Day In The Life: Meet AdRoll Operations Specialist Jessica Matos

Jessica Matos
Ad Operations Specialist, AdRoll
New York, NY
Twitter:@adtechjess

7:00am: Time to wake up. I begin each day with a social media check-in: Twitter for any important news, Instagram for cool pop-up events, and Facebook for updates from family. Today, I have a networking happy hour after work, so I dress up a bit more than usual, settling on a black-pant-and-white-blouse combo, along with my favorite ankle- length black leather boots and a gold chain.

8:00am: I ride the 2 train from my apartment in The Bronx to my office in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, scanning work emails for any updates. Over the course of the one-hour ride, I read my favorite sites – AdWeek and Digiday – before switching over to The Fatherless Daughter Project, a self-reflection book I’m really enjoying.

9:00am: I arrive at AdRoll, greeted by the smell of coffee. This is helpful – especially on a Monday morning. I really appreciate how collaborative the office environment is: People are constantly sitting on the couch together, chatting in the kitchen, or reviewing documents by a standing desk. I dive into work, checking in with my team on Google Hangouts and Slack and confirming my meetings for the day. Then I dive into my inbox, filing and color-coding recent emails. In the world of advertising, Q4 (i.e. October through December) tends to be the busiest time of year, so keeping organized is key; the minute I see a message hit my inbox, I color-code it, and once I fully read and reply to it, I file it away in the correct folder. Anything I want to revisit remains starred for later.

9:30am: Time to check in with some of the clients whose advertising campaigns I support. AdRoll works with a range of cool organizations, from Glamsquad to REI. As an ad operations specialist, it’s my job to communicate with clients to ensure that they are having a good experience using our software. As a company, we help over 25,000 businesses around the world translate data into successful marketing campaigns. I help launch their campaigns and share performance updates. Our clients are spending money on advertising, and it’s important to keep them in the loop and proactively work together to make adjustments.

10:00am: I check in with our team in India to prioritize campaign launches for the day. Our New York office has about 45 people, compared to 300 in our San Francisco headquarters and 150 India. Working across time zones constantly challenges me to think about how to best communicate with my colleagues and learn more about different parts of the U.S. and cultures. I really do love working in ad operations. It’s not traditionally regarded as a glamorous role, but the ad tech space is so young compared to other industries, and I really like knowing that my work today will impact future generations. History in the making!

12:00pm: Lunch time. I make a super-charged smoothie with spinach, avocado, banana, grapes, Greek yogurt, almond milk, and almond butter and then check in to make sure the team has eaten too. It's easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day, but finding time to connect is important. Advertising still has humanity in it!

1:00pm: Time to check in with our San Francisco ad ops team (a group of nine) and end up joining a conversation they’re having about a “random question of the day” (or #RQOTD, as we call it). The topic? What’s your favorite 90s TV show? It’s an entertaining exchange with my teammates on our West coast accounts.

1:30pm: I follow up on more client emails, constantly thinking through how we can reset spend strategies and optimize specific campaigns. I love the way my work requires me to flex my technical and creative muscles while also constantly developing my soft skills through client interactions. I catch up with a client who has been so happy with her campaign results that she had increased her company’s advertising spend from $500 to $19,000 a month.

2:30pm: I work with our sales engineers to set up a new campaign and troubleshoot challenges on a couple other accounts. Then it’s time for my monthly 1:1 meeting with our global head of ad ops. I really appreciate howaccessible my teammates are. I make it a point to chat with visiting executives while they are in town, and weekly 1:1s with my direct boss are also a great opportunity to discuss individual goals and challenges. I follow up on a few conversations with our senior management about diversity and inclusion initiatives I’d like to see in the NYC office. It’s important to me to not only have a safe space to talk about diversity-related issues but to also be able to turn our words and commitments into action.

4:30pm: I set up my to-do list for tomorrow, follow up on a few more client emails, and close out any last outstanding tasks with our India team. Then I take a quick walk around the office to see how everyone’s days are going. While a lot of us are having one-on-one interactions throughout the day, there’s also an emphasis on being fun and supportive teammates. I’m known for saying “Go get the doughnuts” to my team as a way to motivate them to bring in more deals (by doughnuts, I really mean “dough,” but maybe one day I’ll actually surprise everyone with actual doughnuts).

5:30pm: I finish any last minute tasks and get ready for my evening jog by the West Side Highway After staring at screens indoors for nearly 12 hours, running is a huge relief. My goal is to complete three miles miles in under 40 minutes.

7:00pm: I get home and shower before heading to meet my friend and mentor Esmeralda for dinner at Burger & Lobster (you can probably guess what’s on their menu). Not only do they have delicious food – the garlic butter is so good you could drink it with a straw.

9:30pm: Back home, I prep lunch for the next day, catch up on personal emails, and check Twitter while listening to some Solange. I end the night with an episode of Family Guy before drifting off to sleep.

Images by Yemi Adewunmi