CarDekho - Media Operations Manager

Media Operations Manager (6-10 yrs)

Role Context:

This role owns ad operations delivery across CarDekhos Bikes, Ancillary, and Non-Auto business verticals, while simultaneously leading programmatic monetization across the broader portfolio. The candidate must be equally comfortable running direct, custom, high-impact campaigns for vertical sales teams and driving programmatic yield through Adex and partner demand.

Role Requirements:

• 1. 610 years of experience in Ad Operations in a publisher-side / programmatic or similar role.
• 2. Strong understanding of end-to-end campaign management and ability to interact directly with clients when required.
• 3. Solid technical knowledge of ad unit creation, implementation, and troubleshooting.
• 4. Proven expertise in auditing third-party creative tags and resolving related issues.
• 5. Proficient in Google Analytics (GA) and familiar with key advertising performance metrics.

6. Strong grasp of audience segmentation, targeting, and retargeting strategies for display and video campaigns. He/she should be aware of how 1st party / 2nd party data layering works.

• 7. Understanding of the digital marketing funnel (top, middle, and bottom) and ability to strategize campaigns for awareness, consideration, and performance goals.
• 8. Responsible for collaborating closely with Business and Sales teams of Bikes, Ancillary, and Non-Auto verticals to strategize, plan, and execute large or high-impact campaigns.
• 9. Will lead and manage a team of 23 campaign managers, ensuring operational excellence and performance consistency across all owned verticals.
• 10. Understand the importance of Audit in an organization & support internal / external audits.

Vertical-Specific Expectations:

• Bikes Familiarity with the two-wheeler advertiser landscape (OEMs, dealerships, accessories, EV players); ability to run lead-gen and branding campaigns at scale.
• Ancillary Comfort handling diverse advertiser categories insurance, finance, used cars, tyres, lubricants, accessories each with its own creative and measurement quirks.
• Non-Auto Ability to support endemic-adjacent and non-endemic advertisers (BFSI, telco, e-commerce, real estate, etc.); strong instinct for packaging non-auto demand against auto-intent audiences.
• Ability to balance custom / IP-led campaign delivery for vertical sales teams with scaled, repeatable programmatic execution.

Programmatic Non-Negotiables:

• 1. Must have hands-on experience working on programmatic and programmatic demand-side partners/platforms.
• 2. By programmatic, we mean Google Ad Exchange (Adex) as the primary, followed by other SSP/exchange partners.
• 3. Should have been part of the partner onboarding process, commercial negotiations (pricing, rev-share), and partner governance.
• 4. Should personally own / drive technical implementation, tag deployment, testing, and troubleshooting not just oversee it.
• 5. Strong working knowledge of RTB and Header Bidding (client-side, server-side, Prebid stack, wrapper management).
• 6. Should be able to articulate the average programmatic revenue managed both independently and at a team level, separated across direct clients vs. open / non-direct demand.

Position Specific Skills:

Ad Serving & Tech Stack:

• Google Ad Manager (GAM 360) line items, creatives, targeting, forecasting, troubleshooting
• Ad tag / creative tag auditing (VAST, VPAID, JS, third-party trackers)
• Pixel implementation and QA impression, click, viewability, conversion pixels
• Familiarity with GTM and basic tag debugging (Chrome DevTools, Charles Proxy, Tag Assistant)

Programmatic & Yield:

• Google Adex setup, optimization, blocking controls, pricing rules
• Header bidding Prebid.js, wrapper setup, timeout management, S2S vs C2S trade-offs
• SSP / Exchange partner management PubMatic, Magnite, Xandr, OpenX, etc.
• RTB mechanics auction dynamics, floor pricing, UPR, deal IDs (PMP / PG)
• Yield analysis fill rate, eCPM, CPM lift, demand stack optimization

Measurement & Quality:

• Google Analytics (GA4) and publisher-side performance reporting
• Viewability & IVT measurement IAS, DoubleVerify, MOAT, Comscore
• Brand safety, ads.txt / sellers.json hygiene, discrepancy reconciliation
• Familiarity with MRC standards and industry benchmarks

Audience & Data:

• 1st-party data activation, audience segmentation, look-alike modelling
• 2nd-party data partnerships and data layering for targeting
• DMP / CDP exposure (Lotame, Salesforce DMP, or equivalent) is a plus
• Retargeting workflows across display and video

Vertical & Category Acumen:

• Working understanding of two-wheeler / auto-ancillary advertiser categories and their KPIs
• Ability to translate non-auto advertiser briefs onto an auto-intent inventory base
• Comfort with both lead-gen and branding campaign constructs

Analytics & Reporting:

• Advanced Excel / Google Sheets (pivots, lookups, large datasets)
• SQL or Looker / Data Studio / Power BI for ops dashboards
• Ability to build and present campaign wrap reports to clients and internal leadership

People & Process:

• Managing a team of 23 campaign managers performance, capacity, training
• SOP creation, QA frameworks, and process documentation
• Supporting internal and external audits (financial, ad quality, measurement)

Stakeholder Management:

• Comfort dealing with sales, business, finance, product, and AdTech internally across multiple vertical sales teams
• Direct client / agency interaction for large or escalated campaigns
• Holding the line on ad quality, IVT, and discrepancy escalations with measurement partners and agencies.