing relationships with large and emerging advertisers. While there, Vail also built the go-to-market strategy for servicing political and issue advertisers across federal and state campaigns, leading to four-digit growth of the vertical in the 2022 midterms. His team also utilized technology across video and AR to help political advertisers reach hyper-targeted and measurable audiences at scale.

Before Snap, Vail served as the VP of sales for Downstream, an early-stage ad tech company. Prior to that, he worked at Amazon Advertising in the early stages of its emerging sales business. During his tenure there, Chris led the expansion of the division’s sales function across North America, building highly successful and engaged teams in New York, Boston and Toronto. As an Amazon “Bar Raiser” Chris hired and coached over 30 individual contributors and managers, exceeding over $200MM in annual revenue.

This new position also marks Chris’ boomerang to Effectv, having first joined the company in 2013 as an account executive after working closely with the company as an agency lead for multiple election cycles.

“Returning to Effectv is such a full circle moment for me and comes at a perfect time, just as we are heading into a pivotal election year,” said Vail. “While we currently live in a fragmented world in terms of how consumers receive their news and content, there remains much opportunity for political advertisers to reach viewers at scale with Effectv’s audience-driven, multi-screen approach.”

Vail received a Master of Arts in Political Science and Campaign Management and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Florida. He is a regular guest lecturer for their graduate program. He currently resides in southern New Hampshire with his family.

Dan Sinagoga, Senior Advisor, Political Sales, Effectv

In his 20+ years at Effectv, Sinagoga has worn many hats, rising from political manager to director to his most recent role as VP, Political Advertising. Colleagues, clients, leadership across Comcast, the industry, reporters and industry analysts alike have turned to Sinagoga for his spot on, sharp, forward-thinking commentary and analysis on trends, insights and developments in the political ad sector. In both his time at the company and in the industry, Sinagoga has guided and counseled advertisers and agencies on some of the biggest, most controversial and memorable presidential and mid-term election cycles, including the 2020 Biden vs. Trump presidential campaign face-off and the 2022 midterms.

Sinagoga’s career highlights and milestones include creating the battleground sys code, ahead of the 2020 presidential election cycle, an innovation that created the opportunity for ad dollars – previously designated for networks – to flow to the state level, where the spend is more effective, particularly in battleground states. As the leader of one of Effectv’s key business verticals, Sinagoga also played an instrumental role in driving industry innovation. Under his leadership, Effectv’s political sales team has helped evolve how the industry approaches audience-based buying, multiscreen and programmatic and pioneered industry firsts such as selling an addressable linear campaign, testing video-on-demand addressable TV ads, as well as innovations on the addressable, audience-based buying, multi-screen and programmatic fronts.

“As I step into my new role, I just want to say that I am incredibly thrilled, grateful and humble at the same time,” Sinagoga said. “These new appointments attest to Effectv’s commitment to continue investing in, retaining and growing key company talent. I am excited to be moving into a new role and am greatly looking forward to the opportunity for our political team to continue growing, innovating and bringing customers best-in-class solutions and service under Chris’s leadership. I’ve known Chris a long time and one of the things I admire most about him is his emphasis on people and culture.”

About Effectv

Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable, helps local, regional and national advertisers use the best of digital with the power of TV to grow their business. It provides multi-screen marketing solutions to make advertising campaigns more effective and easier to execute. Headquartered in New York with offices throughout the country, Effectv has a presence in 66 markets with nearly 35 million owned and represented subscribers. For more information, visit www.effectv.com.

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