Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Internet Planner

🎯 Role Definition

The Internet Planner is a strategic digital media professional responsible for designing, executing, and optimizing online media plans that drive measurable business outcomes. This role blends audience insight, campaign strategy, programmatic buying, paid search/social coordination, and rigorous performance analysis to maximize ROI across display, video, native, search, and social channels. The ideal candidate is fluent in DSPs, ad servers, analytics platforms, and trafficking workflows, and excels at translating KPIs into scalable digital campaigns that meet brand, performance, and compliance objectives.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Junior Media Planner / Media Assistant
Digital Marketing Coordinator or Paid Search Analyst
Media Buying Internship or Ad Ops Specialist

Advancement To:

Senior Media Planner / Senior Digital Planner
Programmatic Lead or Performance Media Manager
Digital Media Director / Head of Paid Media

Lateral Moves:

Campaign Manager or Ad Operations Manager
Performance Marketing Manager or SEM Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop comprehensive digital media plans that align with client marketing objectives, target audience segments, and campaign KPIs across programmatic display, connected TV (CTV), social, search, and native inventory, ensuring clear budget allocation and pacing assumptions.
Lead audience strategy and segmentation by leveraging first-, second-, and third-party data to define targeting parameters, build lookalike audiences, and craft cross-channel audience journeys that improve reach and conversion efficiency.
Execute programmatic buys using major DSPs (e.g., DV360, The Trade Desk), set up line items, frequency caps, bid strategies, and targeting configurations, and monitor delivery to achieve campaign goals.
Manage paid search and social planning coordination—develop keyword strategies, bidding strategies, and creative recommendations in Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Facebook/Meta Ads Manager, and other paid social platforms to ensure cohesive omnichannel campaigns.
Build pacing models and budget forecasts that project spend and expected outcomes across daily, weekly, and monthly horizons; proactively adjust pacing to avoid overspend while maximizing delivery.
Create detailed media plan documentation and trafficking instructions for ad operations and creative teams, including creative specs, landing page URLs, click trackers, creative rotation logic, and verification requirements.
Implement campaign tagging and tracking plans in coordination with analytics and development teams (GTM, UTM parameters, pixels) to ensure accurate event capture and end-to-end measurement across funnels.
Monitor campaign performance using analytics platforms (Google Analytics/GA4, Adobe Analytics), ad servers, and DSP dashboards; synthesize metrics into actionable optimization recommendations that improve KPIs such as CPA, ROAS, CTR, and viewability.
Perform day-to-day optimizations including bid adjustments, creative rotation, audience refinement, inventory blocking, and pacing controls to drive incremental performance gains while maintaining strategic integrity.
Design and implement A/B and multivariate tests for creative, landing pages, targeting, and bid strategies; analyze test results and scale winning variants to improve conversion rates and campaign efficiency.
Manage relationships with publishers, SSPs, ad exchanges, and third-party vendors to secure inventory access, negotiate preferred deals and private marketplaces (PMPs), and ensure competitive CPMs and favorable placement.
Oversee brand safety, fraud prevention, and viewability standards by implementing verification partners (e.g., IAS, DoubleVerify), setting blocking rules, and ensuring adherence to client safety guidelines and contextual targeting priorities.
Prepare and present clear, insights-driven campaign reports and executive summaries that translate metrics into business impact, recommended actions, and next-step roadmaps for stakeholders and clients.
Maintain thorough campaign documentation including scopes of work, IOs, trafficking logs, change notes, and billing reconciliation to support auditability and cross-team alignment.
Ensure compliance with privacy regulations and consent frameworks (GDPR, CCPA, TCF) by coordinating with legal, tag management, and data teams to implement appropriate consent handling and data usage policies.
Collaborate with creative, UX, and landing page teams to align creative formats and messaging with channel best practices and conversion objectives; recommend creative refresh cadence and format experimentation (rich media, video, responsive display).
Build and maintain conversion and attribution models (last click, data-driven, multi-touch) to inform budget allocation decisions and understand channel contribution across the buyer journey.
Drive cross-functional planning sessions with client services, analytics, SEO/SEM, and product teams to harmonize media strategies with broader marketing and business priorities.
Troubleshoot trafficking, billing, and measurement discrepancies, working closely with ad ops, finance, and vendor support to resolve technical issues and maintain campaign integrity.
Proactively research and recommend new platforms, ad formats, and emerging technologies (e.g., CTV/OTT, audio, programmatic DOOH, server-side tagging) to keep media strategies innovative and effective.
Optimize media plans for mobile and app-based environments, including in-app inventory, SDK integrations, rewarded inventory, and app-install measurement best practices.
Prepare media plans and forecasts tailored to seasonal trends, major product launches, and promotional calendars to ensure readiness for high-volume periods.
Establish and enforce QA processes (pre-launch and ongoing) for creative, tags, and landing pages to reduce measurement gaps and ensure accurate campaign tracking.
Mentor junior planners and coordinate knowledge sharing on tools, processes, vendor relationships, and optimization frameworks to scale team capabilities.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to surface opportunities for campaign improvement and audience expansion.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap by recommending measurement frameworks, attribution approaches, and first-party data activation tactics.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements for tracking, identity resolution, and data pipelines.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team to prioritize tracking fixes and analytics feature requests.
Assist in quarterly business reviews (QBRs) and strategic planning deliverables by compiling historical performance insights and forecasting future scenarios.
Help coordinate vendor onboarding, platform certifications, and training sessions to ensure the team remains proficient with the latest ad tech capabilities and compliance practices.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Programmatic buying and DSP proficiency (Google DV360, The Trade Desk, MediaMath or similar).
Strong experience with paid search platforms (Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising) and paid social platforms (Meta Ads Manager, TikTok Ads Manager, LinkedIn Campaign Manager).
Web and campaign analytics expertise (Google Analytics/GA4, Adobe Analytics) including conversion tracking and funnel analysis.
Ad server and trafficking knowledge (Google Ad Manager, Sizmek, or AdButler) with the ability to create and manage tags, creatives, and line items.
Tag management and pixel implementation experience (Google Tag Manager, server-side tagging).
Advanced Excel / Google Sheets skills including pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, and basic macros for budget modeling.
SQL for data extraction and cross-tab analysis of campaign logs and conversion events.
Familiarity with attribution modeling, marketing mix modeling (MMM), and data-driven attribution techniques.
Experience with BI and visualization tools (Tableau, Looker, Power BI) to create dashboards and automated reports.
Knowledge of ad verification, brand safety, and fraud detection tools (DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science).
Understanding of privacy frameworks and consent management (GDPR, CCPA, TCF) and how they impact measurement and targeting.
SEO and organic channel familiarity to align paid strategies with organic search and content efforts.

