Associate Director, Planning

As an Associate Director, Planning, you will be a data-driven, performance-led media planner responsible for designing and activating cross-channel media plans that drive measurable business outcomes. This role sits at the intersection of data, media, and strategy, balancing short-term goals with long-term brand and demand growth.

In this role, you will:

• Translate client business objectives into outcome-driven, full-funnel media strategies that connect awareness, consideration, and conversion
• Lead the development of comprehensive cross-channel media plans, including audience strategy, campaign-level budgeting, flighting, and investment allocation
• Use performance data to inform planning decisions, diagnose issues, and drive optimization, incorporating historical performance, testing results, and learning agendas into future strategies
• Design robust audience strategies leveraging first-party data, platform-native audiences, and second-/third-party data sources
• Operate with a test-and-learn mindset, setting clear hypotheses and building structured testing roadmaps in partnership with data and client teams
• Bring a performance lens to innovation, incorporating emerging media opportunities, new formats, and AI-enabled tools to improve efficiency and effectiveness in planning
• Partner cross-functionally to ensure tight integration between data, creative, media, and strategy throughout the planning and activation process
• Work closely with the data team on measurement and reporting, ensuring a holistic view of performance with clear, actionable insights
• Serve as the day-to-day client lead and trusted advisor on media, performance, and optimization
• Present media strategies, results, and recommendations to senior client stakeholders with clarity and confidence
• Contribute thought leadership on industry trends, media innovation, and evolving best practices

We're looking for someone who has:

• 4+ years of experience in media planning, with deep digital and performance media expertise
• Experience working on performance-driven accounts (e.g., leads, sign-ups, donations, subscriptions), ideally within the Non-Profit sector or on large-scale clients ($30M+ in annual media spend)
• A proven track record of developing and executing full-funnel, cross-channel media strategies that balance efficiency with growth
• Deep understanding of the digital media landscape, including programmatic, social, and search
• Strong experience with media planning and optimization tools (incl. Commspoint, Nielsen Media Impact, Comscore, Ad Intel, etc.)
• Demonstrated expertise in audience strategy and segmentation, including syndicated research tools (MRI, GWI) and first-party data (predictive modeling, lookalike audiences, etc.)
• Experience translating complex datasets into clear insights, implications, and recommendations
• Advanced understanding of media measurement and analytics, including digital and traditional KPIs, marketing mix modeling, and multi-touch attribution
• Strong storytelling, presentation, and client communication skills, with the ability to distill complex plans into clear, compelling narratives
• Proficiency with advanced analytics and data visualization tools

And this is what success looks like in the role:

• You’ll deliver incremental growth for your clients
• You’ll actively develop the careers of those around you
• You will be a positive contributor to our culture
• You will develop processes and systems that enable you to be promoted