Director of Media Buying

What You'll Do

• Client Success & Strategic Leadership
• Serve as senior strategic lead across key enterprise programmatic relationships.
• Guide annual, quarterly, and campaign-level media planning to ensure plans align with client business objectives.
• Provide executive-level consultation on audience strategy, channel mix, measurement frameworks, and budget allocation.
• Partner with Client Services leadership to support retention, growth, and overall client satisfaction.
• Lead escalations, performance reviews, and strategic recommendations for high-priority accounts.
• Ensure programmatic strategies are integrated with broader marketing initiatives.
• Media Planning Excellence
• Establish and uphold best practices for programmatic planning across Display, Video, CTV, Audio, Native, and emerging channels.
• Review and elevate media plans, audience strategies, testing frameworks, and measurement approaches.
• Drive consistency in planning methodologies, forecasting, and performance evaluation.
• Ensure planning recommendations are grounded in data, business objectives, and market opportunities.
• Act as a senior reviewer and quality assurance lead for major programmatic initiatives.
• Operational Excellence & Team Leadership
• Lead day-to-day operational health of the programmatic team.
• Drive workflow efficiency, delivery consistency, quality standards, and process improvements.
• Partner with department leadership on capacity planning, staffing recommendations, and resource allocation.
• Coach and mentor Associate Directors, Strategists, and Media Buyers.
• Support onboarding, training, and development initiatives to strengthen team capabilities.
• Ensure operational processes support both client success and scalable growth.
• Innovation & Practice Development
• Identify emerging technologies, platforms, and opportunities that enhance client performance.
• Partner with executive leadership on evolving programmatic offerings, positioning, and go-to-market strategies.
• Champion adoption of new capabilities, measurement approaches, and planning methodologies.
• Represent the agency as a thought leader internally and externally when appropriate.

What You'll Bring

• 10+ years of digital media buying and programmatic advertising experience.
• 5+ years leading teams, departments, or agency service lines.
• Extensive expertise managing multimillion-dollar media investments across programmatic channels.
• Prominent experience leading enterprise-level client relationships.
• Strong understanding of agency operations, resource management, and financial performance.
• Experience owning departmental budgets, forecasting, and profitability targets.
• Deep experience across Demand Side Platforms (StackAdapt, DV360, TTD, etc.), Ad Servers (Campaign Manager), Web Analytics (Google Analytics), and MTA/MMMs.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentational skills.
• Exceptional time management and organization skills.
• Knowledge of remarketing and advanced targeting tactics, including dynamic creative, CRM, site retargeting, search retargeting, keyword contextual, affinity, look-a-like, predictive, etc.

Benefits And Perks

• Remote Workplace.
• Paid Time Off.
• 401K + Match.
• Life Insurance Benefit.
• Short Term Disability Benefit.
• Healthcare.
• Commuter Benefits.
• Continuing Education.

About the Role

829 Studios is a Boston-based integrated digital marketing agency with a mission to propel organizations to unlock their full potential and accomplish their most ambitious goals. We harness the power of logic with magic – a balance of data-driven strategy and brand-focused creative. We partner with diverse organizations across various industries and our client list encompasses venture-backed start-ups, publicly traded companies, non-profits, and more.

Qualifications

Salary Range: $120,000-$150,000