Associate Director, Ad Operations

The Role:  Associate Director of Ad Operations
The Associate Director of Ad Operations will serve as the primary owner of audience activation, data distribution, and platform partnerships at Tunnl. Starting as a team of one, this role will report to the VP, Finance & Operation and will work across departments to ensure that Tunnl audiences are delivered with speed, accuracy, and reliability — while designing the systems and workflows that will support a scaled ad operations team in the near future.
You will partner closely with Operations, Account Management, Product, Engineering, Finance, and Revenue teams, and act as the main operational contact for key platforms including LiveRamp, The Trade Desk, and StackAdapt. This position requires both hands-on technical execution and strategic process development, with an emphasis on automation, scalability, and compliance.
The ideal candidate is comfortable executing in a fast-paced environment while also building the infrastructure, training programs, and operational standards that will make audience activation at Tunnl more seamless, efficient, and future-proof.

Responsibilities

• Audience Activation, Distribution & Troubleshooting
• Own end-to-end audience delivery to partner platforms — ensuring speed, accuracy, and reliability.
• Act as the primary operational contact for activation and distribution issues.
• Diagnose and resolve latency, ingestion failures, mismatched audience data, and mapping errors.
• Coordinate with internal engineering teams and external ad ops teams to resolve issues quickly.
• Identify recurring problems and design long-term, automated solutions.


• Process Design, Automation & Scalability
• Architect processes, documentation, and systems to make audience activation seamless and scalable.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to automate data distribution, reduce manual intervention, and improve delivery SLAs.
• Develop internal training resources and cross-department enablement programs to upskill colleagues on ad ops workflows.
• Build the operational foundation for a future ad ops team — including hiring plans, onboarding processes, and performance standards.


• New Business Activation & Partner EnablementLead technical onboarding for new activation partners and data distribution pathways.Translate client and market needs into viable activation opportunities.Provide feasibility assessments for sales and account teams, including platform compliance guidance.Build strategic relationships with platform partners to drive adoption and encourage channel sales.


• Data Usage Reporting, Compliance & Sharing
• Monitor, validate, and interpret data usage across all activation partnerships and onboarding platforms.
• Ensure all data activation, storage, and sharing complies with applicable privacy laws and partner terms.
• Collaborate with legal/compliance teams to implement robust data governance and sharing protocols.
• Document and enforce best practices for data retention, security, and permissioning.
• Deliver usage and compliance reports for internal stakeholders and external partners.


• Performance Optimization & Strategic Insight
• Define and track KPIs for activation accuracy, speed, reliability, and automation rate.
• Recommend process and technology improvements to increase match rates, reduce latency, and expand reach.
• Stay ahead of industry shifts in identity resolution, cookieless targeting, privacy technology, and programmatic best practices.
• Advise leadership on new activation pathways and strategic opportunities for competitive advantage.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years executing digital advertising campaigns, with 3+ years in ad operations or programmatic media activation.
• Hands-on experience with LiveRamp, The Trade Desk, StackAdapt, and major platforms such as Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and Simpli.fi.
• Strong knowledge of the programmatic ecosystem, including DMPs, SSPs, DSPs, and GAM.
• Relevant certifications (e.g., Google Ad Manager, The Trade Desk Edge Academy, DMP/SSP/DSP certifications).
• Proven ability to diagnose and resolve technical delivery issues.
• Experience pricing audiences using CPM and percentage-of-media models.
• Experience managing revenue collection and reconciliation for audience/data usage.
• Track record of building or optimizing automated data workflows in an ad tech envi