Senior Director, Audience Strategy

Company Description

Who We Are in the UK? Spark Foundry, the Acceleration Agency. We help brands to identify, learn and respond to opportunities faster than the competition. Every client has an area of their business they need to accelerate, from short-term goals to long-term transformation. We’ve proven our approach during the most difficult year on record. Now we’re using it to provide a launchpad for their future. Come be an accelerator with us.

How we accelerate:

• Planning: an approach that works in practice rather than theory, arming planners with the ability to create cutting edge campaigns.
• Intelligence: a suite of tools that give definitive answers to big questions, and uncovers actionable insights about real people.
• Trading: a model built on flexibility and trusted relationships, underpinned with bold guarantees.
• Relationships: a culture of asking challenging questions to better understand the brief – we are not a ‘yes’ agency.
• People: a strong history of recruiting talent from diverse backgrounds and accelerating their careers.

Our Commitment

We are diverse through our experience, people and the clients we look after - and we celebrate that diversity. Our people hold us accountable to our beliefs and via regular surveys and our grass roots D&I team, The Collective, and internal next generation board, Firestarters, we hold regular events and work continually towards generating ideas, initiatives and educating our people to ensure we are a diverse and inclusive agency. As part of our dedication to create an inclusive and diverse workforce, Spark Foundry is committed to equal access to opportunity for people without regard to race, age, sex, disability, neurodiversity, sexual orientation, gender identity or religion.

Job Description Overview

Media always starts with an audience. Audience Design is the intersection of Strategy, Data & Tech applied to drive growth on behalf of our clients and their brands. With the power of Epsilon Identity at the center, we can unleash these capabilities at massive scale at Publicis Groupe. Our team is a mix of researchers, strategists and technology experts and consultants. The Senior Director, Audience Strategy will support internal agencies and clients by leveraging data and analytics to drive audience strategy, deliver actionable insights, and enhance targeting efforts. This role will require strong analytical skills, data fluency, and collaboration with cross‑functional teams. The ideal candidate will have experience in media, creative, content, and/or analytics disciplines. Knowledge of research techniques and segmentation techniques are critical. Candidates should also have applied knowledge of commonly used advertising technology.

Client Responsibilities

• Work directly with clients and internal teams to establish a clear vision, core behaviors & ways of working for an audience-first approach to business/brand strategy.
• Thoroughly understands the capabilities / use cases for audience tools & when to recommend which based on needs.
• Define and guide new ways of working that enable an audience strategy to inform creative, content, media, and analytics workflows through the lens of audience science, leveraging Epsilon, proprietary data products, and third‑party audience platforms.
• Apply proprietary audience intelligence capabilities to help answer clients’ biggest business challenges and uncover new, undetected revenue and growth opportunities.
• Continuously surveys pulse of client and client‑industry needs to prompt and feed innovative ideas/solutions to internal teams.
• Builds and hones deep and trusting relationships with decision‑makers/influencers at assigned clients to foster new business opportunities.
• Proactively ideates with team and colleagues to produce novel (award‑worthy) solutions for clients.
• Participate in new business pitches as required.
• Drives continual evolution of high‑performance culture through active networking with prospective candidates, performance management, and employee engagement.
• Seeks opportunities to stay up‑to‑date on technology, tools, techniques, communication software, social media and self‑awareness.

Role Objectives

• Must have expertise in both Online and Offline media experience, including TV, Display, Search, Social, and Mobile.
• Demonstrated ability to establish high levels of trust and credibility internally and externally, able to influence others to action.
• Excellent written, verbal and presentation skills – effectively presents formal POVs internally and externally.
• Strong leadership skills and general management orientation.
• Critical assessor of talent – builds and motivates high‑performing teams.
• Demonstrated critical thinking skill and strong problem‑solving skills – navigates effectively through difficult issues, builds required consensus to drive business needs and results.
• High results‑orientation, able to effectively juggle and prioritize many competing demands – high tolerance to effectively manage change.
• Team oriented – approachable and viewed as coach and mentor to others.
• Actively participates in critical assessment of assigned talent at all levels and ensures developmental plans and feedback in place to support motivation, retention of high‑performance team members, and manage succession.
• Has exhibited strong communication skills with senior level roles, and has the ability to explain complex concepts to diverse audiences.

Management Responsibilities

• Accountable for Director, Associate Director, Manager, and Associate level deliverables.
• Showcases the ability to manage & mentor others.
• Accountable for onboarding and team readiness.
• Inspires growth and innovation.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of Digital Media experience with progressive levels of responsibility and business acumen in marketing and communications, team management.
• 7+ years managing multiple direct reports, delegating tasks and overseeing deliverables.
• Strong experience with data visualization using tools such as Tableau, R, and advanced knowledge of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.
• Expert presentation, storytelling, and project management skills.
• SQL, SAS, or Python a plus.
• Mastery of the digital analytics space and has innovated to develop new opportunities.
• Expert understanding of audience tools (MRI, GWI, Epsilon).
• Expert understanding of digital marketing, CRM, and audience segmentation.
• Excellent problem‑solving and critical‑thinking skills with the ability to interpret complex data sets.
• Client‑ready presentation, storytelling, and project management skills.
• Expert understanding of Online Display, Video and Mobile campaigns, as well as knowledge of Ad Tech platforms.
• Expertise with third‑party ad serving platforms, DSPs, CDPs, 3rd Party data, pixels and Ad Servers.
• Expertise with customer acquisition goals and optimizing to CPA, CTR, Completion Rate, etc.
• Deep knowledge of Web analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics).
• Deep knowledge of Identity Solution tools (eg. Epsilon, Liveramp, Neustar).

Additional Information

Spark Foundry offers a wide range of benefits to support our employees. Full details are shared when you join, but highlights include core benefits such as Pension, Life Assurance, and Private Medical cover, alongside enhanced policies like Reflection Days and Shared Parental Leave. You’ll also have access to a range of additional initiatives, including: Please check out the Publicis Career Page which showcases our Inclusive Benefits and our EAG’s (Employee Action Groups).

Publicis Groupe works primarily from the office or our clients' office four days per week. At Spark Foundry we are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, and do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or belief, disability, age, citizenship, relationship status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other protected characteristic. We are committed to providing a fair, accessible, and inclusive recruitment process. If you have any access needs - for example, related to disability, neurodivergence, or a health condition - please let us know. We’ll work with you to ensure the process works for you. Sharing this information will never impact your application. Guided by our values, we listen with empathy, uplift each other, take responsibility, and embrace change - building a culture where everyone feels seen, respected, and genuinely included.