ESC has an exciting opportunity for a Manager of Audience Strategy & Operations to support a growing retail media organization. This contract-to-hire role is ideal for an experienced audience strategy or digital media professional with expertise in first-party data, audience activation, and AdTech/MarTech platforms .
The Manager will serve as a subject matter expert for audience targeting and activation, partnering with internal teams and external agencies, technology providers, and publisher partners.
Responsibilities:
- Lead audience strategy, targeting, segmentation, and activation across campaigns
- Translate advertiser objectives into actionable audience recommendations
- Partner with Sales, Account Management, Product, Data, and Measurement teams on audience strategy and campaign planning
- Own the end-to-end audience workflow from development and distribution through activation, maintenance, and retirement
- Manage day-to-day operations and relationships with agency, technology, and publisher partners
- Establish audience workflows, documentation, governance, naming standards, and activation best practices
- Monitor audience readiness, platform hygiene, and activation issues, escalating and resolving challenges as needed
- Identify opportunities to improve audience capabilities, operational efficiency, and campaign performance
- Evaluate emerging audience technologies, data sources, and industry trends and recommend new capabilities or tests
- Lead cross-functional initiatives related to audience operations, process improvement, and capability development
Must Have Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in a related discipline preferred
- 5+ years of experience in retail media, digital advertising, audience strategy, media activation, AdTech, data strategy, or related field
- Experience developing and executing audience strategies using first-party data
- Strong understanding of audience segmentation, identity, activation, syndication, and digital media ecosystems
- Experience with audience management platforms, identity providers, or AdTech/MarTech solutions
- Experience managing external agency, technology, publisher, or other partners
- Strong analytical, project management, communication, and problem-solving skills
- Proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint
Nice to Have Qualifications:
- Experience with LiveRamp, Adobe CDPs, SAS, clean rooms, audience marketplaces , or similar technologies
- Experience developing audience taxonomies or segmentation frameworks
- Experience with omnichannel activation, measurement, attribution, or retail media analytics
- Experience leading cross-functional initiatives or process improvements
- Experience developing client-facing audience recommendations and presentations
- Familiarity with privacy, identity, and first-party data practices
Manager of Audience Strategy & Operations in bolingbrook at Unknown Company
This position is listed as contract and onsite.