A Day in the Life of an Advertising Agency Project Manager
The advertising project manager is usually in charge of one or a couple of projects simultaneously, which implies their workday can be pretty hectic. Several tasks need attention at the same time, as they are all priorities. Additionally, project managers handle resources, finances and organize project-related documents. They're also in contact with higher management to ensure a project's success and meet deadlines.
Don't be fooled into thinking these are all the responsibilities they are facing during one business day. This is one reason why project management is continuously growing and a highly sought-after field. If you are interested in further exploring this industry, we will walk you through the necessary steps.
So, here are some primary responsibilities of a project manager .
A project manager's responsibilities in advertising
In the advertising world, we will often find particular products that require marketing campaigns or need promotion to achieve a specific business goal. For massive projects like this, agencies usually seek the help of a marketing project manager .
They work with other departments, upper management, sales, advertising, and team members. We should mention that a project manager has a rather important role since they are responsible for planning and implementing marketing strategies and promoting brand awareness.
An advertising project manager must adapt to the organization, carefully plan and prioritize campaigns to accomplish marketing project goals. Some of their responsibilities may include:
- Working with the design team.
- Being in touch with stakeholders, scheduling deadlines, writing briefs, and executing other supervisory activities.
- Performing detailed market research on a service or a product and analyzing the competition.
- Understanding the company, its product, services, and customer base to create the most effective marketing campaign.
- Managing and planning projects from the beginning till the end .
- Working with senior staff and other brand managers to ensure necessary objectives, budget scope, and deadlines.
On the other hand, project management isn't all about scheduling - it's much more than administrative work. It takes a particular type of personality to execute project management tasks and complete a project successfully. These people have to understand the project's scope, the stakeholders' requests and deliver everything on time.
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Project elements
There are several types of projects in advertising project management, and without them, no project will be successful.
- Project scope. Work-related details that need to be carried out.
- Timeframe. In other words, a project's deadline.
- Organization. How activities and tasks have been organized and prioritized.
- Expenses. A project can be either expensive or relatively cheap, and it all depends on overall costs.
- Communication. This is one of the most important elements of project management. Without effective communication, the project will fail.
- Stakeholder management . Stakeholders need to know how's the project progressing, and it's better to get their feedback sooner rather than later.
- Tasks and activities. The project manager should be aware of each member's strengths and weaknesses and assign the tasks accordingly.
- Results. They depend on the client's requests. However, everyone should strive to deliver top-notch quality to meet the client's expectations.
A project manager's tasks
Marketing agencies have many moving parts, and they manage different projects, stakeholders, clients, and teams. That's why the project manager plays a crucial role, and their job description is to ensure deliverables reach the client on time and within budget.
Even though this might sound simple, it actually requires a lot of work. An average project manager will deal with a variety of tasks, and they include the following:
- Meeting clients to understand their needs, requirements, and objectives
- Setting up and handling the project scope
- Planning a budget and a calendar
- Offering clients quotes and proposals
- Scheduling project-related meetings
- Allocating tasks and responsibilities
- Encouraging communication among team members
- Following the project's progress and bypassing problems
- Double-checking project's deliverables
- Providing project updates
- Delivering the final project to the client
Think of an advertising project manager as a glue that holds everything together because they are responsible for keeping the project on track and ensuring collaboration runs smoothly.
The project manager works with vendors and suppliers, freelancers, internal team members, and external clients. Within each of these groups, the project manager will oversee and coordinate other people as well.
For example, relaunching a client's site requires working with web designers, SEO specialists, copywriters, and clients.
Preserving creativity with project management
An agency like any other business demands a structure and organization. However, its executives often hesitate when project managers offer them advice or new tools to improve their business and efficiency. Usually, they consider such practices an administrative burden that consumes too much of their time and energy.
It's common for agencies to focus more on creativity than on project management, but creative processes suffer along with the business itself when a project gets off track.
According to some estimates, many agencies claim they lose nearly 11% of their profit due to over-servicing clients. On the other hand, 51% of agencies that use modern technologies to help them run operations state they have increased the net profit, while one-third of those saw an 11% profit rise or more.
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Business profitability Cheat Sheet
The way agencies manage their projects can make a significant difference between success and barely breaking even, as clients' demands are continuously changing, budgets are shrinking, and you have to stay at the top of the game. Now, the new normal is faster and cheaper.
That's why agency owners must be ready to accept significant changes. Getting senior executives and agency employees on board with the new system becomes a new priority in project management.
