Associate Director, Programmatic

Job Description

Who We Are  
Horizon Next is one of the industry's most innovative and data-driven marketing organizations and sits at the intersection of three constantly changing landscapes: people, data, and media. Our business provides strategic leadership to accelerate growth for our clients through brand strategy, media planning and investment, and best in class analytics across all channels. As the leader in innovative business solutions, we are always pushing ourselves to understand what’s next: our next innovation, our next advancement in analytics, the market’s next media evolution, and your next breakthrough idea. Horizon Next operates with the single goal that tomorrow must outperform today. 

At Horizon Next, we understand the value that different perspectives can bring to our clients and culture, so we strive for an environment where our employees feel welcomed, safe and empowered. We value YOU and believe that your authentic voice and unique perspective allows us to create a more rewarding culture, and experience, together.

Our simple recipe for success? We hire talented people (thinkers, doers, dreamers, makers), challenge them and give them every opportunity to grow.

What You’ll Do:

The role Associate Director, Programmatic seeks a knowledgeable programmatic practitioner who is capable of managing multiple stakeholders, both internal and external, in organizing a unified alignment for the most impactful ways to deliver media programmatically.  This person must also be incredibly versed in platform specifics in order to function as the last set of eyes approving the accuracy and set up design of in platform architecture in relation to the media plan structure.   Strategic thinking ability is a must as the role also takes a leadership position around custom algorithm implementation for clients under management, as well as a thoughtful and intentional inventory and supply path approach. 

Main Duties and Responsibilities

60% Account Management

• The main POC:  Serve as the main day-to-day point of contact & escalation point for internal partners and external contacts as relates to delivering excellence with speed, expertise and helpfulness.  Ensures plans are conducive to client goals.

• Final approver:  Reviews DSP setup as the last reviewer in the QA process, providing all systems go approval for launch and tracking in-campaign changes with an equally hawkish eye. 

• Money management:  Responsible for coordinating the makegood coverage response in instances of mishaps.  Uses strong ecosystem relationships and understanding of buy mechanics to first explore creative solutions with existing partners and platforms. 

• Custom thinker:  Evaluates each plan with a fresh perspective on a custom algorithm strategy and application that can make a difference, as well as how a bespoke inventory and supply approach can deliver efficiencies in costs and performance.  Strive for innovation and 1st to market opportunities for your clients.

• Eagle eye:  See across the entire process to identify spots to step in and mitigate risk.  Ensure a positive working relationship with your team and DAT, BST, analytics, and client.

40% Learning & Development

• Internal health check:  Lead owner of adoption of internal products and solutions for our meta dsp, incentives tracker, marketplace solutions, updated initiatives requiring rollout, as well as cross-discipline coordination for united broader product and solution support. 

• Grower of people:  Establishes a framework for skill development and knowledge growth that can be used to track the maturation and readiness of junior team members for more responsibility and opportunity.  Ensure growth & development of team.

Additional Responsibilities

• Help engineer processes to improve operation workflow, as needed

• Institutionalize best practices for bidding, budget management, ad operations, and reporting

• Socialize and document programmatic team learnings from optimization

• Develop and publish POVs to inform clients and agency personnel about changes in programmatic marketplaces and technology

• Foresee and plan for new workflows, processes, and capabilities required to meet the needs of new and future programmatic clients and ensure team adheres to processes and established ways of working

Knowledge and Skills Required

• Able to develop, implement, and improve business processes

• Proven ability to thrive in highly collaborative work environments

• A team-oriented manager with strong delegation and organization sk