Associate Director, Retail Media

Company Description

Merkle is a leading data-driven, technology-enabled, global performance marketing agency that specializes in the delivery of unique, personalized customer experiences across platforms and devices. For more than 30 years, Fortune 1000 companies and leading nonprofit organizations have partnered with Merkle to maximize the value of their customer portfolios. The agency's heritage in data, technology, and analytics forms the foundation for its unmatched skills in understanding consumer insights that drive people-based marketing strategies. Its combined strengths in performance media, customer experience, customer relationship management, loyalty, and enterprise marketing technology drive improved marketing results and competitive advantage. With 9,600+ employees, Merkle is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, with 50+ additional offices throughout the US, EMEA, and APAC. In 2016, the agency joined dentsu. For more information, contact Merkle at 1-877-9-Merkle or visit www.merkleinc.com.   We are champions for meaningful progress, and we strive to be a force for good—for our people, for our clients, for the industry and for our society. We keep our people at the center, creating space for growth, understanding, and learning so they can thrive. We embed diversity, in our mindset, in our solutions and in our teams to empower an inclusive, equitable and culturally fluent environment. Building this culture within our teams makes us better collaborators with each other and with our clients, driving better outcomes for all. Merkle is an agency of dentsu. 

Job Description

As an Associate Director, you will be responsible overseeing the strategy and delivery of work for the media planning, activation, and campaign management team of top-tier retail media networks. You will develop and maintain an intimate knowledge of client businesses and ensure all client media requirements are executed in a timely and accurate manner.   You will align the right resources to meet the client needs and you will provide coaching and guidance to your direct reports and team.  You will work cross functionally with all teams to support and deliver against media, client, and company objectives.  You will report to the Director of Media. 

Responsibilities: 

• Oversee team workload including distribution of work and staffing across pods, capacity planning, and communicating staffing needs to senior management. 

• Lead interviewing, hiring, training, and coaching of new team members. 

• Provide ongoing support to your team through regular feedback and weekly one-on-ones.  

• Maintain a deep understanding of client business goals and marketing objectives and translate them into digital objectives/strategies. 

• Remain abreast of the overall media marketplace and relevant opportunities for our clients. 

• Build internal/external client and stakeholder relationships. 

• Drive alignment across internal and client teams for establishing processes, ways of working, and cross-functional roles and responsibilities.  

• Identify challenges and process-related roadblocks, and proactively problem solve internally and with client. 

• Ensure that process documents are accurate and are kept current. 

• Act as an escalation point on planning and activation best practices, process, and campaign troubleshooting.  

• Work on special projects as assigned. 

Qualifications

• 5+ years in digital media planning, activation and/or campaign management  

• 2+ years of hands-on experience in a digital planning/buying role, including platform experience across programmatic DSPs (DV360, TTD, YouTube), paid social platforms (Meta, Pinterest, TikTok) and/or SSP/Ad Servers (GAM, DCM, Criteo, CAD)  

• Experience working within OMS platforms (Placement.IO, Advendio) and workflow management systems (JIRA, Workfront, Monday) a plus  

• Experience with management of planning/buying on digital OOH platforms a plus  

• Independent self-starter, comfortable working in a start-up environment with changing workflows and priorities  

• Detail-oriented, organized and articulate; able to work well under pressure  

• Shopper, CPG or retail media network experience is a plus 

• Thirst for knowledge and innovation, keen to make a difference in a growing business with existing clients 

• Possess outstanding written and verbal communications skills, especially strong presentation skills 

• Experience managing a team, preferably in a retail media environment 

• Proficiency in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 

Additional Information

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