Director of Ad Operations

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in India.

📋 Description

• Take full responsibility for revenue management within the AdOps division, achieving quarterly and annual revenue goals while maintaining a commitment to continuous quarter-on-quarter growth.

• Actively discover and highlight upselling, cross-selling, and additional revenue possibilities based on campaign performance analytics, inventory status, and client interaction trends.

• Collaborate with Sales and Customer Success teams to establish a systematic pipeline of incremental requests, packaging underutilized inventory, high-performing placements, and audience extensions into actionable upsell strategies.

• Monitor and report on revenue performance, at-risk campaigns, and growth prospects as part of regular updates to leadership and the Executive Leadership Team (ELT).

• Cultivate a commercial mindset within the AdOps team, ensuring every campaign manager comprehends the revenue implications of their operational decisions, beyond just the logistical aspects.

• Keep a vigilant perspective on operational costs, gross margins, and cost-per-delivery across various campaign types and channels.

• Regularly assess the vendor and ad tech stack for cost efficiency, actively searching for less expensive yet equally effective alternatives for ad serving, verification, data, and programmatic partnerships.

• Negotiate vendor contracts and renewals with a focus on margins, comparing costs against industry benchmarks and internal return on investment (ROI) criteria.

• Create and maintain a cost-of-delivery model that provides leadership with insights into margin trends, cost factors, and opportunities for optimization.

• Oversee budgets and expenditures related to ad operations, collaborating with Finance to ensure precise forecasting and reporting.

• Take charge of training the Sales team to effectively position, pitch, and sell Display advertising products in the market—ensuring that sellers are knowledgeable about inventory, targeting capabilities, performance metrics, and competitive advantages.

• Develop and sustain sales enablement materials, including product one-pagers, objection-handling guides, case studies, and packaging recommendations for Display products.

• Conduct regular training sessions and refreshers for the Sales team on new ad formats, inventory updates, campaign best practices, and market trends.

• Serve as the operational expert during client and prospect calls when Sales needs assistance in articulating delivery capabilities, service level agreements (SLAs), or technical feasibility.

• Oversee the entire execution process of digital advertising campaigns, including creative trafficking, targeting, pacing, troubleshooting, and performance reporting across display, native, newsletter, and programmatic channels.

• Manage and prioritize the ad trafficking workload within the team, ensuring campaigns are accurately set up and delivered on time.

• Monitor campaign delivery and performance, providing timely updates and actionable insights to Sales, Customer Success, and client-facing teams.

• Optimize campaigns to meet contracted KPIs (impressions, CTR, viewability, engagement) and maximize return on investment (ROI) for clients.

• Establish and uphold comprehensive quality assurance (QA) standards throughout the campaign lifecycle—from creative intake and trafficking setup to delivery, reporting, and closure—ensuring flawless transitions to clients and internal stakeholders.

• Define and maintain a structured QA checklist and pre-launch verification process for all campaign types, including display, newsletters, sponsored content, and programmatic placements.

• Create and manage a formal escalation framework with clearly defined severity levels, response SLAs, and escalation pathways for campaign delivery failures, creative discrepancies, pacing challenges, and client-impacting incidents.

• Lead root-cause analyses (RCAs) for all significant delivery failures and quality issues, documenting findings, corrective measures, and systematic fixes to avert future occurrences.

• Track and report operational error rates, QA pass/fail metrics, and escalation volumes as part of regular team performance assessments and leadership updates.

• Aim for a measurable reduction in operational error rates each quarter by identifying trends, implementing procedural safeguards, and developing automated validation where applicable.

• Act as the primary escalation contact for high-priority campaign challenges, coordinating a cross-functional response across AdOps, Sales, Customer Success, Product, and Engineering when necessary.

• Ensure that post-incident learnings are incorporated into standard operating procedures (SOPs) and QA documentation, creating a feedback loop between issue resolution and process enhancement.

• Maximize ad inventory utilization across Spiceworks.com properties, tracking sell-through rates, monitoring availability, and communicating performance expectations with Sales and Finance stakeholders.

• Collaborate with Yield and Programmatic teams to monitor and optimize inventory usage, especially during periods of high direct sell-through or competing demands.

• Work with Product and Engineering teams to identify and create new ad surfaces, placements, and formats that enhance monetizable inventory.

• Develop and implement processes to streamline ad operations workflows, boost efficiency, minimize errors, and enhance campaign turnaround times.

• Actively investigate and implement AI and automation tools to optimize campaign setup, pacing, targeting, reporting, and anomaly detection—replacing manual, repetitive tasks with scalable, intelligent workflows.

• Foster a proactive operational approach: build early-warning systems for pacing issues, delivery risks, and inventory shortages rather than waiting for problems to arise.

• Create and maintain comprehensive ad operations documentation, SOPs, and runbooks to ensure consistency and preserve institutional knowledge.

• Lead month-end actualization processes and report monthly delivery revenue to Finance.

• Collaborate with internal and external auditors to confirm that ad serving workflows comply with SOX regulations.

• Partner with Sales and Customer Success to translate campaign performance into narratives for renewals and upsell opportunities.

• Work alongside the Data & Analytics team to leverage first-party audience data, intent signals, and Catalyst insights for campaign targeting and optimization.

• Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams to enhance ad products, user experiences, and reporting capabilities.

• Coordinate with the Newsletter and Webinar operations teams to ensure alignment in cross-channel campaigns and consistent delivery standards.

• Manage relationships with ad tech vendors, SSPs, DSPs, verification providers, and other technology partners.

• Assess and recommend new tools, platforms, and technologies to keep the ad operations stack competitive and up-to-date.

• Stay informed about emerging trends in B2B digital advertising, programmatic, privacy regulations, and ad tech developments.

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of ad operations professionals, providing guidance, feedback, and opportunities for growth.

• Promote a culture of continuous learning—be personally available to train team members across AdOps, Sales, and adjacent functions on tools, processes, products, and industry trends.

• Establish clear team objectives and performance expectations aligned with organizational OKRs.

• Encourage a culture of accountability, ongoing improvement, and operational excellence.

⛳️ Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive experience in Ad Operations, including at least 5 years in a managerial role.

• Proven track record of revenue ownership—experience managing delivery against revenue targets with accountability for growth, not merely fulfillment.

• Demonstrated proficiency in Google Ad Manager 360, covering trafficking, reporting, forecasting, and troubleshooting.

• Hands-on experience in programmatic buying and selling within DSP/SSP ecosystems.

• Strong analytical capabilities with advanced proficiency in Excel (pivot tables, VLOOKUP, formulas, data modeling).

• Experience managing revenue pipelines and campaign data using Salesforce or an equivalent CRM.

• Proven ability to juggle competing priorities in a dynamic, deadline-oriented environment.

• Cross-functional adaptability with a demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively across Sales, Finance, Product, and Engineering teams.

• Awareness of cost and margins—experience evaluating vendor economics, negotiating contracts, and optimizing operational expenditures.

• Proactive, systems-oriented mindset—develops processes that prevent issues rather than merely reacting to them.

• Exceptional written, verbal, interpersonal, and presentation skills.

• Willingness to engage hands-on in campaign troubleshooting when necessary.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive salaries

• Paid time off

• Paid holidays

• Extended leave of absence

• Employee Resource Groups

• Company-sponsored events

• Professional growth through educational support, mentorship programs, and career development resources

• Employee engagement programs and recognition awards