Associate Director, Ad Operations & Analytics

TravelSpike is the 1st and largest travel-dedicated digital ad platform reaching over 200 million travelers and helping advertisers influence travelers before they book. We combine proprietary technology with deep travel audience expertise to deliver high-impact, performance-driven campaigns. Our Travelogic™ methodology leverages our proprietary algorithm to power outcomes across display, video, CTV, native, email, and more.

We’ve run thousands of travel media campaigns and worked with major clients across tourism, lodging, aviation, and attractions.

As a small, scrappy, and remote-first team, we value independent ownership, creativity, and proactive problem-solving.

Role Overview

We’re seeking an Associate Director Ad Operations & Analytics to join our Media Solutions team. This hybrid role blends deep ad operations execution, advanced analytics, and thoughtful audience strategy. You’ll drive the technical foundation behind our campaigns, support the evolution of TravelSpike’s ad products, and collaborate with clients and internal teams to ensure campaigns are set up for success and measured effectively.

Key Responsibilities

Ad Operations

• Lead trafficking and campaign setup being hands on keyboard in CM360 and DV360 across direct and programmatic buys, ensuring all tagging and tracking supports clear performance insights.
• Provide Google Tag Manager support to clients.
• Work with our direct Publisher Ad Operations teams, troubleshoot publisher Google Ad Manager questions.
• Define and enforce placement naming conventions and campaign structures. Maintain documentation of relevant processes.
• Strategize, implement, and QA conversion tracking pixels, mainly Floodlight tags in CM360, including owning the configuration and governance of conversions and custom variables.
• Collaborate with product development to support new or enhanced ad products, helping with technical alignment across engineering, sales, and operations.
• Place and QA tracking from various Attribution and Measurement vendors (IAS, Adara, etc.)

Reporting & Analytics

• Own and enhance campaign reporting and measurement frameworks: attribution windows, modeled vs observed conversions, etc.
• Process data in Excel / Google Sheets, build dashboards in Looker Studio, and leverage client Google Analytics for web metrics.
• Generate insights: translate raw data into actionable recommendations, trends, and optimization strategies.
• The ideal candidate can also:
• Support ad verification processes and QA: monitor and troubleshoot verification (e.g., DV, IAS).
• Support data warehousing (e.g., Azure) to build and maintain databases; manage data pipelines relevant to campaign and audience analysis.

Client Engagement & Collaboration

• Act as a technical point of contact for clients (especially on pixel strategy and implementation, and trafficking/activation troubleshooting).
• Work cross-functionally with sales, client service, and engineering teams to align on campaign objectives and new product launches.
• Support excellent service and collaboration with TravelSpike publisher partners.

Technical / Hard Skills

• 5+ years working across a mix of ad operations and analytics, ideally with programmatic platforms (DV360) and ad server (CM360 and/or Flashtalking).
• Strong experience with Floodlight (or similar conversion tracking) strategy, implementation and QA, including working in Google Tag Manager.
• Experience with custom ad units, and deep understanding of specs and platform capabilities (e.g. HTML5, VAST/VPAID, CTV specs)
• Proficient with data processing in Excel / Google Sheets; solid understanding of data manipulation, pivoting, formulas, macros (bonus).
• Experience building dashboards and reporting in Looker Studio (or similar BI tools).
• Familiarity with Google Analytics (or other web analytics tools) and how to interpret campaign-driven website metrics.
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• Excellent troubleshooting ability and attention to detail.
• Ability to manage multiple campaigns and deadlines simultaneously.
• The ideal candidate will also have:
• Experience working with data warehouses or cloud data tools (e.g., Azure, BigQuery, Snowflake).
• Ability to build audiences to fit each campaign by leveraging 3rd party and 1st party data
• Experience with Dynamic Creative Optimization.
• Familiarity with PRISMA, Mediaocean, or other billing systems.
• Understanding of ad verification tools (DV, IAS).

Soft Skills

• Highly proactive, self-directed, and scrappy; able to take ownership and drive initiatives in a small, fast-moving team.
• Strong problem-solving skills: capable of diagnosing technical issues, recommending improvements, and executing solutions.
• Excellent communication skills: able to translate technical concepts to non-technical clients / stakeholders.
• Collaborative: works cross-functionally with sales, engineering, product, activation.
• Client-facing experience a plus: comfortable presenting data, insights, and recommendations to client teams.

Cultural Fit

• Startup-minded, but with corporate-level rigor.
• Passion for travel and/or ad tech: enthusiasm for our mission of “influencing travelers before they book.”
• Comfortable working remotely, across time zones, and taking independent initiative.
• This is an individual contributor Subject Matter Expert role.
• This role is fully remote and requires consistent hours for collaboration, and must maintain structured remote office hours to support campaign launches, QA cycles, and internal stakeholders.

For preferred consideration and faster review of your application send a detailed cover letter with a brief overview of how your experience fits our job requirements and why we should hire you over the 100 other candidates who will apply over the next week. Send to mandie @ travelspike.com