Senior Manager, Insights & Analytics (Contract Employee)

Job Summary

We’re looking for a Senior Manager, Insights & Analytics (Contract Employee) to drive research, strategy, and evaluation for national public service campaigns focused on Ad Council’s Mental Health Initiative. This initiative aims to change social norms, reduce stigma around mental health, and encourage people to take a proactive approach to their wellbeing — guided by experts and rooted in research with key audiences.

This position will report to the VP, Insights & Analytics of the mental health campaigns. It is ideal for a skilled researcher and storyteller with excellent analytical skills, a broad grasp of market research methodologies, strong written and oral communication skills, great project management skills, and a passion for social change.

All effective campaigns start with a compelling strategy. In this role, you will collaborate not only with cross‑functional internal teams, but also with agency planners, creatives, digital specialists, and research partners across all phases of campaign development—from formative research and creative testing through ongoing tracking and evaluation.

The Ad Council is a results-driven organization, and this role is critical to implementing and analyzing quantitative and qualitative research to ensure campaigns are grounded in evidence, audience understanding, and clear measurement frameworks. This role is highly collaborative and hands‑on—ideal for a strong researcher and storyteller who can translate complex data into actionable insights for internal teams, creative agencies, and external partners.

You’ll collaborate with cross-functional teams, agency partners, and research vendors across all phases of campaign development — from formative research and creative testing to ongoing tracking and evaluation. Within your first few months, you’ll be managing vendor relationships, contributing to tracking studies, and presenting insights to internal and external stakeholders.

Compensation & Engagement

This is a contract employee role. This means that, while the position is at all times one of “at will employment”, the Ad Council anticipates at present that the employment length would be approximately 1 year, with the possibility to extend the contract. The compensation for this position is $7,500 monthly, paid semi-monthly. Contract employees will be eligible to participate in limited benefits and paid time off. This role can be fulfilled remotely, from the Ad Council’s NYC office, or a hybrid mix of the two. Business travel may be required occasionally to attend in-person meetings, conferences, etc.

What You’ll Do

Working closely with the lead researcher for the initiative, you will be responsible for:

Research & Evaluation

• Design, analyze, and report on campaign tracking studies, custom research, and evaluation projects across multiple mental health efforts, reaching audiences such as teens, young adults, adults, mothers, caregivers of adolescents, and LGBTQ+ communities.
• Drive formative research to inform campaign strategy, including literature reviews, landscape assessments, expert interviews, desk research, ethnographies, and qualitative and quantitative consumer research.
• Lead strategic and creative testing, including qualitative and quantitative advertising effectiveness research.
• Manage evaluation research, including campaign evaluation plans, brand lift studies, and ongoing tracking surveys.
• Partner with external research vendors on study execution: questionnaire development, programming, fielding, weighting, QA, and final deliverables.
• Draft surveys, discussion guides, and research instruments; support programming for rapid-turn research.
• Draft and distribute RFPs, support vendor selection, and co-manage vendor relationships through project completion.
• Conduct advanced quantitative and qualitative analysis, including trend analysis and subgroup analysis.

Insight Translation & Storytelling

• Analyze data, develop compelling presentations, and synthesize findings into clear insights and strategic implications. 
• Translate research findings into practical recommendations that inform campaign strategy, creative development, and optimization.
• Present insights to colleagues, agencies, funders, and partners — tailoring the story and detail level for each audience.
• Ensure research insights are incorporated into strategic briefs and carried through the creative and program development process.

Campaign & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Serve as an insights partner to Strategy, Creative, PR, and Media teams throughout campaign planning and execution.
• Provide research-informed feedback during creative and resource reviews to ensure messaging resonates with target audiences.
• Work with the Analytics team to capture, track, and report ongoing campaign performance metrics.
• Support key internal and external meetings by updating presentations, capturing meeting notes, and following up on action items as needed.

Project & Process Management

• Manage multiple research projects and timelines simultaneously across campaigns.
• Develop and maintain internal tools to track research activities — including calendars, timelines, KPI trackers, and shared folders.
• Balance strategic thinking with strong execution, maintaining attention to detail while moving projects forward efficiently.

What You Bring

Required

• 4+ years of relevant experience in quantitative and qualitative research, including study design, analysis, and reporting.
• Strong understanding of a wide range of qualitative and quantitative market research methodologies.
• Excellent analytical, organizational, and project management skills.
• Ability to identify actionable insights and communicate them clearly — verbally and visually — to non-research audiences.
• Experience developing measurable objectives and KPIs to guide strategic briefs and program evaluation.
• Experience with multicultural marketing campaigns and coordinating multicultural research.
• Comfort managing multiple priorities and productive relationships with agencies, vendors, and stakeholders.
• Advanced proficiency in MS Office, especially PowerPoint and Excel.
• Familiarity with digital marketing metrics, including website and social analytics.
• Ability to work East Coast hours.
• Passion for social impact with experience or strong interest in mental health.
• Commitment to building an inclusive and equitable work environment.

Qualities of a Standout Candidate

Preferred

• Experience in mental health research or familiarity with the mental health landscape, including stigma reduction and behavior change.
• Comfort using AI tools as part of a modern insights toolkit — enhancing efficiency while maintaining human judgment, accuracy, and research best practices.
• Experience with user experience or human-centered research.
• Familiarity with basic statistics; experience with SPSS, SAS, and/or DisplayR is a plus.
• Understanding of the evolving digital and social media landscape.
• Experience with project management tools such as Asana.
• A curious, learning-oriented mindset; comfort working through ambiguity and turning complexity into clarity.