Senior Manager, Ad Operations

Senior Manager, Ad Operations Beauty, Fashion & Wellness · California

THE COMPANY The company is a California-based beauty, fashion, and wellness lifestyle platform, built on a foundation of carefully curated content and products. Results are the common language here — clear goals, clear numbers, a visible line from contribution to outcome. AI is native to the way the team works, in every function, which raises the bar on what a small group can accomplish. Authority sits with the work: your scope is defined, and inside it you have real decision rights that we expect you to use. Founder mode is not a phase we are in; it is how the company is built. REPORTING STRUCTURE This role reports directly to the VP, Strategic Partnerships & Sales and sits within the Strategic Partnerships team. ABOUT THE ROLE We are seeking a Senior Manager, Ad Operations to lead the day-to-day operational engine behind our digital media business. This individual is the organization's digital media expert — owning pricing strategy, inventory forecasting, campaign trafficking and delivery, and post-sale reporting across our digital media, social, newsletter, and podcast advertising products. This is a highly cross-functional role that partners closely with Sales, Marketing, Edit, Creative, Finance, and Engineering, and requires deep institutional knowledge of our most valued client and agency relationships. WHAT YOU'LL DO Pricing, Inventory & Forecasting ● Lead campaign pricing strategy, owning and maintaining the digital media rate card and managing CPMs to ensure competitive pricing across digital media, social media, newsletter, and podcast inventory. ● Forecast and manage inventory availability across digital media, newsletter, and paid social on behalf of partners. ● Oversee traffic buys with third-party traffic vendors during high-volume periods (e.g., Q4) to ensure sufficient site inventory. Campaign Trafficking & Delivery ● Launch and traffic campaigns end-to-end, ensuring ad tags are implemented correctly and all sold media delivers in full. ● Implement third-party impression and click tracking through partners' ad servers of choice. ● Optimize live campaigns to ensure strong performance and on-time, in-full delivery.

● Serve as the primary point of contact with the internal tech team to triage and resolve ad-serving or site issues. Media Planning & Pre-Sale Support ● Partner with the Sales team during pre-sale negotiations as the team's digital media subject-matter expert. ● Build media plans that meet client KPIs, including awareness, engagement, share of voice, viewability, and competitive separation requirements. ● Own the full RFP process (75–100+ annually), building media plans and negotiating deliverables with clients and agencies. Creative & Cross-Functional Collaboration ● Partner with Edit and Creative teams to develop custom native ad units for select campaigns. ● Collect and manage creative assets and imagery from clients and agencies to support custom ad builds. Client & Agency Management ● Serve as the dedicated relationship owner for a portfolio of key advertising clients and agencies across luxury, auto, tech, and finance verticals — the direct point of contact fielding questions and resolving issues in real time across the full campaign lifecycle. ● Maintain institutional knowledge of high-touch clients and partners, including their nuanced needs and expectations. ● Own client onboarding for new digital media partners, ensuring a smooth handoff from Sales into ad operations and campaign execution. ● Field recurring client touchpoints to walk through campaign performance, surface concerns early, and identify growth opportunities. ● Proactively monitor account health — delivery pacing, creative approvals, campaign performance — and flag risk before it becomes a client-facing issue. ● Act as the internal escalation point for service issues, pulling in the appropriate leads across Sales, Marketing, Tech, Finance, or Creative as needed to resolve concerns quickly. ● Partner with Sales to identify renewal, upsell, and expansion opportunities within existing digital media accounts. ● Manage the relationship with our podcast partner, overseeing inventory, deliverables, pricing, and campaign management. Post-Sale & Reporting ● Partner with Finance on campaign billing and actuals. ● Own post-sale campaign analytics, external reporting, and screenshot/performance decks for clients and agencies.

CORE COMPETENCIES This role goes beyond a fixed list of tasks. The ideal candidate operates as a true utility player for the team — trusted, dependable, and resourceful, and willing to pick up new or undefined projects as they arise. ● Builds and improves systems and processes proactively, often behind the scenes, so that sales leads and marketers never have to worry about the operational details. ● Maintains a consistently high bar for client and agency service — responsive, supportive, and available to partners when they need it. ● Brings a kind demeanor and positive attitude to every interaction, building relationships that make clients and agencies want to keep working with us. ● Responds quickly and reliably, giving internal and external partners confidence that things are handled. ● Takes ownership beyond the scope of any single campaign or ticket, acting as a dependable go-to resource for the broader team. WHAT YOU BRING ● 5+ years of experience in digital ad operations, media trafficking, or a related digital media role, ideally within publishing, media, or e-commerce. ● Hands-on experience with ad servers (e.g., Google Ad Manager) and third-party ad tracking/verification platforms. ● Strong command of digital media pricing, rate cards, and CPM/CPC economics. ● Proven experience building media plans against client KPIs (awareness, engagement, SOV, viewability). ● Experience managing high-touch client and agency relationships, including at senior levels. ● Strong cross-functional collaborator, with experience working alongside Sales, Creative, Edit, Finance, and Engineering teams. ● Excellent organizational skills and comfort managing high RFP volume and Q4-style peak periods. ● Advanced Excel/analytics skills and experience building client-facing reporting decks. ● Detail-oriented, deadline-driven, and comfortable troubleshooting technical ad-delivery issues.

5+ years in digital ad operations, media trafficking, or publishing/e-commerce digital media role with hands-on Google Ad Manager and third-party ad tracking platform experience, strong CPM/CPC pricing expertise, and proven client relationship management at senior levels.

Experience with RFP management at scale (75-100+ annually), custom native ad unit development, podcast advertising inventory management, and familiarity with luxury, auto, tech, or finance vertical advertising dynamics.

Google Ad Manager, third-party ad servers, impression and click tracking platforms, advanced Excel, analytics tools, and client-facing reporting/deck-building software.