The main objectives would be to provide an insight into how improved tracking systems and reporting tools that boost transparency will help individual team members. These practices will decrease manual work and assist all employees to focus on more pressing matters.
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Advertising Project Manager Job Description
Advertising project manager duties & responsibilities.
To write an effective advertising project manager job description, begin by listing detailed duties, responsibilities and expectations. We have included advertising project manager job description templates that you can modify and use.
Sample responsibilities for this position include:
Advertising Project Manager Qualifications
Qualifications for a job description may include education, certification, and experience.
Licensing or Certifications for Advertising Project Manager
List any licenses or certifications required by the position: PMP, SDLC
Education for Advertising Project Manager
Typically a job would require a certain level of education.
Employers hiring for the advertising project manager job most commonly would prefer for their future employee to have a relevant degree such as Bachelor's and Collage Degree in Project Management, Communication, Management, Marketing, Business, Science, Advertising, Technology, Education, Guidance
Skills for Advertising Project Manager
Desired skills for advertising project manager include:
Desired experience for advertising project manager includes:
Advertising Project Manager Examples
- Microsoft Word (.docx) .DOCX
- PDF Document (.pdf) .PDF
- Image File (.png) .PNG
- Engage with internal and external customers to gather requirements, onboard onto new ad platform features, and support pre and post launch activities
- Manage all elements of the program, including organizing and planning, estimating, managing resources, tracking and controlling projects, managing risk & opportunity, managing quality, seller relations, communicating & documenting, and change management
- Develop scalable internal SOPs and training, external-facing documentation and messaging
- Assist Product Managers in the review and approval process of Ad & Promo material
- Create and disseminate meeting agendas to IBTs (Integrated Brand Teams) for collaboration meetings
- Disseminate documents to be reviewed to IBTs within the required time frame
- Disseminate project progress to clients as requested and inform requested by client
- Monitor and track projects to ensure timely project progression
- Maintains ongoing communication with clients / vendors to ensure that project timelines, deliverables and project changes are aligned with expectations and business needs
- Provides expertise and process training to integrated brand team and vendors (e.g., process and ePASS)
- Experience with agile/scrum, lean, six sigma, PMI, PRINCE2, ITIL or other project/program management methodologies
- Experience in digital advertising or marketing
- Experience with Redshift, MySQL or Oracle SQL queries
- Consistently communicates timely and accurate information and project progress across functional teams to prioritize projects, meet project timelines and meet quality standards
- Provides periodic project reports for leadership and marketing team as needed, to review projects status for each brand
- Strong understanding of digital advertising platforms and the role that data plays in driving efficient marketing
- Substantial experience conceiving and building digital/mobile advertising product sets with experience in programmatic ad models
- Strong understanding of the digital advertising competitive environment, industry trends, technology platforms, AOL platforms and key industry issues such as fraud, privacy and ad blocking
- Demonstrated ability to lead through influence, build engagement and partner across engineering, marketing and teams
- Demonstrated success shaping product vision and strategy, experience bringing several highly innovative, compelling, and profitable products to market
- Strategic market maker with the proven ability to drive innovation and transformation including leveraging new technology, ad units and attribution models
- Exceptional analytical, strategic and critical thinking skills
- Coordinate with work streams, projects, and initiatives which may impact successful completion of the operational process that include Bringing your Own Data ("BYOD") and ROI measurement processes
- QA podcast ad server across hundreds of different scenarios to ensure expected outcomes
- Support the migration of 100+ podcasting advertising campaigns to a new ad serving format
- Track pacing for ad-delivery, relay issues as they arrive to the correct teams
- Support Campaign Managers as needed
- Help Keep track of advertiser campaign goals and pacing
- Troubleshoot under-delivering campaigns
- Building reports from large datasets for internal stakeholders and clients
- Manage onsite remnant inventory including the 3rd party vendor relationships with partners such as Facebook's Audience Network, OAO
- Utilizing strong project management skills to drive creative delivery, implement campaign schedules, monitor campaigns and troubleshoot campaign related issues
- Establish and maintain productive relationships with Ad Sales, Marketing, Site and Tech teams, Legal, and Standards
- Project lead for partners and creative group, ensuring that communication flows effectively
- Receive creative briefs & review goals of a project with creative group and partner departments
- Manage project schedules with internal Nickelodeon stakeholders and external clients
- Responsible for confirming all elements, assets and needs are understood for all parties (internal stakeholders, creative, talent )
- Managing and communicating feedback in a constructive & productive manner
- Acting as an impartial voice, and representing the project
- Successfully negotiate and resolve creative, scheduling and budgetary conflicts
