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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Advertising Producer

💰 $60,000 - $95,000

AdvertisingMediaProductionMarketing

🎯 Role Definition

An Advertising Producer is a hybrid project manager and technical ad-operations specialist who owns the end-to-end production and trafficking of advertising campaigns across digital, video, mobile, social and programmatic channels. This role partners with clients, creative teams, media planners/buyers, and external vendors to translate creative briefs into deliverables, ensure technical compliance (tags, creative specs, ad server requirements), execute QA and verification, and optimize for pacing and KPI attainment. The Advertising Producer manages timelines, tracks budgets, mitigates risks, and applies platform expertise in Campaign Manager 360, DV360, The Trade Desk, Facebook/Meta Business Manager, ad servers, and verification tools (Moat, IAS) to guarantee flawless campaign launches and ongoing health.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Traffic Coordinator / Trafficker
  • Ad Operations Specialist
  • Junior Project Manager / Assistant Producer

Advancement To:

  • Senior Advertising Producer
  • Production Lead / Production Manager
  • Ad Operations Manager / Director of Ad Operations
  • Head of Production or Client Solutions Director

Lateral Moves:

  • Campaign Manager / Programmatic Buyer
  • Creative Project Manager
  • Technical Account Manager (Ad Tech)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead end-to-end campaign production and trafficking for digital, video, mobile, social, connected TV (CTV/OTT) and programmatic campaigns, ensuring creative assets meet publisher and ad server specifications and campaign goals.
  • Translate client briefs and media plans into a detailed production plan, creative spec sheet, and trafficking checklist that aligns with delivery timelines and KPIs.
  • Coordinate cross-functional teams — creative, media buying, analytics, legal, and external vendors — to ensure accurate asset handoffs, version control, and timely approvals.
  • Generate, validate and execute Insertion Orders (IOs), Line Items, flighting schedules, targeting parameters, and budgets within ad servers and DSPs (Campaign Manager 360, Google Ads, DV360, The Trade Desk).
  • Build and configure campaigns in ad servers and DSPs, including creative uploads, impressions/clicks caps, geo and device targeting, frequency caps, dayparting, and third-party tracking pixels.
  • Implement and validate third-party measurement, viewability and verification tags (e.g., Moat, IAS, DoubleVerify), ensuring proper firing and reporting to support performance audits.
  • Perform rigorous QA and pre-flight testing for creative functionality across browsers, devices, and platforms — including HTML5 rich media, video VAST/VPAID tags, interactive units, and native/social ad formats — and document results.
  • Troubleshoot and resolve ad delivery or creative rendering issues quickly by diagnosing tag errors, conflicting JS, cross-domain settings, and partner misconfiguration.
  • Manage creative asset lifecycles (ingestion, resizing, encoding, VAST wrappers, tracking macro insertion) and ensure proper fallback creatives are in place to prevent downtime.
  • Ensure campaign pacing and budget delivery by monitoring daily delivery, reconciling impressions and spend across ad servers, DSPs and publisher reports, and making real-time trafficking adjustments as needed.
  • Maintain accurate trafficking documentation including lineage of creatives, click trackers, macros, ad tags, naming conventions and version history for auditability.
  • Partner with media planners and buyers to implement optimization strategies (creative swaps, audience refinements, bid adjustments) to improve CTR, viewability, completion rates and other KPI metrics.
  • Coordinate with legal and privacy teams to ensure all creatives comply with IAB standards, platform policies, and privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA), and manage consent-based targeting where required.
  • Oversee vendor relationships for creative production, encoding, and ad verification; scope statements of work, evaluate deliverables, and escalate vendor performance issues.
  • Produce post-launch reports and reconciliations, summarizing discrepancies between platforms (ad server vs. DSP vs. publisher), documenting root causes and remediation steps.
  • Train and mentor junior traffickers, assistants and interns on trafficking best practices, naming conventions, QA procedures and platform workflows.
  • Create and maintain standardized templates, automated checks, and trafficking playbooks to scale production efficiency and reduce launch errors.
  • Act as primary client-facing production contact: communicate timelines, set expectations, provide status updates, and manage urgent change requests or on-flight creative updates.
  • Facilitate creative reviews and sign-offs, run stakeholder UAT sessions, and ensure any creative changes are re-trafficked and retested prior to re-launch.
  • Manage campaign change control processes, approving any mid-flight IO updates, creative replacements, or new targeting instructions and recording updates in change logs.
  • Audit existing campaigns for compliance, tracker integrity, and data consistency; propose and implement fixes to improve tracking accuracy and reporting fidelity.
  • Implement and test server-to-server (S2S) and API-based integrations where applicable (e.g., postbacks, reporting endpoints, ad verification callbacks).
  • Maintain continuous knowledge of platform updates, browser policies (e.g., ITP, Safari), and new ad formats to evaluate impact on trafficking and recommend strategic changes.
  • Champion efficiency improvements by identifying automation opportunities (scripts, templates, API workflows) and partnering with engineering/ops teams for implementation.

