Advertising traffic managers act as the liaison between multiple ad agency departments, including client services, creative, media planning and third-party vendors. Because a traffic manager is the pivot between all of these departments, it is important to be especially disciplined and focused; otherwise, the execution of an ad campaign can suffer. Traffic managers must also have a strong understanding of spreadsheets, word processing and e-mail communication and etiquette. Some traffic managers may need to learn proprietary software for ad distribution, optimization and execution.
Asset Coordination
When traffic managers are assigned to a campaign, they review the approved media plan and request the appropriate creative assets from the creative department. Ad dimensions, file sizes, file types and due dates are important pieces of information that the traffic manager must manage and communicate to other teams.
Testing
Testing is essential to ensure the accuracy of any ad campaign. Traffic managers are accountable for all ad creatives as well as landing pages, billboards and all artwork. They are also responsible for the accurate tracking of a web campaign. Thorough, on-going testing of all of these items is a must to ensure campaign success.
Trafficking
Whether offline or online, traffic managers are responsible for delivering assets and associated tracking mechanisms, such as URLs or unique phone numbers, to the media companies on the media plan. You must ensure that the assets were delivered and also confirm the flight, or media start and stop date, of the campaign.
Optimization
After a campaign has launched, a traffic manager uses reporting provided by the analytics team to evaluate the success of the campaign. They may make changes to the types of ads running with a media buyer's approval. This optimizes the campaign's results.
