Programmatic Specialist

Publicis Groupe; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

Studio One Toyota, part of Publicis South Africa, is hiring a Senior Programmatic Specialist to support Toyota’s digital media activity. The role demands high attention to detail, budget ownership, and collaboration across internal teams and media partners.

You will manage PMPs, programmatic guaranteed deals, and direct publisher deals, while guiding campaigns across DV360 and other programmatic environments. In-office at Bryanston, five days a week.

Qualifications

• 3–5 years of digital media planning experience.
• Experience with PMPs, programmatic guaranteed deals, and direct publisher deals.
• Experience managing budgets and reporting.

Responsibilities

• Plan, set up, manage, optimize and report on programmatic campaigns for Toyota.
• Own budgets, pacing, delivery, and performance checks.
• Collaborate with planners, ad ops, and media owners.
• Provide insights for post-campaign reporting and optimisation.
• Maintain certifications and dashboards; ensure timely time sheets and admin.
• Present briefs and recommendations to internal teams and clients.

Skills

Budget management

Programmatic buying

Campaign optimization

Stakeholder communication

Data-driven decision making

Tools

Google Fundamentals of Digital Marketing

Google Analytics

Google Ads Video

Google Shopping Ads

Google Display Ads

Google Ads Search

Facebook Blueprint Planning

Job description

Company description

About us:

Studio One Toyota, which forms part of Publicis South Africa, is a bespoke agency tailored to Toyota South Africa. We handle all of Toyota’s advertising including: above-the-line, below-the-line, strategy, digital, social media, media placement, and community management. We are a tight-knit team of award-winning creatives passionate about the automotive industry and breakthrough work.

We work in-office 5 days a week from our studio in Bryanston. We are a people-first agency, with a keen interest in AI and other new technologies. Our goal is to create locally relevant work stemming from culturally authentic South African insights.

Overview

Programmatic Specialist

Are you ready to unleash your full potential?

We are seeking a talented and passionate programmatic specialist to join our team of specialists at Studio One, a Bespoke Agency for Toyota South Africa.

In Partnership with:

• Business Unit Director
• Hybrid Media Strategist
• Performance Media Team
• Media Buying Team
• The Publicis Media’s Advertising Operations team,

Role Purpose

We are looking for a Senior Programmatic Specialist to support Toyota’s digital media activity across Studio One. The role requires someone who is highly detail-oriented, confident in managing programmatic budgets, and experienced in delivering campaigns across PMPs, programmatic guaranteed deals, direct publisher deals, and broader DV360/programmatic environments.

The ideal candidate should be comfortable working across automotive campaigns, performance requirements, audience planning, media owner relationships, campaign setup, optimisation, pacing, reporting, and post-campaign insights.

Responsibilities

What you can expect in an average week

You will be involved with numerous points of contact managers, so it’s important to develop a good understanding and identify specific business needs for each one.

Your average week may include:

• Attend key client briefings, status meetings, integration meetings with agency partners
• Be present and on time, to all required meetings.
• Work collaboratively with our colleagues, global teams and creative agency partners.
• Collaboratively work with and direct the digital campaign managers, DV360 and search specialists.
• Work collaboratively within the Digital Advertising Operations and Media Buying Team.
• Write and present internal briefs across all digital disciplines, monitor progress, direct optimization changes, avoid under / over-spends and add provide insight to post campaign reports.
• Sign off digital media billing packs relevant to your portfolio, to ensure alignment and avoid under and overspends.
• Update monthly forecasting reports
• Ensure the planning platform is kept up to date and digital integrations are added and maintained.
• Keep your Google, Facebook, Twitter and any other required media owner certifications up to date and participate in required training sessions.
• Ensure that your time sheets are maintained and timeously updated.

Key Responsibilities

Programmatic campaign management

Plan, set up, manage, optimise, and report on programmatic campaigns for Toyota.

Manage PMPs, programmatic guaranteed deals, and direct publisher/programmatic partnerships.

Ensure campaigns are built correctly, with audience and floodlight inclusion where required.

Manage campaign pacing, delivery, budget tracking, performance checks, and optimisation recommendations.

Budget ownership

Manage allocated programmatic budgets accurately and responsibly.

Track spend, pacing, delivery, and campaign performance against approved plans.

