Associate Director, Planning

Brainlabs is the media agency built to answer one question: what's actually driving profit? Founded in 2012 by Daniel Gilbert, we were built by engineers before we were a media agency. Today, 1,000+ Brainlabbers across five continents use our proprietary agents, built on 32 media tools and over 2,500 logged experiments, to help brands connect every channel they plan and buy to one thing: the bottom line.

So you’re interested in becoming an Associate Director of Planning? Let's dive into what that means:

• Role type:
  Full‑time
• Team:
  Strategy & Planning
• Reporting to:
  Director, Strategy
• Location:
  
  New York City, New York
• Compensation:
  We hire candidates across our US office locations and at varying levels of experience. Our posted salary ranges reflect differences in both location and experience, with final compensation determined once a candidate’s background and location are confirmed.
• Work Authorization:
  Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. We are unable to provide visa sponsorship or continuation for this position.

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.

• 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.

• 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.
• Prof…