Associate Director, Media Buying

Bully-Pulpit-International; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) match

Paid time off

Job summary

Bully Pulpit International is seeking an Associate Director, Media Buying to lead programmatic and social media campaigns for political and public affairs clients. You will drive strategy, execution, and reporting across major DSPs while mentoring the Buying team.

The role requires strong leadership, analytics, and cross-functional collaboration, with an expectation to work from one of our US offices at least 3 days per week. Starting salary range is $100,000–$110,000 with annual bonus.

Qualifications

• Proven hands-on programmatic and social media buying experience in an agency or similar setting.
• Strong cross-team collaboration and communication skills across client teams.
• Experience with budget management, optimizations, and performance reporting.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor junior staff and lead teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead media strategy and execution for mid-spend clients and campaigns.
• Oversee campaigns across multiple DSPs and platforms for flawless delivery.
• Provide actionable insights from platform metrics to improve performance.
• Collaborate with creative and insights teams to optimize placements and measurement.
• Mentor and develop junior team members across accounts.

Skills

Programmatic buying

Social media buying

Leadership

Client management

Analytics

Tools

The Trade Desk

DV360

Yahoo

Amazon Advertising

Google Campaign Manager

Job description

Bully Pulpit International is an outcomes agency made up of strategists, data scientists, and artists. We come from politics, brands, and government and we communicate without barriers and measure what matters. We have more than 400 team members in six countries and thirteen offices — Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, D.C., London, Los Angeles, New York, Oslo, San Francisco, and Zürich. We apply our unique expertise across strategic communications, public affairs, research, and digital marketing to create sophisticated and customized strategies that make change possible for both American and European clients.

The Impact You Will Make

In this position as an Associate Director, Media Buying, you will act as a core contributor to team priorities, effectively communicating the strategic value, operational rigor, and "why" behind media activation goals to the broader media team. You will also help develop, articulate, and evangelize BPI’s agency-wide approach to buying strategy, platform best practices, and technical execution. Additionally, you will conduct analysis into programmatic inventory, and vendor research to ensure BPI negotiates and executes highly effective, innovative, and market-leading media activations that drive measurable impact for our clients.

• Starting Salary Range: $100,000 - $110,000 (+ annual bonus)
• Expectation to work from one of our offices (Chicago, DC, NYC, SF, LA) at least 3 days a week

What the Day-to-Day Looks Like

Media Strategy & Execution

• Able to run most mid-spend clients + campaigns independently. Responsible for overseeing flawless media execution on campaigns you are supporting
• Work efficiently across numerous client teams by communicating effectively, setting and meeting expectations, securing buy-in, and creatively solving problems
• Manage and supervise campaigns hands-on across multiple verticals, channels and all major buying platforms, including Google Ads, YouTube, Meta, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Reddit, TikTok, The Trade Desk and DV360
• Be able to contribute to client reports by analyzing platform metrics, provide actionable insights, and make smart optimizations to influence performance.

POV/Offering

• Identify areas for team-wide workflow and process improvements, and work with senior leaders to implement them
• Contribute to decisions on new tech and tools for the team to adopt and help effectively onboard them to the team
• Act as senior-level agency point of contact with selected ad tech partners, inventory suppliers, and data providers

Collaboration

• Act as a main point-of-contact within the team to manage client and account team requests – i.e., budget changes, campaign flighting, and audience recommendations
• Work closely with creative and insights team on execution of challenging media placements and implementation of campaign measurement
• Delegate appropriately and collaborate with media planners to support plan development.

Management

• Eligible after 6 months to lead a group of and directly manage Media Buyers, Senior Media Buyers, Media Managers, and Media Supervisors
• Act as a mentor to junior team members across your accounts
• Attract, retain, and improve talent on the Buying team through effective management, mentorship, and training

What You Bring

• Proven hands-on experience in programmatic and social media buying, preferably in an agency environment, with a track record of successful campaigns for at least 4 years
• Experience working across some of our client verticals, including public affairs, strategic communications, advocacy and political campaigns
• Proven experience in audience planning and forecasting for clients
• Strong leadership, direct team management, and training skills
• Exceptional communication and problem-solving abilities
• Hands-on experience running campaigns across all digital ad formats in multiple DSPs, including The Trade Desk, DV360, Yahoo and Amazon
• Ability to oversee ad operations and trafficking in Google Campaign Manager
• Familiarity with ad tech platforms and partners, tools, and emerging industry trends
• Excellent analytical and strategic thinking capabilities
• Demonstrated ability to meet and exceed client performance targets
• A passion for mentoring and developing team members

BPI offers a wide range of benefits to U.S.-based employees, including100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) program with employer match up to 4%, generous time off for vacation, $50 monthly phone reimbursement, unlimited sick time, and 16 weeks of paid leave for new parents. BPI’s benefits prioritize employee wellness and progressive support to our diverse workforce.

We’re looking for all kinds of people.

We are an equal opportunity employer and make employment decisions based on individual commitment to excellence. We want to have the best qualified people in every job. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, status as a protected veteran, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information or characteristics (or those of a family member) or any other consideration made unlawful by applicable federal, state or local laws.We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. BPI is dedicated to building an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible workplace that fosters a sense of belonging – so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to still consider submitting an application. We consider applications holistically and you may be just the right candidate for this role or another one of our openings!

Let’s keep in touch. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter at bpigroup.com