This position can be based in the Washington D.C or Chicago, IL office. Position Summary:The Director, Agency Partnerships and Campaign Operations serves as the organization's primary lead for managing its external marketing and media agency relationship in support of large-scale, primarily consumer-facing campaigns. This role is responsible for overseeing the agency's development and execution of integrated marketing, advertising, and media initiatives designed to advance the association's strategic goals, increase audience engagement, and drive measurable results.
Acting as the central point of coordination between internal stakeholders and agency partners, this individual will manage and oversee campaign planning, agency operations, budgets, timelines, reporting, and performance measurement. They will ensure agency partners are aligned with organizational objectives, delivering work on schedule, within budget, and against established KPIs.
The ideal candidate has significant experience managing agencies and overseeing consumer marketing campaigns, either from within an agency environment or on the client side. This role requires a strategic thinker who is highly organized, data-driven, and skilled at translating campaign performance into succinct presentations and actionable business recommendations. This is not a creative development role; rather, it focuses on campaign operations, media planning oversight, performance management, and stakeholder communications.
Duties and Responsibilities:
Media Planning & Optimization- Collaborate with internal stakeholders and agency partners to establish campaign objectives, audience strategies, messaging priorities, KPIs, and success metrics.
- Review and guide agency media strategies, channel recommendations, audience targeting, and investment allocations to maximize campaign performance and ROI.
- Monitor media pacing, spending, delivery, and performance, recommending optimizations based on audience insights, campaign results, and emerging trends.
- Analyze campaign outcomes and translate insights into actionable recommendations that improve future planning, performance, and business impact.
Relationship Management & Agency Oversight- Serve as the primary day-to-day relationship manager for marketing, advertising, and media agency partners.
- Manage agency scopes of work, contracts, service-level expectations, and overall accountability for strategy, deliverables, timelines, budgets, and campaign performance.
- Facilitate regular planning sessions, status meetings, business reviews, and consultative discussions with agency and internal stakeholders.
Reporting & Executive Communications- Develop and maintain reporting frameworks, dashboards, scorecards, and performance measurement tools to evaluate campaign effectiveness, agency performance, and business impact.
- Prepare and present executive-ready reports, campaign updates, performance metrics, budget status, risks, and strategic recommendations to leadership.
- Communicate complex performance and financial data in a clear, concise, and actionable manner to support decision-making.
Logistics, Financial Management & Governance- Oversee campaign calendars, launch schedules, approvals, execution plans, and cross-functional coordination while proactively addressing risks, delays, and performance concerns.
- Review agency estimates, invoices, reconciliations, and financial reporting to ensure budget accuracy, accountability, and transparency.
- Ensure leadership maintains ongoing visibility into campaign progress, operational readiness, business impact, and agency effectiveness.
Qualifications:
Required- Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Business, Advertising, or related field.
- 5-8+ years of experience in agency management, account management, marketing operations, media planning, campaign management, or integrated marketing.
- Experience managing agency relationships and overseeing large-scale, consumer-facing marketing campaigns.
- Strong understanding of advertising, media planning, campaign measurement, and marketing operations.
- Demonstrated success managing cross-functional projects with multiple stakeholders.
- Experience managing marketing budgets and agency investments.
- Exceptional project management, organizational, and communication skills.
- Proven ability to analyze campaign performance data and make strategic recommendations.
- Advanced proficiency in PowerPoint, Excel, and reporting tools.
Preferred- Experience managing national consumer awareness, advocacy, education, or behavior-change campaigns.
- Experience overseeing multimillion-dollar media and marketing budgets.
Success Measures:Success in this role will be demonstrated through:
- Strong performance and accountability of agency partners.
- Successful planning and execution of consumer-facing campaigns that achieve organizational objectives.
- On-time and on-budget delivery of marketing and media initiatives.
- Accurate and insightful performance reporting.
- Data-driven recommendations that improve campaign effectiveness and ROI.
- Clear and consistent communication with Sn. Director, Creative and Marketing Strategy, CMCO and stakeholders.
- Efficient management of agency operations, timelines, budgets, and campaign execution.
Compensation: $160,000-$180,000 depending on office location.
NAR provides comprehensive benefits including health/dental/vision insurance.
NAR is on a hybrid schedule and in the office 3 days a week.