Soft Skills

Exceptional analytical and problem-solving ability with a data-first mindset to identify root causes and optimization opportunities.
Strong communication and presentation skills for translating complex data into clear, actionable insights for stakeholders and clients.
Excellent project and time management skills with the ability to prioritize across concurrent campaigns and deadlines.
Collaboration and stakeholder management aptitude to work across creative, analytics, product, and client teams.
Attention to detail and quality assurance orientation to ensure accurate trafficking, reporting, and financial reconciliation.
Adaptability and curiosity to learn new platforms, industry trends, and performance techniques.
Negotiation skills for securing favorable publisher deals, PMPs, and vendor terms.
Strategic thinking and commercial awareness to align media planning decisions with business and revenue goals.
Coaching and mentorship capability to support junior team development and knowledge transfer.
Client-facing confidence and diplomacy to manage expectations, upsell strategic opportunities, and present performance narratives.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Advertising, Communications, Business, Statistics, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree with coursework or certifications in digital marketing, data analytics, or media planning.
Industry certifications such as Google Ads, Google Analytics, The Trade Desk Edge Academy, or Facebook Blueprint are highly valued.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Marketing and Advertising
Data Analytics, Statistics, or Economics
Communications or Business Administration
Computer Science or Information Systems (for advanced analytics roles)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

2–5 years of hands-on digital media planning, buying, or ad operations experience for mid-level roles; 5+ years for senior roles.

Preferred:

Proven track record planning and optimizing programmatic and paid search/social campaigns with measurable ROAS/CPA improvements.
Direct experience working with DSPs, ad servers, analytics platforms, and data visualization tools in an agency or in-house marketing environment.
Experience handling multi-market campaigns, cross-device measurement, and complex tagging/attribution setups.