Programmatic Specialist

McGarrah Jessee; United States; Remote; USD 95,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

McGarrah Jessee is seeking a hands-on programmatic buyer to turn biddable inventory into measurable results for brands people love. You will build, traffic, optimize, and report campaigns across display, video, CTV, native, and DOOH, while shaping the agency’s buying practices and QA standards.

The role combines media strategy, tech platform know-how, and performance evaluation, with direct client presentation and ongoing optimization to drive store traffic, sales, and new customer growth.

Qualifications

• 3–5 years in digital media, with at least 2 years running programmatic campaigns hands-on.
• Direct, hands-on experience in DV360.
• Proven experience planning, building, launching, managing, and reporting on display, online video, and CTV campaigns.
• Comfort working directly with clients and planning teams—presenting, recommending, and occasionally disagreeing well.
• Working knowledge of ad serving and measurement (CM360 or equivalent), tag and pixel implementation, and third-party verification.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to make decisions from data rather than vibes.
• Detail-oriented, organized, and capable of running multiple campaigns and clients at once.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, including the ability to make programmatic make sense to people who don’t live in it.

Responsibilities

• Plan, build, launch, and manage programmatic campaigns across display, online video, CTV, programmatic native, and digital out-of-home.
• Own end-to-end campaign architecture in the DSP — IO and line item structure, audience and inventory targeting, bid strategy, flighting, and pacing.
• Source and activate the supply that fits the buy — open exchange, PMP, and programmatic guaranteed — and hold publisher and platform partners accountable.
• Traffic and QA creative, tags, and tracking elements so measurement is right before anything launches
• Manage campaigns daily — pacing, bids, budgets, supply path, frequency, inventory quality, brand safety, and verification.
• Build and run a real testing roadmap: audience, creative, format, supply, and incrementality.
• Own programmatic budgets end to end — allocation, pacing, forecasting, IOs, actualization, and invoice reconciliation.
• Partner with the planning team on channel mix, forecasting, KPIs, and benchmarks, and draft the programmatic sections of media plans.
• Report on performance and delivery to internal and client teams— translating platform data into clear actions and defensible recommendations.
• Present to clients directly and often, with logic and enthusiasm, at every level of the room.
• Evaluate DSPs, data partners, betas, and new ad formats, and recommend what earns a place in our stack.
• Apply QA, taxonomy, and naming standards consistently, and help document how we do this to build the operational workflow.
• Collaborate across every McJ discipline — planning, analytics, strategy, creative, and account — and know when to pull partners in.

Skills

DV360

Display advertising

Online video

CTV

Programmatic buying

Analytics

Client communication

Campaign management

Tag implementation

Third-party verification

Tools

MediaOcean

Prisma

Job description

McGarrah Jessee is looking for a hands-on programmatic buyer — someone who doesn’t just push buttons in a DSP, but knows how to turn biddable inventory into a business result for brands people are irrationally fanatic about.

This role sits at the intersection of media strategy, technical platform expertise, and performance evaluation — taking a plan built with our clients and turning it into campaigns that actually deliver against store traffic, sales, and new customer growth. This role will be responsible for the programmatic buying of Display, online video, CTV, programmatic native, digital out-of-home, and other various media types.

This is a hands-on-keyboard position. You will build the campaign, traffic and launch, manage it, optimize, and then report on it — to both our planning team and to our clients. You’ll also help build the agency buying practice itself, which means you’ll have a real hand in shaping the operational standards, QA processes, naming conventions, and building the overall operation.

Responsibilities

• Plan, build, launch, and manage programmatic campaigns across display, online video, CTV, programmatic native, and digital out-of-home.
• Own end-to-end campaign architecture in the DSP — IO and line item structure, audience and inventory targeting, bid strategy, flighting, and pacing.
• Source and activate the supply that fits the buy — open exchange, PMP, and programmatic guaranteed — and hold publisher and platform partners accountable.
• Traffic and QA creative, tags, and tracking elements so measurement is right before anything launches
• Manage campaigns daily — pacing, bids, budgets, supply path, frequency, inventory quality, brand safety, and verification.
• Build and run a real testing roadmap: audience, creative, format, supply, and incrementality.
• Own programmatic budgets end to end — allocation, pacing, forecasting, IOs, actualization, and invoice reconciliation.
• Partner with the planning team on channel mix, forecasting, KPIs, and benchmarks, and draft the programmatic sections of media plans.
• Report on performance and delivery to internal and client teams— translating platform data into clear actions and defensible recommendations.
• Present to clients directly and often, with logic and enthusiasm, at every level of the room.
• Evaluate DSPs, data partners, betas, and new ad formats, and recommend what earns a place in our stack.
• Apply QA, taxonomy, and naming standards consistently, and help document how we do this to build the operational workflow.
• Collaborate across every McJ discipline — planning, analytics, strategy, creative, and account — and know when to pull partners in.

Requirements

• 3–5 years in digital media, with at least 2 years running programmatic campaigns hands-on.
• Direct, hands-on experience in DV360.
• Proven experience planning, building, launching, managing, and reporting on display, online video, and CTV campaigns.
• Comfort working directly with clients and planning teams — presenting, recommending, and occasionally disagreeing well.
• Working knowledge of ad serving and measurement (CM360 or equivalent), tag and pixel implementation, and third-party verification.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to make decisions from data rather than vibes.
• Detail-oriented, organized, and capable of running multiple campaigns and clients at once.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, including the ability to make programmatic make sense to people who don’t live in it.

Pluses

• Working experience in Amazon DSP.
• Experience operating across multiple DSPs simultaneously on a single campaign, and a point of view on how to strategize around multiple supply partners
• Programmatic native and digital out-of-home activation experience.
• Experience with MediaOcean/Prisma, taxonomy management tools, and location or foot-traffic measurement partners.
• Retail, eCommerce, or multi-location/new-store marketing experience.

Important Qualifications

• Motivated, proactive self-starter with meticulous attention to detail.
• Experience working autonomously on independent projects and proactively pulling in teammates when support is needed.
• A successful track record of managing multiple campaigns across a variety of clients.
• Strong analytical and math skills.
• Exceptional oral, written, and presentation skills.

This is a remote position.