Meet Connor Bloodworth, Programmatic Advertising Operations Coordinator at Terminus
Connor Bloodworth’s job title — Programmatic Advertising Operations Coordinator — is a mouthful, and to someone who’s not intimately acquainted with the world of marketing, it may sound like a tongue twister of buzzwords.
So let’s break it down.
Dan Hellerman, Terminus’ Senior Director of Business Analytics & Ad Operations (and Connor’s manager) describes it this way:
“Programmatic ad operations is the optimization and ongoing support of digital ad campaigns on a large scale across dozens of advertising networks and supply vendors.
“It requires incredibly analytically and technically savvy individuals, especially in our case because our team is supporting an account-based marketing technology tool. The AdOps team at Terminus are not only great digital marketers, but we are also great solutions architects building custom integrations, reporting, and optimization strategies for our clients.”
To put it even more simply, Connor describes the role like this: “We set up, launch, optimize, and maintain our customers’ advertising campaigns.”
As part of our Day in the Life of a Terminator blog series, we’re profiling Connor and exploring what it’s like to work in programmatic advertising. Read on to hear from Connor about how he spends a typical day on the Terminus AdOps team.
But first, some fun facts about Connor!
What are your hobbies?
I love food! I go to a lot of restaurants around Atlanta. My favorite place is Atlanta Chinatown in Chamblee. It’s a little food court with six restaurants. I go to one place and order duck noodles, and they pull fresh right there when you order them. It’s legitimate Chinese food, and it’s so good.
I’m also a big media junkie. I binge a lot of movies and TV shows and video games. Right now I’m watching The People v. O.J. Simpson for a drama, and I’m watching The Office for some more relaxed comedy.
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I never really knew what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to do something where I could travel a lot and see new places in the world. I actually just got back from a weeklong trip to Hong Kong. That’s something I love about this team. Even though AdOps doesn’t travel for work, we do have the option to take time off to travel. I’m thinking maybe Tokyo or Korea next!
What was the first job you ever got paid for?
Growing up, my dad owned his own contracting business, so I would help out with that.
A Day in the Life of a Terminus Advertising Operations Coordinator
6:45 a.m. – My alarm clock goes off. I like to get to the office by eight, so I browse the internet for a few minutes before getting ready. If I leave my apartment by 7:40, I can normally get to my desk by eight.
8 – 9 a.m. – I set my laptop up at my desk and grab some tea and fresh fruit from the kitchen. Since I’m normally the only one on the AdOps team in until around nine, I like to use this hour to catch up on everything from the afternoon before, updating our internal campaign setup trackers and working on the requests our wonderful CSMs (Customer Success Managers) made the night before.
9 – 12 p.m. – This time is mainly focused on setting up and launching campaigns. We work through the tactic queue as a team to make sure everything is launched in a reasonable time for our customers without having to rely on assigning tactics out to any single person. This process involves going through each campaign’s audience to verify the data, setting up all our general parameters and client-specific ones, and then setting them live.
Josh, Lexi, Dan, Connor, and Evelyn — some of the Terminus AdOps Superheroes!
12 – 1 p.m. – Lunch! Normally I’ll either go out to eat with some coworkers — favorites near the office are Kabob Land and f2O — or grab something quick at my desk. I like using this time to relax a bit, browse Reddit, or watch an episode of whatever show I happen to be bingeing on at the time.
1 – 4 p.m. – This time slot is a bit more dynamic. I will spend it jumping on customer calls with CSMs, working with vendors, optimizing running campaigns, and learning new skills for the job. I try and leave at four so I still have some daylight left when I get home.
4 – 6 p.m. – Drive home, change, and go for a run through Piedmont Park (and sometimes down the BeltLine to Ponce City Market depending on the weather) to help decompress and shake off sitting at a desk all day.
6 – 11 p.m. – I use this time to run any errands I need to, meet up with friends for dinner or cook, and just relax for the evening before going to bed.
Life on the AdOps Team: Campaigns & Kiwis
Tell me a little more about what an Programmatic Advertising Operations Coordinator does.
When a customer launches an advertising campaign through Terminus, they’ll upload their lists of who they want to target. What we do as a team is verify all the data in the campaign to make sure it’s matched on the right companies and going to the right accounts.
Then we set up all the campaign parameters, including what time of day to show the ads, what sites to display them on, and custom block lists. We optimize all the settings for the campaign to make sure we’re serving ads at the right time to the right people. Then we launch them.
Afterwards, we’ll go through and check in and see how the they’re performing, make changes, and look at all the data and see, for example, if a campaign’s performing really well from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., we’re going to bid up those times and bid down on the times it’s not performing as well.
Everyone on team has their own specialty. Josh Wakefield works with vendors. Gabby Orlando has an interest in media planning, and she works with blacklists and whitelists. Evelyn Targonski leads our interns. I like working on the back end, and I handle a lot of PMP deals.
PMP deals are private marketplace deals, securing new inventory for our customers to help improve the sites the ads are being shown on. That involves finding quality sites that have programmatic bidding on their ads and making sure the CPM (cost per thousand clicks) is low enough to where it’s worth bidding on.
Where did you go to school and what did you study?
I went to the University of North Georgia, and I studied marketing. I graduated in August of 2016, but I started working at Terminus in May. I had to take one summer class to graduate, so I started my internship in early May while taking one class at night. My internship was 40 hours a week, and then I was hired on as a salaried employee in November.
Tell me about the interview process for the AdOps internship.
First, I had a thirty minute video interview with Dan. We talked, and he explained what my job would be. Then at the end he was like, “Would you like to work here?” And I said yes.
Then he brought me in for a one-hour interview at the office. That was mostly about meeting people and making sure I got along with the team, and then I was brought onto the team. Because the ABM industry is new and I was straight out of college, previous knowledge wasn’t too big of a factor in my hiring. It was more about how I fit in and if I seemed willing to learn.
What is your favorite thing about working at Terminus?
Dan gives us a lot of freedom. He doesn’t like to micromanage. He keeps track of our performance, and he makes sure that we’re getting everything done, but he’s not going to stand over us and make sure we’re doing everything exactly how he would do it as long as the work gets done and gets done well.
What’s the biggest challenge you face at work?
Scaling. As Terminus gets more customers, we’re focusing on growing the AdOps team and making sure we have enough people to help make all our customers’ campaigns successful.
When I started, the AdOps team was three people, and the roles were a lot more loosely defined. Now we have seven people on the team, including interns, and we’re still growing.
What is your proudest accomplishment from your time at Terminus?
My proudest accomplishment so far has been earning the promotion from intern to full-time employee.
What’s been the best team outing you’ve experienced at Terminus?
The AdOps team and the Customer Success team went to Dad’s Garage comedy club for a Christmas carol improv show. It was fun, and it was great to hang out with the Customer Success team outside of work.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to work on the Terminus AdOps team?
It’s important to have an interest in the data side of advertising. You also need to be ready to learn because Dan’s going to throw a lot at you! But you can’t take yourself too seriously. You’ve also got to be flexible. Some weeks we’re a little slower and we get to chill out, but some weeks it’s nonstop work.
And finally, my favorite question: what’s your go-to office snack?
The fruit! Especially the kiwis.
Want to Join the Terminus Advertising Operations Team?
Are you interested in joining the Terminus AdOps team? We’re always looking for positive, supportive, and self-starting people to help our customers run industry-leading digital ad campaigns. If you think you’d be a good fit for our team, check out our careers page. We can’t wait to hear from you!
