Agency:
Hearts & Science

Job Function:
Media

Job Subfunction:
Media Planning and Buying

Job Description:

Associate Director, Digital Activation

Broad digital activation leadership with deep programmatic expertise

FUNCTION
Digital Activation

LEVEL
Associate Director

ORGANIZATION
Hearts & Science

Position Overview

The Associate Director, Digital Activation is the day-to-day shopper activation lead for assigned clients and brands. This role translates business and media strategy into high-quality digital activation plans, oversees campaign execution and stewardship across channels, and ensures investment is paced, optimized, measured, billed, and reconciled accurately.

The Associate Director sets the strategic and operational direction for the activation team, serves as a trusted client partner and point of escalation, and ensures the Digital Activation Process and departmental standards are understood, appropriately tailored, and consistently applied. The role requires broad digital activation leadership, strong programmatic and ad technology expertise, direct people management, and the ability to move fluidly between strategic counsel, operational detail, and advanced troubleshooting.

A proactive, collaborative, and solution-oriented approach is essential. The successful candidate is comfortable rolling up their sleeves, leading through ambiguity, and developing new relationships and solutions that create value for clients and the agency.

Key Responsibilities

Client Leadership and Strategic Direction

• Lead client relationships. Build trusted relationships with mid- to senior-level client stakeholders and serve as the day-to-day activation lead and customer relationship manager.

• Connect activation to business outcomes. Develop clear strategic frameworks that ladder to client business and marketing goals, using consumer insight to inspire strong tactical recommendations.

• Provide proactive counsel. Bring forward opportunities, risks, platform developments, emerging media capabilities, and actionable recommendations rather than waiting for client direction.

• Lead client communications. Own daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly conversations related to digital activation, investment, performance, pacing, optimization, measurement, and next steps.

• Make complexity accessible. Distill technical, platform, data, and measurement concepts into clear implications and decisions for digitally centric and non-digitally centric audiences.

• Develop new business relationships and solutions. Identify, cultivate, and advance new client relationships, partnerships, and activation solutions that address business needs and strengthen the account.

Digital Activation and Investment Management with a Focus on Amazon and TTD

• Oversee campaign design and implementation. Direct the development, setup, launch, stewardship, optimization, and closeout of digital campaigns across relevant channels, with a focus on Amazon and TTD Shopper campaigns

• Guide buying-path decisions. Provide direction on campaign design, tactic implementation, manual insertion order versus programmatic buying paths, platform selection, success requirements, and the optimal use of demand-side platforms.

• Own campaign performance and pacing. Maintain accountability for the quality, pacing, delivery, and performance of campaigns within assigned brands, ensuring issues are identified early and resolved decisively.

• Serve as an escalation point. Provide advanced guidance for complex setup, troubleshooting, optimization, platform nuances, and delivery challenges; engage directly in platforms when needed to diagnose issues and guide resolution.

• Manage campaign investment. Effectively manage campaign budgets, allocations, pacing, and changes while maintaining appropriate controls and documentation.

• Coordinate across activation teams. Work side by side with broader activation, planning, analytics, operations, and investment teams to ensure campaign setup, adjustments, and performance management are efficient and effective.

• Oversee financial operations. Ensure billing, reconciliation, budget tracking, and supporting documentation are accurate, timely, and compliant with agency and client requirements.

Technology, Data, Measurement, and Reporting

• Lead platform strategy and governance. Apply strong working knowledge of programmatic and ad technology platforms such as The Trade Desk, DV360, Amazon DSP, CM360, and comparable tools.

• Ensure quality and compliance. Customize departmental standards and processes to appropriate client needs while ensuring consistent implementation, quality assurance, platform governance, and verification across campaigns.

• Own reporting accuracy. Lead the design of dashboards and performance presentations, ensure data integrity, and communicate results, drivers, implications, and optimization actions clearly.

• Advance measurement capabilities. Guide the use of third-party verification, measurement, and ad technology solutions, including tools such as IAS, and help evaluate emerging approaches.

