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Sr. Performance Media Buyer, Programmatic

San Mateo, CA

Sony Interactive Entertainment is rethinking Digital Marketing, launching an in-house digital media buying team and building a best-in-class data foundation. This team will be entrepreneurial at its core: laying the foundation of a new internal marketing function while growing and evolving to meet the needs of PlayStation’s businesses. As associate manager, you will have a key role in setting up the programmatic and social media teams.

The Senior Buyer, Programmatic will oversee the day-to-day activity of the programmatic teams; including end-to-end campaign execution, optimization and management of campaign budgets and pacing. Responsible for driving team’s constant high quality output and innovation. Over time this team will buy the majority of programmatic, search and social media that drives direct ROI for Sony PlayStation, with a focus on our digital businesses in mature markets. The ideal candidate must be very solutions-oriented, happy to work with multiple internal and external teams, as well as ‘hands-on-keyboard’ work to proactively identify and solve problems and ensure flawless campaign execution. The programmatic manager will accomplish these goals by:

Helping build a successful programmatic operation from the ground up: developing systems and processes which ensure a high-quality output as the team scales.
Managing relationships with partners and vendors, keeping abreast of industry developments to ensure the team are recognized as industry leaders across the organization.
Designing and implementing best-practice programmatic campaigns, synthesizing inputs from various campaign stakeholders (e.g. incorporating test-&-learn plans, aligning audience targeting to broader media team goals, etc.) and managing the team to ensure these plans are implemented seamlessly

Job Duties:

Campaign Planning: You will be responsible for leading the planning and managing programmatic campaigns for PlayStation®4, PlayStation®VR, PlayStation®Store, PlayStation®Plus, PlayStation™Now, PlayStation™Direct, and acclaimed PlayStation software titles from SIE Worldwide Studios. You will translate strategic business targets from media briefs into actionable audiences by using industry knowledge & ad technology tools such as our DMP. You will also work directly with the internal planning teams and agency partners, acting as the primary point of contact for programmatic planning, and all relevant campaign/billing documentation in preparation for campaign launch and post-campaign wrap-up.

Campaign workflows: You will be responsible for developing and implementing campaign workflows across the team: identifying opportunities to increase efficiency, improve communication and reduce the potential for error. You will be responsible for improving automation across the team in all areas.

Campaign Setup and QA: Your team will be responsible for the creation of campaigns in the platforms as well as performing all necessary checks before campaign activation. On the data front, you will work extensively with internal and external teams to ensure 1st party data segments ‘piped’ correctly to platform(s) before launch.

Campaign Management and Optimizations: You will be responsible for the optimization process across all campaigns and manage your team who will be constantly optimizing and adjusting campaigns as performance concerns & optimization opportunities arise. In addition, you will monitor audience performance data analysis and actively optimize across platforms while measuring performance and recommending further opportunities to drive performance. You will support the PMP deal negotiation process and ensure all PMPs are functioning correctly.

Analytics and Reporting: You will manage a tracker to monitor all performance changes & optimizations across the team. You will create weekly and post-campaign performance reports for the global Media Team, which will provide analysis, insights, and visualization in a way which adds value to the team. You will also collaborate with the Marketing Technology team and use data analytics to ensure all testing initiatives are set-up and measured appropriately so valuable creative and media insights can be gathered by end of test/campaign. You will work with the Marketing Technology to identify opportunities to improve reporting, analysis and automation.

Billing Responsibility: You will oversee billing and actualization across the team, ensure campaigns are tracking to budget and work with internal finance team to provide monthly approvals and forecasting.

People Management: You will actively mentor team members and provide guidance, QA support, etc., across job functions mentioned above. You will delegate and prioritize tasks accordingly and drive the day-to-day responsibilities of the team.

New opportunities: Responsible for Identifying new platforms, partners and integrations, evaluating these (and existing platforms) over time and maintaining a strategic POV and partner/platform roadmap, as well as designing and maintaining a test and learn roadmap.
Cross Functional Teamwork: You will ensure broader global Media Planning, Marketing Technology and Strategy teams aligned on in-house activation strategy. You will educate marketing team members on programmatic performance and best practices. Collaboration with media agency of record to ensure productive working relationship continues will be key.

Requirements:

Bachelor's degree, MBA and/or equivalent experience preferred
5-7 years of experience in media planning and/or media activation, with hands-on executional experience with planning and managing large-scale programmatic activity across
Extensive knowledge in technologies such as DV360, TTD, Verizon Media, AAP, Xandr
Expert in most recent global privacy legislation, such as: GDPR, CCPA, COPPA and more
In-depth knowledge of media planning fundamentals e.g. reach, frequency, formats, measurement etc. and how these can translate to business metrics
Proven track record managing high campaign volume, large budgets, complex strategies across multiple channels and driving quantifiable results
Experience with DoubleClick Campaign Manager and other 3rd party tracking solutions required
Advanced experience in working with Excel (e.g. PivotTables, Pivot Graph, Data Table, etc.)

Candidate Preferred Qualities:

Strong entrepreneurial spirit – someone eager to dive into the challenges & rewards that will come with building Sony PlayStation’s in-house media buying function from the ground up
Demonstrate ability to lead a team, managing direct reports and responsible for overall output of team
Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work with cross-function teams with varying media knowledge. You will need the ability to understand the challenges of other teams.
Cross-channel media strategy: the skills to connect programmatic, search and social media plans to larger Sony Media objectives
Knowledge of biddable channels beyond programmatic, including search and social
Work under pressure and with short deadlines across multiple teams with fragmented, vertical priorities
Process-oriented with the ability to clearly define, implement, and manage scalable sustainable processes for a new and growing team- constantly challenging the status quo
Develop and retain a highly effective distributed team; manage team members to successfully deliver on program goals
Articulate complex technology-related issues and educate a variety of audiences
Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work with cross-function teams
Excellent communication and presentation skills both verbal and written
Self-starter with passion, energy, enthusiasm to drive results and affect meaningful change
Strong interest in video games and entertainment

Sony is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All persons will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, legally protected physical or mental disability, covered veteran status, status in the U.S. uniformed services, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, genetic information or membership in any other legally protected category.

We strive to create an inclusive environment, empower employees and embrace diversity. We encourage everyone to respond.

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