- Attend and participate at shoots
- Ensure all deadlines are met and spots are delivered to provided specs
- Bachelor’s degree plus two or more years of project management experience
- Experience with managing technology/Web projects within an agency environment
- MUST have experience managing DIGITAL/INTERACTIVE projects
- Passion to learn the inner workings of the business and be part of a team
- Ability to scope projects accurately, prioritize time well and juggle multiple projects with autonomy
- General understanding of project management production
- Review all briefs before routing to creative team to confirm all information is included and accurate
- Confirm team members have all elements needed for understanding and producing project
- Negotiate with external vendors, review and award jobs
- Receive all feedback and properly distribute to team and external vendor
- Track and process all production contracts and payment of invoices
- Provide performance reports throughout the program, and deliver final metrics upon completion
- Successfully execute all contractual obligations ensuring a high level of client satisfaction and realization of partnership/project goals for custom advertising projects
- Implement all campaign components for new and complex advertising programs such as promotions, sweepstakes, new ad placements, livestream events, pop-up events and other innovative advertiser features
- Develop production schedules, best practices and training documentation for end-to-end campaign management and execution
- Monitor, aggregate and communicate program reporting to internal and external teams including ongoing campaign analytics and campaign wrapup analysis
- Experience working in JIRA and/or Omniture
- Strong knowledge of the production process, on-air, digital, and social platforms
- Are passionate about owing solutions and solving issues with minimal supervision or direction
- Technically oriented, strong business judgment, analytical, and project management
- Several years in a Lean or Six Sigma position
- Ability to write with SQL
- Contribute to the launch of new products by participating in user interface design, usability testing, requirements definition, research, metrics analysis, technical specifications, development, testing, and launch efforts
- Provide clear, concise and professional communication to external partners and effectively manage their deadlines and deliverables throughout a project
- Manage projects from kickoff to completion on schedule and within scope utilizing Agile/Scrum processes when appropriate
- Be responsible for communicating status and risk mitigation
- Assist with and escalate issues that cannot be resolved within the team
- Be able to speak to questions or requests from business and technology owners
- Drive prioritization of competing technology projects based on business need
- Explain project or product tradeoffs to engineering and business stakeholders
- Drive team meetings and document and distribute action items
- Serve as a business analyst when needed and document functional requirement and workflows, prioritize features and drive project scope as needed
- Digital display advertising industry experience and previous sales/business development experience are highly desired
- Coordinate and execute creatives, upfront audience specific targets and back-end measurement to Account managers, 3rd parties (matching/ROI vendors), engineering and product (Operational Support) & troubleshoot any issues that may arise
- Superior attention to detail and results oriented
- Bachelor’s in marketing, business, or a related field
- Manage advertising projects
- Ensure brand guidelines and objectives are met in advertising executions
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What Does a Project Manager Do in a Marketing Agency?
There’s a lot that businesses need to get done. They’re juggling tasks, deadlines, resources, budgets, and team members, and are always moving around priorities in order to take steps toward their larger goals.
Sounds like a lot, right? It is. And it’s exactly why project management is a continuously growing and high-demand field.
According to the Project Management Institute ( PMI ), project managers work in a variety of industries — from manufacturing or construction to finance or utilities.
But there’s another area where project managers are in especially high demand: management and professional services . In fact, more than 60% of new project management jobs annually come from this specific sector.
Marketing agencies fall within that category, and they’re frequently on the lookout for people who can solidify relationships with clients and keep their marketing campaigns and deliverables on track.
If you’re interested in exploring this field, what can you expect? Here’s the lowdown on what a project manager actually does within a marketing agency.
What does a marketing agency do?
Before you can understand how project management works within a marketing agency, it’s important to first get a grasp on what exactly a marketing agency is responsible for.
Here’s the straightforward definition: A marketing agency works with clients to develop and implement a variety of marketing strategies and campaigns.
That means marketing agencies need to handle a lot. Some are highly focused on a specific segment of marketing, while others offer a wide range of services including, but certainly not limited to:
- Brand development
- Social media marketing
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Search engine optimization
- Search engine marketing
- Website hosting and development
- Analytics and monitoring
- Media relations
- Event planning
- Crisis communications
- Video creation and editing
- Graphic design
Previously, marketing agencies (which you might also hear referred to as advertising agencies) focused on things like print advertisements — if you’re thinking of Mad Men, you aren’t far off.