• Develop data-driven solutions. Use large data sets and sound evaluation methodologies to identify insights, diagnose performance, and develop scalable client solutions, including custom data management and reporting approaches.

• Evaluate partners and capabilities. Approve vendor selections and scopes, guide vendor engagement, and assess capabilities through RFIs, demonstrations, testing, and performance review.

• Implement new capabilities. Lead or support implementation of business intelligence tools, new supply and data sources, workflow improvements, and emerging media measurement techniques.

People Leadership and Operational Excellence

• Directly manage and develop talent. Lead a team of managers and/or activation professionals with clear accountability for performance management, coaching, development planning, feedback, and career growth.

• Set the team standard. Establish a culture of accountability, curiosity, collaboration, inclusive leadership, continuous learning, and application of learnings across accounts.

• Direct day-to-day operations. Assign work, clarify priorities, review outputs, remove barriers, and maintain appropriate coverage across campaigns and client deliverables.

• Adapt plans and resources. Adjust account priorities, workflows, and team deployment to address changing client needs and operational challenges.

• Build team capability. Provide technical guidance, create repeatable best practices, strengthen platform fluency, and coach team members in tools and working methods, including Excel efficiencies.

• Collaborate across functions. Influence and partner effectively with colleagues across planning, investment, analytics, creative, operations, finance, and centers of excellence.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in digital media planning, buying, activation, or investment, with expert knowledge of digital buying and strong programmatic expertise.

• Demonstrated experience directly managing, coaching, and developing media professionals, including managers and/or individual contributors.

• Proven success leading client relationships and communicating with mid- to senior-level stakeholders.

• Strong knowledge of campaign design, buying paths, optimization, pacing, performance management, measurement, billing, and reconciliation.

• Working knowledge of demand-side platforms and ad technology solutions such as The Trade Desk, DV360, Amazon DSP, CM360, or similar platforms.

• Experience using campaign workflow and media management tools such as Prisma, or comparable systems.

• Working knowledge of third-party verification and brand-safety tools, including IAS or similar solutions.

• Intermediate to advanced data analysis skills, including experience working with large data sets and evaluating data using appropriate methodologies.

• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills, with the ability to improve team efficiency and coach others in effective workflows and shortcuts.

• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, including the ability to translate complex digital concepts into clear business implications.

• Demonstrated ability to develop new business relationships, partnerships, or client solutions using new or existing capabilities and processes.

• Proven ability to self-manage, prioritize competing demands, maintain strong attention to detail, and influence cross-functional teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience activating across multiple digital media channels and a demonstrated curiosity about emerging platforms, formats, data sources, and measurement approaches.

• Hands-on experience in one or more DSPs, with the ability to support advanced setup, troubleshooting, and optimization when needed

• Experience designing reporting dashboards, developing executive-ready performance narratives, and creating long-term data or measurement solutions.

• Experience evaluating media, technology, data, or measurement partners through RFIs, demonstrations, scopes of work, and capability assessments.

• A record of anticipating and clearly defining problems, weighing alternatives, and recommending practical, scalable solutions.

• Demonstrated effectiveness managing up, down, and laterally across varied working styles and stakeholder groups.

Success in This Role

• Clients view the Associate Director as a proactive, accountable, and trusted activation partner.

• Campaigns launch accurately, pace appropriately, and are continuously optimized against defined business and media objectives.

• Activation standards, quality controls, reporting, billing, and reconciliation are consistently applied across assigned work.

• The team receives clear direction, meaningful coaching, timely feedback, and opportunities to grow its strategic and technical capabilities.

• New relationships and solutions create measurable value for clients and strengthen Hearts & Science capabilities.

• Cross-functional partners experience strong coordination, clear decision-making, and effective issue resolution.

$70,000 - $125,000

Omnicom's policy requires employees to work in the office for a minimum of three days a week, unless additional in-office days are directed by their agency or manager. Our objective is to increase this requirement over time, and many of our agencies as well as Omnicom's corporate group already require five days of in-office attendance.