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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Digital Media Buyer

💰 $55,000 - $120,000

MarketingDigital AdvertisingPerformance MarketingMedia Buying

🎯 Role Definition

The Digital Media Buyer plans, executes and optimizes paid media campaigns across platforms (Google Ads, Meta, TikTok, programmatic DSPs, connected TV, and more) to achieve acquisition, retention and revenue goals. This role combines strategic media planning, hands-on campaign management, performance analysis and cross-functional collaboration with creative, product and analytics teams to drive efficient growth and measurable business outcomes.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Marketing Coordinator or Paid Social Coordinator
  • Junior Media Buyer / PPC Specialist
  • Performance Marketing Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Senior Media Buyer / Senior PPC Specialist
  • Performance Marketing Manager or Growth Marketing Manager
  • Head of Paid Media / Director of Performance Marketing

Lateral Moves:

  • Programmatic Trader / DSP Specialist
  • Paid Social Strategist
  • Media Planner or Advertising Operations Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Develop and execute cross-channel paid media strategies that align with business objectives (awareness, acquisition, activation, retention) and translate KPI targets (CAC, CPA, CPL, ROAS) into daily, weekly, and monthly campaign tactics.
  • Manage full lifecycle campaign execution: audience definition, creative direction, channel selection, bid strategy, budget allocation, trafficking, and QA to ensure flawless launch and delivery across Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok, programmatic DSPs, and other paid channels.
  • Monitor campaign performance in real time; analyze metrics such as CTR, conversion rate, cost per conversion, view-through conversions, and incremental lift to proactively optimize bids, budgets, placements, and creative.
  • Build and maintain pacing and budget forecasts to ensure efficient spend across campaigns while meeting monthly and quarterly revenue and ROI targets; execute budget re-allocations based on performance signals and seasonality.
  • Design and implement A/B and multivariate tests across creative assets, landing pages, audiences, and bidding strategies; measure statistical significance and iterate on winning variants to scale performance.
  • Implement advanced audience strategies including lookalike modeling, retargeting funnels, custom intent and affinity segments, CRM-based targeting and layered audience exclusion to improve relevance and reduce waste.
  • Configure and maintain accurate tracking and attribution by implementing tagging, pixels, server-side tracking, and conversions in GA4, Campaign Manager, and platform-native measurement tools; validate event consistency with analytics and engineering teams.
  • Lead bid strategy execution including manual bidding, automated bidding strategies, target CPA/ROAS, enhanced CPC, and portfolio bidding across platforms while documenting rationale and outcomes.
  • Partner with creative and content teams to brief, review and iterate on high-converting ad creative, video assets, copy variants and landing page experiences tailored to channel-specific best practices and audience insights.
  • Establish and document campaign governance, naming conventions, duplication processes and QA checklists to ensure operational scalability and reduce launch errors across teams and agencies.
  • Manage relationships with external partners, agencies, platform reps and publishers to negotiate rates, secure beta features, troubleshoot delivery issues and coordinate co-marketing or sponsorship opportunities.
  • Produce regular performance reporting and commentary for stakeholders — daily dashboards, weekly deep dives, and monthly executive summaries — using Looker Studio, Tableau or internal BI tools with clear insight-driven recommendations.
  • Build and maintain attribution models and incrementality testing frameworks (holdout tests, geo tests, uplift measurement) to improve budget allocation decisions across channels and validate media effectiveness.
  • Automate routine reporting and optimization tasks using scripts, APIs, or platform rules (Google Ads scripts, Ads Manager automation, spreadsheets with macros) to increase team efficiency and reduce manual errors.
  • Ensure ad operations and creatives comply with platform policies, legal requirements, brand safety standards and industry regulations (GDPR, CCPA) and escalate potential compliance issues to legal or privacy teams.
  • Troubleshoot conversion tracking, discrepancies between platform reporting and analytics, and traffic quality issues (bots, click fraud); coordinate with engineering and analytics to resolve attribution gaps and measurement drift.
  • Use SQL or data querying tools to pull raw funnel data, evaluate audience overlaps, and perform cohort analyses that inform channel mix and long-term media planning.
  • Conduct competitive and market research to identify channel opportunities, benchmark performance, and inform seasonal/promotional calendar planning and bidding strategy adjustments.
  • Drive channel experimentation and proof-of-concept pilots for emerging channels (connected TV, audio, new programmatic formats) and measurement technologies (first-party data strategies, server-to-server tracking).
  • Create and refine standard operating procedures (SOPs) for campaign onboarding, optimization cadences, and cross-functional handoffs to support scaling and new hire ramp-up.
  • Mentor junior media buyers and coordinate cross-functional task assignments; perform post-mortem analyses after major campaigns to capture learnings and document optimization playbooks.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory analyses for product, sales and leadership teams to answer strategic questions about customer acquisition and lifetime value.
  • Contribute to the organization’s media strategy and roadmap by identifying high-impact areas for investment and aligning paid media planning with broader marketing initiatives.
  • Collaborate with analytics and engineering teams to translate tracking and attribution needs into technical requirements and prioritized tickets for implementation.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies when working inside cross-functional product and growth squads to ensure media requirements are represented.
  • Attend weekly media syncs and cross-team standups to coordinate creative production timelines, landing page readiness and campaign launch dates.
  • Maintain vendor and partner scorecards; evaluate performance KPIs, contractual terms and renewal recommendations for DSPs, ad networks and agency partners.
  • Provide training sessions and workshops for marketing and sales stakeholders on platform capabilities, campaign metrics and ad performance interpretation.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Paid media platform expertise: Google Ads (Search, Display, Video), Microsoft Ads, Meta Ads Manager (Facebook & Instagram), TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads.
  • Programmatic and DSP knowledge: The Trade Desk, DV360, Amazon Ads or other programmatic platforms, including deal types (PMPs, private auctions).
  • Measurement & analytics: GA4, Google Tag Manager, Campaign Manager, conversion tracking, attribution modeling and familiarity with server-side tagging.
  • Data and query skills: SQL fundamentals for pulling audience and funnel data; strong Excel skills (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, macros) or Google Sheets proficiency.
  • Reporting and visualization: Looker Studio (Data Studio), Tableau, Power BI, or equivalent dashboard tooling experience.
  • Automation & scripting: Experience with platform rules, Google Ads scripts, APIs or workflow automation tools to scale optimizations and reporting.
  • Testing & experimentation: Design and interpret A/B tests, holdout experiments and multivariate testing across creative and audience segments.
  • Ad ops and trafficking: Campaign setup, creative specs, ad serving troubleshooting, ad verification and brand safety tools (IAS, DoubleVerify).
  • Attribution & lift analysis: Familiarity with MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling), digital attribution methodologies, and incrementality testing frameworks.
  • Budgeting & forecasting: Pacing, spend forecasting, bid modeling and financial accountability for large campaign budgets.