But, as the world has continued to move online, today’s marketing agencies work on a lot of digital projects. According to Ad Age’s 2019 Agency Report , it’s estimated that, for U.S. agencies from all disciplines, digital work and projects made up 53.6% of the total revenue. Even more impressive? That’s double the percentage from 2009.
So… what’s the job of the project manager?
Needless to say, there are a lot of moving parts within a marketing agency. There are diverse projects, growing rosters of clients, and internal team members with varying levels of expertise.
That’s where the client services project manager comes into play. When you boil it all down, the primary job of the project manager is to ensure deliverables make it to clients on time and within budget.
It sounds simple when you put it in plain language like that. But getting that job done actually requires a lot of work. Your typical project manager will wear a bunch of different hats and handle a variety of tasks. These might include:
- Meeting with clients to understand their project goals and requirements
- Establishing and managing project scope
- Planning a project manager calendar and budget
- Contributing to client proposals and quotes
- Scheduling and hosting a project kickoff meeting, along with frequent check-ins
- Assigning tasks and responsibilities
- Streamlining communication between internal team members
- Monitoring project progress and clearing roadblocks
- Double-checking all project deliverables for accuracy
- Sending progress updates to clients
- Delivering the final project and summary to the client
Think of the project manager within a marketing agency as the glue that holds the whole thing together — they’re the ones responsible for keeping projects on track.
Who does the project manager work with?
Since the project manager steers the ship from project inception to completion, there’s a high degree of collaboration involved. The project manager works with a huge assortment of people, including:
- External clients
- Internal team members
- Freelancers and outsourced help
- Vendors and suppliers
Of course, within each of those groups, there are numerous other people that the project manager will oversee and coordinate. For example, if a project manager is spearheading the relaunch of a new client website, they’ll be communicating and collaborating with:
- The web hosting company
- SEO specialists
- Web designers
- Web developers
- Copywriters
- The client themselves
As you can see, there can be a lot of cooks in the kitchen for any given marketing project . That’s why one of the major responsibilities of the project manager is to streamline communication so everyone, whether internal or external, is on the same page.
What skills do project managers need to have to work in a marketing agency?
Collaboration is an important skill for any project manager. They need to be able to work effectively with many different individuals and teams.
But what other skills should project managers possess in order to thrive within an agency? It requires a healthy mix of technical and soft skills, which are broken down below.
Technical skills project managers need
- Solid knowledge of marketing strategies
- Data analysis and reporting
- Budgeting and forecasting
- Project management tools and dashboards
Soft skills project managers need
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Organization
- Time management
- Problem solving
- Conflict resolution
Think soft skills are just buzzwords or unnecessary resume fluff? Not quite. They carry a lot of weight in the hiring process, especially in a project management position that leans heavily on these less tangible competencies. One 2016 study from Wonderlic found that 93% of employers say soft skills are an “essential” or “very important” factor in hiring decisions.
Make sure to check out this article from PMI for more information about project manager skills and competencies.
Project managers keep marketing projects from running off the rails
Nearly every business and industry can benefit from the expertise and organizational skills of a client services project manager. But this is especially true for service-based businesses like marketing agencies.
Marketing agencies depend on fulfilling promises to their clients, which means they require a detail-oriented person who can corral all the key players, deliver projects on time, and (perhaps most importantly) keep clients coming back.
The world is constantly evolving, and business transformation is no longer negotiable. Grab this free eBook to uncover four disciplines that marketers should focus on to jump-start business transformation in their own companies.
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6,000+ Advertising Project Manager Jobs in United States (405 new) · Digital Creative Project Manager · Project Manager - Marketing Team · Marketing Project
Marketing Project Manager. PMC Media Group · Creative Project Manager. Crawford Group · Project Manager - Advertising. Pavone Marketing Group, Inc. · CREATIVE
Manages agency retainers and project scopes with the agency's business objective of 60/20/20 as a primary goal. Utilizes agency project management software
The advertising project manager is usually in charge of one or a couple of projects simultaneously, which implies their workday can be
Advertising Project Manager Job Description · Support Campaign Managers as needed · Help Keep track of advertiser campaign goals and pacing · Troubleshoot under-
The job of an Advertising Project Manager involves planning projects and overseeing production within set deadlines. The manager will coordinate with
A project manager in a marketing agency will work with external clients, internal team members, freelancers, and vendors. Typical tasks of project management
Within a marketing agency, the project manager is responsible for planning deliverables (including creating a project calendar)
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