Associate Director, Integrated Media Planning

Brainlabs is the media agency built to answer one question: what's actually driving profit? Founded in 2012 by Daniel Gilbert, we were built by engineers before we were a media agency. Today, 1,000+ Brainlabbers across five continents use our proprietary agents, built on 32 media tools and over 2,500 logged experiments, to help brands connect every channel they plan and buy to one thing: the bottom line.

Position Overview

Associate Director of Planning – Full‑time, located in New York City, New York, reporting to the Director, Strategy. The role is data‑driven, performance‑led media planning responsible for designing and activating cross‑channel media plans that drive measurable business outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Translate client business objectives into outcome‑driven, full‑funnel media strategies that connect awareness, consideration, and conversion
• Lead the development of comprehensive cross‑channel media plans, including audience strategy, campaign‑level budgeting, flighting, and investment allocation
• Use performance data to inform planning decisions, diagnose issues, and drive optimization, incorporating historical performance, testing results, and learning agendas into future strategies
• Design robust audience strategies leveraging first‑party data, platform‑native audiences, and second‑/third‑party data sources
• Operate with a test‑and‑learn mindset, setting clear hypotheses and building structured testing roadmaps in partnership with data and client teams
• Bring a performance lens to innovation, incorporating emerging media opportunities, new formats, and AI‑enabled tools to improve efficiency and effectiveness in planning
• Partner cross‑functionally to ensure tight integration between data, creative, media, and strategy throughout the planning and activation process
• Work closely with the data team on measurement and reporting, ensuring a holistic view of performance with clear, actionable insights
• Serve as the day‑to‑day client lead and trusted advisor on media, performance, and optimization
• Present media strategies, results, and recommendations to senior client stakeholders with clarity and confidence
• Contribute thought leadership on industry trends, media innovation, and evolving best practices

Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience in media planning, with deep digital and performance media expertise
• Experience working on performance‑driven accounts (e.g., leads, sign‑ups, donations, subscriptions), ideally within the Non‑Profit sector or on large‑scale clients ($30M+ in annual media spend)
• A proven track record of developing and executing full‑funnel, cross‑channel media strategies that balance efficiency with growth
• Deep understanding of the digital media landscape, including programmatic, social, and search
• Strong experience with media planning and optimization tools (incl. Commspoint, Nielsen Media Impact, Comscore, Ad Intel, etc.)
• Demonstrated expertise in audience strategy and segmentation, including syndicated research tools (MRI, GWI) and first‑party data (predictive modeling, lookalike audiences, etc.)
• Experience translating complex datasets into clear insights, implications, and recommendations
• Advanced understanding of media measurement and analytics, including digital and traditional KPIs, marketing mix modeling, and multi‑touch attribution
• Strong storytelling, presentation, and client communication skills, with the ability to distill complex plans into clear, compelling narratives
• Proficiency with advanced analytics and data visualization tools

Success Criteria

• You’ll deliver incremental growth for your clients
• You’ll actively develop the careers of those around you
• You will be a positive contributor to our culture
• You will develop processes and systems that enable you to be promoted

Compensation

Current position range: $95,000—$150,000 USD.

EEO Statement

Brainlabs actively seeks and encourages applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds and identities. We are proud to be an equal‑opportunity workplace: we are committed to equal opportunity for all applicants and employees regardless of age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion, or belief, and marriage and civil partnerships. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during the application process, please let us know! Please note that we will never ask you to transfer cash or make any other payment to us in order to apply for a role or to work for Brainlabs. Any such asks are fraudulent and should be reported to the appropriate authorities in your area.