Senior Media Planner
Zambezi’s media division, Scale by Zambezi, is seeking a Senior Media Planner to join our growing team. Scale is a modern media practice that combines creative thinking with data-driven insights.
As a Senior Media Planner, you will be responsible for developing and implementing integrated media plans, working closely with both the media team and our valued clients. The ideal candidate is eager to contribute to a growing team, thrive within a collaborative community of media experts, and continuously advance their career through learning and development. This role offers a significant opportunity to step into a client-facing position and take ownership of key stages of the media workflow, making it an excellent fit for someone with prior Media Planner experience.
Candidates must reside in the greater Los Angeles area.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
20% Lead Strategy & Planning Development
- Utilize planning, evaluation, and buying tools (e.g., Comscore, MRI) to analyze the competitive landscape, understand target audience media consumption and support plan development.
- Demonstrate strong critical thinking and analytical skills to draw conclusions and construct actionable implications.
- Lead the media plan development process, inclusive of crafting RFPs, communicating with partners, evaluating proposals and managing negotiations.
- Monitor trends, tools, opportunities, and applications within media environments, and effectively apply this knowledge.
- Compile updates on partner capabilities and offerings through ongoing vendor communication.
- Participate in team brainstorms to initiate plan and consideration set development.
25% Campaign Execution
- Manage campaign setup, including creation & management of media plan authorizations, insertion orders, buying guidelines, and flowcharts
- Develop and share spec guidelines with creative teams and ensure all creative assets/materials are received
- Traffic plan assets, including required tracking tags
- Conduct Quality Assurance (QA) on tracking functionality and creative units to identify and resolve any issues.
30% Campaign Management
- Monitor campaign tracking & spend pacing
- Maintain organized records of plans, insertion orders, contact lists, and spec documents.
- Create creative allocation sheets and manage the process in collaboration with Account, and Production teams.
- Manage plans within the billing system (Advantage)
- Manage day-to-day communication with key partners, including vendors and partner agencies.
25% Reporting on Campaign Performance
- Construct comprehensive campaign performance reports, aggregating information from third-party servers and site-direct reporting.
- Create and evaluate campaign effectiveness through regular reporting (at predetermined cadences) and post-campaign analysis.
- Monitor reporting and actively communicate optimization opportunities and challenges.
- Comfortably present campaign performance results to clients.
DESIRED SKILLS & REQUIREMENTS
- 3+ years experience in an integrated media role.
- Demonstrate a strong understanding of digital media channels, including planning & buying processes
- Familiarity with campaign trafficking, reporting, and digital specs is essential
- Exhibit experience in planning both national & local media, encompassing large-scale executions and tactical media initiatives.
- Proficiency in implementing media measurement frameworks, employing test-and-learn approaches, and driving optimizations is required.
- Experience with media planning tools such as DCM, Comscore, Nielsen, MRI/Simmons, Prisma, Media Tools, MOAT, IAS, and DV is necessary.
- Experience with Social & Programmatic platforms is considered a plus.
- Familiarity with site analytics platforms (e.g., Google Analytics, Omniture, Adobe) is also a plus.
- Prior experience managing junior staff is preferred.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills, along with a high degree of attention to detail and accuracy, are critical.
- Ability to interpret research, data/analytics, and comfort with general mathematical concepts are required.
- Capability to translate client objectives into actionable media strategies.
- Demonstrated experience presenting directly to clients.
- A self-starter with the ability to work independently.A natural collaborator possessing excellent negotiation and communication skills.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, WordPowerPoint, and GSuite is expected
The salary range for this position is $70,000 - $85,000. Exactly where a prospective employee will be paid within this range will depend on, among other factors, the candidate’s depth of experience and qualifications about the job description and the actual job duties of the role. In addition to salary, we offer comprehensive benefits (covering 100% medical, dental, vision, open PTO, and more). The range above is for the expectations as laid out in the job description, however, we are often open to a wide variety of profiles to find the right candidate for Zambezi.
Our recruitment process relies on human evaluation and judgment to ensure a fair and equitable experience for all candidates. We do not utilize AI-powered tools or automated decision-making systems for screening, evaluation, or hiring decisions.