Associate Director, Data & Platforms

Company description

Spark Foundry is a global media agency that exists to bring HEAT – Higher Engagement, Affinity, and Transactions – to brands. By combining flawless media fundamentals with aggressive innovation, Spark inspires consumers to pay more attention, to care more about our clients’ brands, and to buy more products and services from them.
Balancing the nimble spirit of a startup with the powerhouse soul of Publicis Media, Spark Foundry delivers the best of both worlds to a client roster that spans some of the world’s best and most beloved brands and companies. We combine boutique-caliber insights and service with the buying clout and first-look access of a global leader, bringing the heat to challenger brands that want to act like giants, and to giant brands that want to act like challengers.
With a bottom-up culture that celebrates diversity and aims for all voices to be heard, Spark has become a magnet for the industry’s best talent, with one of the best retention rates in the industry. And by applying a whole-person approach to professional and personal development, Spark develops a workforce that is well prepared for today’s challenges, and also poised to create meaningful careers in the years to come.
Because we know that heat arises the intersection of complementary forces, our professionals come from myriad disciplines and backgrounds: data, analytics, and insights, content and creative production, communications and strategy, finance and marketing, and sociology, psychology, and other liberal arts disciplines.

The Audience Design team is at the core of what we do at Spark Foundry. The Data & Platforms team of data and marketing technology specialists have deep expertise in the ever-changing universe of ad technology, data management, data-driven marketing, and enable a data-first strategy throughout our planning and buying process.

The Associate Director will be integral in driving ad/mar tech and data integration conversations and strategies on behalf of our clients and then implementing these strategies with the Strategy, Activation, and Operations teams as well as clients themselves. The Associate Director will become an expert in the data landscape and will consult with internal teams and clients on partner/vendor selection, data onboarding, platform integrations, audience activation and testing framework, and audience reporting/insights.

This highly motivated, diligent individual will work with both the client and internal partners to educate them on the myriad uses of data and to drive innovation in the use of data and technology for the client, think things like clean rooms, CDPs, advanced audience strategies, full-funnel measurement, etc. They will also generate insights and audience profiles to align with strategic planning and will work with third-party data vendors and publishers to improve the data opportunity for the client and go beyond what is currently available.

Successful candidates will have a well-rounded knowledge base of the digital advertising and data landscape and a passion for working with marketers to drive advertising value.

• Manage data strategy for advertising clients, communicating strategies/recommendations to clients using a consultative approach
• Understand how platform/data technologies work and offer the ability to explain technical concepts in ordinary terms (be technically savvy - understand the opportunities and limitations)
• Identify opportunities – industry learning, meet with vendors and provide a POV, with a client lens and in desired format -- education/evangelize the findings
• Oversee relationship with the Identity Resolution platforms, CDPs, or other AdTech solutions and project manage the deployment and activation of data technology solutions
• Partner with internal Programmatic and media investment arms to support campaign activation as well as advanced data use cases
• Oversee, author and/or constructively edit and review the writing of media documents (timelines, POVs, RFPs, plans, agreements, client memos, and correspondence from within and outside the agency).
• Share knowledge with client and internal teams regarding…