Director, Audience Activation (Agencies)

About the Position

Director, Audience Activation (Agencies)

Join MRI-Simmons as a Director, Audience Activation to lead sales initiatives for advanced advertising solutions, focusing on audience activation and data enablement.

Responsibilities

Revenue Growth & Deal Leadership

• Identify, develop, drive new business and upsell existing opportunities focused on audience activation, enrichment, and data enablement.
• Manage end-to-end customer engagement, including strategy, discussions, proposal and presentations development, negotiation, and contracts where necessary.
• Own commercial discussions and manage deal terms and conditions in partnership with internal stakeholders to ensure audiences meet customer needs to drive utilizations.

Client & Partner Engagement

• Leverage strong, preferably existing, industry relationships across advertising and media agencies, and at times brands, and ad tech partners, with a strong focus on stakeholders in programmatic, digital, video, investment, and account teams.
• Lead advanced advertising, audience activation, and other data-driven proposals and presentations that clearly articulate the value of MRI-Simmons audience intelligence.
• Act as a trusted advisor to customers by aligning MRI-Simmons audience solutions to customer business, media, and campaign activation objectives.
• Requires approximately 25% travel; in-agency presence expected.

Product & Go-to-Market Collaboration

• Partner closely with Commercial, Marketing, Operations, and Product teams to provide client feedback and input that informs audience development and utilization prioritization.
• Support the development of new data enablement and activation initiatives, partnerships, and go-to-market strategies.
• Serve as a subject matter expert for advanced advertising and audience-based activation, use cases, both external with customers and internal guiding sales colleagues on cross-team opportunities.
• Coordinate outreach and engagement where needed with internal sales colleagues across all verticals.

Operational Excellence

• Manage internal sales and audience revenue tracking processes; ensure tracking sheets, audience taxonomies, and CRM accuracy.
• Support revenue collection team where necessary, aligning communication with all stakeholders.
• Collaborate with Operations and Account Management teams when needed to define data, technical, and delivery requirements.
• Ensure client reporting requirements and contractual obligations are met.

Requirements

Core Skills

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 5–10+ years of experience in sales or business development within advanced advertising, programmatic, addressable, data enablement, audience data, or ad tech.
• Proven success driving audience activation initiatives within agencies or brands.
• Strong ad tech industry network across agency stakeholders, including programmatic, activation, investment, and digital teams.
• Deep understanding of the advanced advertising, programmatic activation, and audience data ecosystem, including planning/insights, activation, and measurement/attribution solutions for digital video and CTV.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate the value of audience and data-driven solutions in a clear, compelling way.
• Experience applying syndicated audience data to activation, planning, and partnership opportunities preferred.
• Exceptional relationship management and executive-level communication skills.
• Strong negotiation skills with experience navigating complex commercial agreements.
• Highly collaborative, proactive, and self-directed.

Seller Profile

• Consultative, self-directed seller and evangelist with a “hunter” mindset and the ability to create opportunity where none previously existed.
• Comfortable leading complex, multi-stakeholder communication efforts, connecting silos in an enterprise environment like a large agency holding company.
• Familiarity with Challenger sales methodology and MEDDICC frameworks preferred.
• Strategic thinker who proactively identifies new use cases and growth opportunities.
• Strong agency presence is preferred with hands-on experience operating within ad agencies, leading educational programming, thought leadership initiatives, and events for agency planning and buying teams.

We Offer

• Compensation: USD 117,250.00 - USD 150,000.00 yearly.
• Benefits:
  • Comprehensive healthcare plan (medical, Rx, dental, and vision).
  • Flexible spending accounts and a Health Savings Account (including company contributions).
  • Life and AD&D insurance.
  • 401(k) retirement plan including company matching contributions.
  • Disability insurance.
  • Tuition Reimbursement.
  • Discretionary paid time off program and 11 paid holidays.
  • Flexible working environment.
  • Volunteer time off.
  • LinkedIn Learning.
  • Employee-Assistance-Program (EAP).

About the Company

MRI-Simmons, a joint venture majority owned by NIQ, is the leading provider of insights on the American consumer. A leader in consumer insights for over 60 years, MRI-Simmons possesses one of the few data sets widely used across the media ecosystem for consumer profiling, media planning, audience research, and insight-driven audience development. Powered by address-based probabilistic sampling, MRI-Simmons measures real people, chosen at random, to represent the U.S. population in all its diversity-resulting in the most accurate view of the American consumer.

NIQ is the world’s leading consumer intelligence company, delivering the most complete understanding of consumer buying behavior and revealing new pathways to growth. In 2023, NIQ combined with GfK, bringing together the two industry leaders with unparalleled global reach. With a holistic retail read and the most comprehensive consumer insights-delivered with advanced analytics through state-of-the-art platforms-NIQ delivers the Full View™. NIQ is an Advent International portfolio company with operations in 100+ markets, covering more than 90% of the world’s population.

For more information, visit NIQ.com.

Our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

At NIQ, we are steadfast in our commitment to fostering an inclusive workplace that mirrors the rich diversity of the communities and markets we serve. We believe that embracing a wide range of perspectives drives innovation and excellence. All employment decisions at NIQ are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws. We invite individuals who share our dedication to inclusivity and equity to join us in making a meaningful impact. To learn more about our ongoing efforts in diversity and inclusion, please visit the Diversity and Inclusion page.