Media Buyer & Planner

As a Media Planner & Buyer at SPARK you'll build and execute media plans for clients. You'll work alongside our Client Experience lead, translating strategy into tactical media recommendations, running the RFP process with publishers and vendors, and getting campaigns into market on tight timelines. You are a creative thinker who doesn't default to the same three tactics on every plan, and you're comfortable doing the blocking and tackling yourself. If this sounds like you, read on.

The Role:

Media Planning: 

• Translate campaign strategy and client objectives into tactical media recommendations across digital and traditional channels.
• Build media plans that reach layered audiences, including older demographics through traditional and local channels and younger demographics through digital and social.
• Bring out-of-the-box thinking to every plan. Out-of-home activations, experiential opportunities, and non-standard publisher partnerships, not just the standard buy.
• Develop flowcharts, budget allocations, and rationale documents that a client can understand and approve.

RFP & Vendor Management:

• Write and issue media briefs and RFPs to publishers and vendors with clear specs, timelines, and objectives.
• Push publishers to bring creative, non-templated ideas rather than accepting rate cards as submitted.
• Collect, normalize, and compare vendor proposals against budget and objectives.
• Negotiate rates, added value, and placement to stretch a modest budget as far as it will go.

Buying & Execution:

• Execute buys across paid search, paid social, programmatic, and traditional channels.
• Build and manage campaigns in Google Ads and Meta, including setup, targeting, and QA.
• Manage insertion orders, trafficking, creative specs, and launch checklists so campaigns go live on time and correctly.
• Coordinate with internal creative and account teams on asset specs and deadlines.

Reporting & Optimization:

• Monitor in-flight performance and recommend optimizations.
• Build clear, client-ready performance reports that tie back to campaign objectives.
• Maintain organized documentation of plans, buys, IOs, and vendor communication for handoff to the internal team.

Experience Required: 

• 3+ years planning and buying media, including hands-on buying (not planning only)
• Hands-on platform experience: Google Ads, Ad Server, Meta Ads Manager, programmatic DSPs, Google Analytics
• Traditional media experience (out-of-home, TV, radio, print, local partnerships) strongly preferred
• Experience running RFP processes with publishers and vendors
• Previous agency experience preferred