We were founded on the belief that the world needs more creativity. It’s what drives all our decision-making. There is just so much ineffective, badly crafted work in the world that never gets noticed, has zero impact and is a waste of client budgets. We are here to change all that. When you truly embrace creativity as a competitive advantage, you will see it transform your world and your business. We’ve witnessed this over and over with our own clients. And, as a purpose-driven company, we also use our creativity to do good in the world by supporting causes we truly believe in. With 200 staff in New York, Toronto, and Vancouver, Z.A.K. is a magnet for top global talent. Want to change your world as a marketer? Let’s fight sameness together.
Who We’re Looking For:
We’re in search of an Associate Director, Investment & Analytics who’s obsessed with turning plans into performance and excited to help scale a fast-growing discipline. This client-facing role will oversee the day-to-day investment, trafficking, optimization and reporting work across a portfolio of Zulumatic clients. By bringing systems thinking together with strong platform and vendor knowledge, they will help ensure execution is precise, transparent and connected to business growth.
We believe media buying should be fast-moving and transparent, and operational excellence in execution gets us there. Analytics is intertwined in that process, closing the feedback loop with consumers and generating insights that can inform ongoing investment and future planning.
What You’ll Be Doing:
Based in Toronto, this role will manage and mentor a small team of campaign managers and analysts while staying close to the work. In partnership with senior media leadership, they will be accountable for day-to-day delivery across assigned clients and bring a strong understanding of the transactions that underpin media ecosystems and the variables affecting reach, frequency, pacing and overall performance. With an open and collaborative approach, they will build constructive relationships with creative leaders, team members, clients and partners. More specifically, you will:
Investment & vendor management: Manage account-level negotiations and package development; steward budgets, manage SLAs, share category intelligence and hold partners accountable for delivery; maintain financial discipline across assigned accounts
Trafficking & launch readiness: Oversee specs, tags, assets, QA and flighting; build and review technical spec sheets, manage deadlines and uphold brand-safety requirements
Platforms & administration: Guide actualization and reconciliation; oversee CM360/ad server setups, pixels, GTM and UTMs; maintain taxonomy and naming standards
Optimization & pacing: Monitor pacing across spend, reach and frequency; direct creative rotation, audience and placement tuning, and frequency caps; maintain clear change control
Measurement & reporting: Help evolve source-of-truth dashboards and visuals; translate performance data into clear, decision-ready actions for clients and internal teams
In-market testing: Partner with Strategy and Analytics to turn learning agendas into test plans; coordinate lift and incrementality reads, contribute inputs to MMM/MTA where applicable, and document findings and recommendations after each flight
Finance alignment: Manage monthly actualization, invoice reconciliation and variance resolution with vendors and Finance for assigned clients
Process & governance: Maintain and improve playbooks, checklists, naming conventions and approval paths; support privacy, consent and data-governance requirements
Technology stewardship: Contribute to the evaluation, rollout and day-to-day governance of tools that power buying, including audience insight, targeting, verification/suitability, reporting/BI, and clean-room or attribution tools where applicable
Team & cross-functional collaboration: Set clear priorities and review outputs, work shoulder-to-shoulder with…