Secondary Functions

  • Prepare regular production status dashboards and operational KPIs (time to launch, error rates, QA pass rates, on-time delivery %) for leadership review.
  • Support ad-hoc data requests, campaign reconciliations and exploratory analysis to diagnose performance anomalies or delivery shortfalls.
  • Contribute to the production team’s process roadmap, including recommended tooling, standard operating procedures, and capacity planning.
  • Collaborate with analytics and data teams to translate campaign tracking needs into measurable events and reporting schemas.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies when partnering with cross-functional product and engineering teams to deliver trafficking automations and integrations.
  • Support business development and new client onboarding by scoping production timelines, resource needs, and technical feasibility for proposed solutions.
  • Assist in budgeting and forecasting production resource allocations and vendor spend for upcoming campaign seasons.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Campaign trafficking in ad servers and platforms: Campaign Manager 360 / Google Ad Manager, Sizmek/Adform, or equivalent.
  • DSP experience: DV360, The Trade Desk, MediaMath, or other programmatic platforms.
  • Familiarity with social and native ad platforms: Facebook/Meta Business Manager, LinkedIn Campaign Manager, Twitter/X Ads, TikTok Ads.
  • Strong knowledge of digital creative formats and specs: HTML5, GIF, JPG, PNG, MP4, VAST/VPAID, MRAID, interactive ad unit requirements.
  • Tagging and tracking proficiency: third-party ad tags, click trackers, impression macros, macro troubleshooting and redirect chains.
  • Ad verification and viewability tools: DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science (IAS), Moat — setup, QA and interpretation.
  • Basic front-end troubleshooting: understanding of JavaScript, cookies, CORS, and how scripts affect creative rendering.
  • Reporting and reconciliation skills: Excel/Google Sheets (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP), flattening delivery data and resolving discrepancies.
  • Experience with project management and ticketing tools: Jira, Asana, Trello, Monday.com, or equivalent.
  • Experience with API-based integrations and S2S postbacks for reporting and verification (preferred).
  • Knowledge of privacy and compliance frameworks: IAB standards, GDPR, CCPA and CMP/consent flow considerations.
  • Familiarity with media measurement and analytics platforms: Google Analytics, Looker/Looker Studio, Tableau or equivalent BI tools.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional organization and multi-project prioritization — can manage simultaneous campaigns with competing deadlines.
  • Strong client-facing communication: translates technical requirements into plain language and sets realistic expectations.
  • Detail-oriented with high standards for QA and documentation.
  • Problem-solver who stays calm under pressure and escalates effectively when needed.
  • Collaborative team player who can coordinate across creative, media, and technical stakeholders.
  • Proactive planner who anticipates blockers and mitigates production risks early.
  • Critical thinker who uses data to inform trafficking and optimization decisions.
  • Coaching and mentoring aptitude to develop junior team members and standardize best practices.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Advertising, Marketing, Communications, Film/Media Production, Information Systems, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Advertising, Marketing, Media Production, Computer Science or related discipline; certifications from Google Marketing Platform, IAB, or programmatic training preferred.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Advertising / Marketing
  • Media Production / Film & Video
  • Computer Science / Information Systems
  • Communications / Digital Media
  • Business / Project Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–6+ years in advertising production, ad operations, or campaign trafficking roles; junior hires with 1–2 years may be considered for Associate roles.

Preferred: 5+ years of proven experience trafficking complex cross-channel campaigns, working with ad servers and DSPs, and managing end-to-end production for mid-to-large advertiser accounts. Experience managing production for video/CTV and programmatic guaranteed deals is a plus.

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