Ensure all budget movements, optimisations, and campaign changes are clearly documented.

Flag risks early where campaigns are under-delivering, over-pacing, or require strategic adjustment.

Campaign implementation and workflow

Work closely with digital planners, strategists, ad ops, account management, and media owners to ensure campaigns are implemented correctly.

Review briefs, assets, audience requirements, Powerhub links, chase lists, landing pages, headers, character limits, and tracking requirements before launch. The internal workflow references planner-led briefing into Powerhub, ad ops vetting, tagging, campaign setup, and programmatic specialist review before approval.

Ensure campaign setup supports Toyota’s audience, reach, frequency, and broader strategic objectives.

Optimisation and strategic input

Provide optimisation recommendations that go beyond delivery metrics and consider who Toyota is targeting, how they are being reached, and why the selected channel or audience matters.

Help push programmatic activity beyond basic reach delivery by identifying audience, platform, publisher, and format opportunities that are strategically relevant to Toyota campaigns.

Use data and media owner insights to recommend audience refinements, inventory opportunities, frequency adjustments, and performance improvements.

Media owner and partner management

Build and maintain strong relationships with media owners and platform partners. Strong media owner relationships are listed as an advantage in the vacancy briefing.

Work with partners to identify relevant first-party audience opportunities, platform solutions, PMP opportunities, and direct deals.

Ensure partner proposals are interrogated for strategic fit, audience relevance, cost efficiency, and campaign objective alignment.

Reporting and administration

Maintain accurate campaign documentation, budget records, delivery updates, and reporting inputs.

Support post-campaign reporting with clear insights, learnings, and recommendations.

Ensure admin, timelines, and internal processes are followed consistently. Strong admin and time management skills are specifically highlighted in the vacancy briefing.

Qualifications

• Google Fundamentals of Digital Marketing
• Google Analytics
• Google Ads Video
• Google Shopping Ads
• Google Display Ads
• Google Ads Search
• Facebook Blueprint Planning

Experience:

• At least 3-5 years of digital media planning experience

Required experience and skills

Senior-level programmatic media experience.

Experience managing own budgets.

Experience working with PMPs, programmatic guaranteed deals, and similar programmatic buying models.

Strong attention to detail.

Strong administration and time management skills.

Ability to manage campaign setup, pacing, optimisation, and reporting.

Ability to work across multiple campaigns and stakeholders.

Strong communication skills and confidence dealing with media owners, planners, strategists, and internal teams.

Advantageous experience

Automotive category experience.

Existing relationships with media owners.

Experience working on large-scale brand, launch, sponsorship, always-on, and performance-focused campaigns.

Experience using audience insights and media owner data to inform campaign recommendations.

Hard Skills:

• Able to effectively manage projects
• Comfortable Presenting
• Numerically strong and analytically able
• Strong communicator with effective interpersonal relationships across team and clients
• Advanced IT skills including Microsoft Word, best-in-class Power Point, Excel, Outlook and web-based applications.
• The ability to synthesize and reduce different inputs to create a well-considered and accurate representative view.
• English fluency and language skills for effective business writing
• Strong presentation skills
• Solid data interpretation and analytics skills

Soft Skills

• Is open to constructive feedback and challenges accordingly.
• Is effective at building relationships and working as a team
• Shows leadership and decision-making ability
• Manages change well – adapts and remains flexible to business priorities
• Ability to collaborate without ego as well as work effectively independently
• Is willing to transfer skills and share knowledge openly
• Ability to self-start and self-manage

Ideal candidate profile

The ideal candidate is detail-obsessed, organised, commercially responsible, and proactive. They should be able to manage multiple Toyota campaigns with accuracy, own budgets confidently, and provide meaningful optimisation recommendations that are grounded in audience relevance and campaign objectives.

They should not just be a campaign operator, they should be able to challenge whether an audience, platform, deal, or placement makes strategic sense for Toyota, and help the team deliver smarter programmatic work across the portfolio.

Additional information

Studio One is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits any forms of Discrimination or Harassment.

We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all our employees in line with our Employment Equity Plan.

All appointments will be based on qualifications, experience and best fit but preference will be given to candidates from designated groups.

Interested candidates must please submit a concise CV including a link to your portfolio.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Should you not hear from us within 2 weeks after submitting your application, please consider your application as unsuccessful.