Performance Associate Director

About WPP Media

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world's leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships – all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open – we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth.

WPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working.

For more information, visit wppmedia.com.

About Media Futures Group

The Media Futures Group AI Squad is a small, agile, and autonomous innovation team dedicated to charting the course for AI transformation across APAC for one of WPP's most important and strategic global technology clients.

By seamlessly integrating AI across media, creative, and production, this cross-functional squad delivers cutting-edge innovation and pioneering work to deliver more effective and efficient business outcomes.

The team's mission is to solve specific business challenges by delivering demonstrable proof of AI-enabled marketing improvements, providing strategic guideposts for the broader organization.

Utilizing best-in-class tools like WPP Open and Gemini, you will innovate and deliver award-winning creative ideas while building, testing, and scaling solutions that enhance effectiveness, efficiency, and execution for our clients.

Role Summary and Impact

While the Media Planner architects the overarching strategy and budget distribution, the Associate Media Activation Director acts as the engine room of the campaign. You are the cross-channel platform deployment lead for the squad, responsible for executing the campaign end-to-end—from receiving AI-generated assets for trafficking to actively optimizing live media in-flight. You will navigate the high-pressure environment of live sprints, ensuring that our AI-led strategies are executed flawlessly across platforms while aggressively utilizing AI tools to automate your own daily activation workflows.

Responsibilities

• Live Deployment & Trafficking: Take full ownership of the hands-on-keyboard campaign setup. Execute complex digital trafficking, ad server configuration, and live activation of programmatic, search, and social media campaigns across self-service ad platforms.
• Real-Time Optimization & Pacing: Continuously monitor in-flight campaigns during the live sprint. Manage daily budget pacing, adjust bidding strategies, and dynamically reallocate funds across channels based on real-time performance data and predictive AI signals.
• Quality Assurance (QA) & Troubleshooting: Act as the first line of defense for campaign health. Rapidly identify and troubleshoot tracking inaccuracies, tag misfires, creative disapprovals, or data integrity issues before they impact campaign performance.
• AI-Assisted Workflow Automation: Actively utilize generative AI (such as Google Gemini) and automated scripts to accelerate mundane activation tasks, including bulk campaign uploads, naming convention generation, anomaly detection, and automated performance reporting.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work in lockstep with the Media Planner to ensure the strategic architecture translates perfectly into the platform, and collaborate with the Data Scientist to ensure all tracking pixels and measurement frameworks are firing correctly.

Skills and Experience

• 6 years of dedicated, hands-on experience in digital media activation, ad operations, or performance marketing execution.
• Deep, practical expertise navigating and operating within the Google Marketing Platform ecosystem; active certifications in Display & Video 360 (DV360), Campaign Manager 360 (CM360), and Google Ads are highly preferred.
• Strong, mechanical understanding of ad tech infrastructure, including tracking pixels, universal tags, UTM parameters, and Google Tag Manager.
• Proven track record of managing daily budget pacing and executing in-platform optimizations for complex, multi-market or high-budget campaigns.
• Baseline fluency in utilizing AI tools (like Gemini or ChatGPT) for everyday productivity, with a strong desire to learn how to apply machine learning and AI automation directly to media buying and operations.

Key Competencies

• Flawless Tactical Execution: An uncompromising, zero-defect approach to campaign QA, trafficking, and naming conventions.
• Analytical Agility: The ability to quickly parse live dashboard data, spot performance anomalies, and execute immediate in-platform adjustments.
• Platform Mastery: Deep, native comfort operating within the granular settings and bidding algorithms of major Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and ad servers.
• High-Pressure Resilience: Thrives in fast-paced, high-velocity deployment environments where campaigns must be launched, paused, or pivoted on a dime.

Life at WPP Media & Benefits

Our passion for shaping the next era of media is powered by our commitment to Be Extraordinary, investing in our employees to inspire transformational creativity. We also Lead Optimistically, firmly believing in and Championing Growth and Development for every individual. This commitment allows WPP Media employees to leverage the extensive global WPP Media & WPP networks to pursue their passions, build vital professional connections, and learn at the cutting edge of marketing and advertising.

We Create an Open environment built on trust and respect, where everyone feels they belong and has opportunities to progress. This inclusive culture is fostered through a variety of employee resource groups and frequent in-office events showcasing team wins, sharing thought leadership, and celebrating holidays and milestone events. Our comprehensive benefits package reflects this commitment, including competitive medical, vision, and dental insurance, significant paid time off, preferential partner discounts, and employee mental health awareness days.

WPP Media is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection in this open and supportive environment. That's why we've adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

Please note that while our philosophy is the same across WPP, benefits may vary by office/country.