Soft Skills

  • Strong analytical mindset with the ability to translate data into actionable media decisions and clear business impact.
  • Excellent verbal and written communication for presenting performance insights and recommendations to stakeholders across marketing, product and leadership.
  • Project management and organizational skills to juggle multiple campaigns, deadlines and platform updates simultaneously.
  • Problem solving and troubleshooting orientation, especially in ambiguous measurement or tracking scenarios.
  • Collaboration and stakeholder management: ability to work cross-functionally with creatives, engineers, analysts and external partners.
  • Attention to detail and commitment to operational rigor (naming conventions, QA, documentation).
  • Adaptability to fast-changing platforms, privacy rules and industry trends.
  • Negotiation skills for vendor/partner contracts and direct publisher deals.
  • Time management and prioritization when optimizing for short-term performance and long-term brand objectives.
  • Mentorship and coaching capability to uplift junior staff and share best practices.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Marketing, Advertising, Business, Communications, Data Analytics or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Marketing, Advertising, Business Analytics, Economics, or Data Science with coursework in statistics, digital marketing or media planning.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Marketing
  • Advertising
  • Business Administration
  • Data Analytics / Data Science
  • Communications

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–5 years of hands-on paid media experience (agency or in-house) managing multi-channel digital campaigns and budgets.

Preferred:

  • 3–6+ years experience with a demonstrated track record of driving measurable ROI across search, social and programmatic channels.
  • Prior experience in an agency environment or running scaled in-house paid media programs for e-commerce, lead-gen or direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands.
  • Proven experience owning full-funnel performance metrics, attribution setup, and experimentation frameworks.
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