Account Director, Programmatic

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.

About EssenceMediacom: A Leading WPP Media Brand

EssenceMediacom is a new breed of media agency. Grounded in analytics & insights and powered by data & technology, we believe in the power of media and creative to drive breakthroughs for the world’s best brands. We help clients understand the modern marketing paradox and discover the breakthroughs brands need to win with their consumers.

Role Summary and Impact

Programmatic involves planning & flawlessly executing programmatically bought media plans. Deploying unsurpassed platform knowledge & smart use of audience data, you will be developing industry-leading technology to facilitate 1:1 communication with our audience. You’ll ensure ongoing and timely optimisation is delivered whilst constantly looking for opportunities to improve campaign performance. You will also be responsible for collating spend forecasts, creating and monitoring campaigns to deliver on planned targets. Your focus will be on in-depth analysis, trend spotting, accurate execution, and leading and developing a team.

Some of the things we’d like you to do:

• Campaign Management
  • Build effective media plans to organise campaign actions and goals.
  • Deliver in-depth analysis during and post-campaign to understand performance beyond top line metrics.
  • Demonstrate clear and thorough understanding of display, video and audio advertising and deliver well-developed intelligent campaigns to successfully hit client KPIs.
  • Collaborate with other departments to get the most out of campaigns.
  • Have a deep knowledge of the industry and always consider how this can be brought to the day-to-day.
  • Work with external partners (e.g. publishers) for planning, buying and optimising media buys.
• Client Management
  • Agree with the clients on targets and how to achieve them.
  • Provide forecasts and monitor campaigns.
  • Ensure work is in sync with overall media campaigns and plans are in agreement with the internal teams, clients and are aligned globally where applicable.
• Media Skills
  • In-depth knowledge of display, video and audio and strong working knowledge of biddable platforms/DSPs (DV360 and Google Ads, in particular, Amazon is desirable).
• People Management
  • Leverage other people’s skill set to deliver results in clients’ campaigns.
  • Contribute to the upkeep of display best practice, and contribute to documentation of this.

Skills and Experience

At WPP Media, we believe in the power of our culture and our people. It’s what elevates us to deliver exceptional experiences for both our clients and each other. In this role it will be critical to embrace WPP & WPP Media’s shared core values:

• Be Extraordinary by Leading Collectively to Inspire transformational Creativity.
• Create an Open environment by Balancing People and Client Experiences by Cultivating Trust.
• Lead Optimistically by Championing Growth and Development to Mobilize the Enterprise.

Required

• Experience agency-side or client side working on programmatic campaigns with excellent experience of DV360 and Google Ads.
• Strong analytical skills and a natural affinity for numbers is key; you must be able to analyse raw data, draw conclusions and develop actionable recommendations as needed.
• High attention to detail with an understanding of optimisation levers across platforms.
• Experience running display and video audience and creative testing (e.g A/B testing, video experiment).
• Experience with implementing Brand Lift measurement across DSPs and with other media owners.

Desired

• Experience with planning and running display and video campaigns on DV360 and Google Ads, including running YouTube and Programmatic Guaranteed deals.
• Good understanding of using Campaign Manager.
• Line management experience.
• Experience with Xandr DSP, and other DSPs such as Amazon, as well as third-party Brand Safety vendors such as DoubleVerify is desirable.
• Involvement with forecasting and running campaigns across multiple countries/languages.

Life at WPP Media & Benefits

Our passion for shaping the next era of media includes investing in our employees to help them do their best work, and we’re just as committed to employee growth as we are to responsible media investment. WPP Media employees can tap into the global WPP Media & WPP networks to pursue their passions, grow their networks, and learn at the cutting edge of marketing and advertising. We have a variety of employee resource groups and host frequent in-office events showcasing team wins, sharing thought leadership, and celebrating holidays and milestone events.

Our benefits include competitive medical, group retirement plans, 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 particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. 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 this is a UK based role and requires individuals to have the right to work in this location.