Senior Ad Tech Specialist | Advertising / Travel Media

Senior Ad Tech Specialist

At Booking.com, data drives our decisions. Technology is at our core. And innovation is everywhere. But our company is more than datasets, lines of code or A/B tests. We’re the thrill of the first night in a new place. The excitement of the next morning. The friends you encounter. The journeys you take. The sights you see. And the memories you make. Through our products, partners and people, we make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

Booking.com is one of the world’s leading digital travel companies. As part of Booking Holdings - including Priceline and Agoda - we help advertisers reach high-intent travelers through the Travel Media Network, connecting brands and destinations to audiences across our platform and beyond. Our Ad Tech stack is the backbone of this network - powering audience management, data collaboration, targeting, measurement and campaign delivery across channels.

The hand-on Senior Ad Tech Specialist is a cornerstone role who thrives on solving complex technical challenges, and ensures the technology behind our advertising business operates efficiently, compliantly, and at scale.

This person will own the administration, configuration, and optimization of our ad tech platforms (including DSPs, ad servers, and data platforms) while driving audience management, addressability, and data collaboration initiatives. Your central position in the team will help us build tooling that respects traveler privacy at every level, whilst connecting us to the right players in the digital advertising ecosystems, evolving as cookieless approaches continue to develop, and as regulations worldwide change.

They will work closely with the Ad Tech Product Manager, Ad Operations, and Commercial Excellence to bridge the gap between commercial use cases and technical execution - ensuring our ecosystem is future-proof, privacy-compliant, and ready for scaled growth. Booking.com will always work in a customer centric way - making sure that advertising does not harm the traveler experience, but your expertise and energy will help build our advertising business as a fast moving and growing growth engine.

Key Responsibilities and Duties:

Ad Tech Platform Management

• Dive deeply into daily administration, configuration, and troubleshooting of Booking Ads’ ad tech stack - including DSPs and ad server environments.
• Manage seat and user access, billing configurations, and platform integrations in collaboration with IT and Procurement.
• Monitor performance, delivery, and tracking setup to ensure optimal campaign execution.
• Ideate and lead internal testing to improve campaign performance.
• Proactively research and evaluate emerging ad tech tools and developments, analyze potential opportunities, and provide high quality recommendations to management for solutions that can drive business growth, unlock new capabilities, or address existing challenges.
• Support onboarding of new ad tech vendors or partners as the stack evolves.

Audience Management and Activation

• Take full ownership end-to-end of our audience management - from ingestion and segmentation to activation across DSPs and external partners. Collaborate with Data Science and Product teams to connect audience signals with campaign strategies. Partner with the Ad Tech PM on initiatives around first-party data utilization, addressability, and privacy-safe targeting. Maintain taxonomies, naming conventions, and governance around audience and campaign data.

Data Collaboration and Addressability

• Lead the operational setup for data partnerships and collaborations (e.g., clean rooms, data matching, and consent frameworks).
• Work closely with Legal, Data Governance, and the Ad Tech PM to ensure compliance with GDPR and global data regulations.
• Support implementation of new solutions for cookie-less targeting and measurement.
• Track and test emerging identity solutions and report findings to leadership.

Process and Platform Enablement

• Partner with Ad Ops and Campaign Management to ensure systems and workflows are aligned across teams.
• Create documentation, training materials, and onboarding guides for internal users.
• Develop and maintain standardized processes for trafficking, tagging, and measurement.
• Ensure connectivity across systems and help build automations
• Support troubleshooting and escalation on platform-related issues with external vendors.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with Product, Marketing, Data Science, and Commercial Excellence to translate business requirements into ad tech solutions.
• Collaborate with Yield and Finance to ensure data integrity in delivery and revenue tracking.
• Support PM Ad Tech in vendor roadmap discussions, feature testing, and pilot programs.
• Liaise with global BHI teams (Agoda, Priceline) to ensure tech stack alignment and shared learnings.

Qualifications & Skills:

Experience

• 6+ years of experience in ad operations, ad tech, or programmatic advertising environments.
• Hands-on experience with DSPs (e.g., The Trade Desk, DV360) and ad servers (e.g., Google Ad Manager, Kevel, or equivalent).
• Strong understanding of audience segmentation, data activation, and addressability.
• Proven experience managing vendor relationships and platform administration.
• A proven track record of diving deep into ad tech platforms and configurations.
• The ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment, balancing strategic vision with meticulous execution.

Technical and operational experience

• Familiar with tag management, pixel tracking, and campaign delivery workflows.
• Strong understanding of digital advertising ecosystems and data flows.
• Knowledge of privacy and consent frameworks (GDPR, IAB TCF, clean rooms).
• Comfortable working with reporting tools, Excel, and basic SQL or BI dashboards.

Strategic and collaborative

• Able to translate technical concepts into commercial and operational implications.
• Excellent communicator, capable of collaborating across product, commercial, and technical teams.
• Detail-oriented, proactive, and solution-driven.
• Comfortable balancing long-term platform evolution with daily operational needs.
• Able to simplify complex concepts and problems to non-technical audiences

Additional

• Travel requirements: Occasional for internal meetings and conferences.
• Languages: English (required); additional languages a plus.

Inclusion at Booking.com:

Inclusion has been a core part of our company culture since day one. This ongoing journey starts with our very own employees, who represent over 140 nationalities and a wide range of ethnic and social backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations.

Take it from our Chief People Officer, Paulo Pisano: “At Booking.com, the diversity of our people doesn’t just build an outstanding workplace, it also creates a better and more inclusive travel experience for everyone. Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. It’s a place where you can make your mark and have a real impact in travel and tech.”

We ensure that colleagues with disabilities are provided the adjustments and tools they need to participate in the job application and interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.

Application Process

• Let’s go places together: How we Hire
• This role does not come with relocation assistance.

Booking.com is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. We strive to move well beyond traditional equal opportunity and work to create an environment that allows everyone to thrive.

If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.