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 position will report to the VP, Insights & Analytics of the mental health campaigns.

What You’ll Do

• 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.

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.