Freelance Senior Manager, Programmatic

Company description

About Publicis Commerce: Informed by data, our passionate team strives to deliver Hero Moments for our clients’ brands in the final mile of the retail customer journey. We pride ourselves on being able to provide winning client solutions delivered across 7 core capability areas: Data & Consumer Insights; Shopper Marketing & Integrated RTM; Field Marketing; Events & Activations; Promotional, Risk, Reward & Loyalty and Retail POS Strategy.

Overview

We're seeking a Freelance Senior Manager, Programmatic to lead commerce media strategy and activation across retailer, marketplace, and broader programmatic ecosystems. This role will connect media investment to the shopper journey, using retailer first-party data, commerce signals, and closed-loop measurement to drive outcomes such as product discovery, consideration, conversion, sales growth, and customer acquisition.

The ideal candidate brings deep experience in programmatic advertising within commerce and retail media environments, including hands-on expertise with Amazon DSP and other retail media platforms. This leader will guide full-funnel planning across onsite and offsite media, translate brand and commercial objectives into activation strategies, and help clients understand how media, merchandising, audience, and measurement decisions work together to influence growth.

Responsibilities

Commerce Media & Programmatic Strategy

• Lead the development and execution of full-funnel commerce programmatic strategies across retailer, marketplace, and open-web ecosystems, connecting brand objectives with shopper and commercial outcomes.

• Build audience strategies using retailer first-party data, shopper behavior, purchase signals, category insights, and CRM or brand data to reach high-value audiences across the path to purchase.

• Provide strategic leadership across Amazon DSP, Walmart Connect, and other retail media and programmatic platforms, including onsite and offsite activation opportunities.

• Develop recommendations across audience segmentation, retail moments, inventory, creative formats, bidding, budget allocation, measurement, and optimization, with a focus on conversion, sales, ROAS, new-to-brand growth, and incrementality where available.

Campaign Activation & Performance

• Oversee the setup, execution, optimization, and reporting of commerce programmatic campaigns across DSPs and retail media platforms, ensuring alignment to product, category, promotional, and seasonal priorities.

• Improve performance through audience refinement, bid and budget optimization, inventory curation, creative and offer testing, frequency management, and lower-funnel conversion analysis.

• Identify opportunities to expand investment across retail media networks, marketplaces, and commerce-enabled channels based on shopper behavior, retailer priorities, product availability, and measurable growth potential.

• Establish activation, quality assurance, measurement, and learning-agenda best practices that connect media performance with commerce outcomes and support scalable execution.

Client Leadership & Strategic Planning

• Partner with commerce, shopper, media, analytics, creative, eCommerce, sales, and client stakeholders to develop integrated plans aligned with brand, retailer, category, and revenue objectives.

• Present strategic recommendations, investment scenarios, performance insights, and optimization plans to senior client stakeholders, clearly connecting media activity to business impact.

• Translate campaign performance, shopper behavior, retail signals, digital shelf considerations, and audience insights into actionable recommendations for media, commerce, and growth planning.

• Serve as a subject matter expert on commerce media, retail media networks, marketplace dynamics, closed-loop measurement, incrementality, and emerging opportunities across the connected commerce landscape.

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead, mentor, and develop Programmatic Managers and Specialists.

• Provide guidance on commerce platform activation, audience development, retail media measurement, reporting, optimization, and the interpretation of brand and sales outcomes.

• Establish team standards, workflows, training, and knowledge-sharing that strengthen commerce fluency and support consistent execution across retailers, platforms, and client portfolios.

• Foster a collaborative, high-performance environment focused on innovation, accountability, and professional development.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in programmatic advertising, commerce media, retail media, shopper marketing, eCommerce, or performance media activation.

• Hands-on experience managing campaigns within Amazon DSP and other leading demand-side or retail media platforms; experience with Walmart Connect or additional retailer ecosystems is a plus.

• Experience developing full-funnel media strategies within commerce media, retail media, eCommerce, marketplace, CPG, or omnichannel marketing environments.

• Strong understanding of retailer first-party data, shopper audiences, bidding and budget strategies, onsite and offsite inventory, closed-loop measurement, ROAS, new-to-brand metrics, incrementality, and optimization methodologies.

• Demonstrated success managing complex client relationships and translating media, shopper, and commerce performance into clear investment and growth recommendations.

• Experience mentoring, coaching, or managing team members.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities, including the ability to connect campaign metrics with sales, conversion, category, and customer outcomes.

• Advanced Excel skills, including Pivot Tables, lookups, and performance analysis.

• Excellent communication, presentation, and storytelling abilities, with the ability to simplify complex media and commerce concepts for cross-functional and senior audiences.

• Ability to balance strategic commerce leadership with hands-on programmatic execution when needed.

Additional information

The Power of One starts with our people! To do powerful things, we offer powerful resources. Our best-in-class wellness and benefits offerings include:

Paid Family Care for parents and caregivers for 12 weeks or more

Monetary assistance and support for Adoption, Surrogacy and Fertility

Monetary assistance and support for pet adoption

Employee Assistance Programs and Health/Wellness/Comfort reimbursements to help you invest in your future and work/life balance

Tuition Assistance

Paid time off that includes Flexible Time off Vacation, Annual Sick Days, Volunteer Days, Holiday and Identity days, and more

Matching Gifts programs

Flexible working arrangements

‘Work Your World’ Program encouraging employees to work from anywhere Publicis Groupe has an office for up to 6 weeks a year (based upon eligibility)

Business Resource Groups that support multiple affinities and alliances

The benefits offerings listed are available to eligible U.S. Based employees, are reviewed on an annual basis, and are governed by the terms of the applicable plan documents.

We also offer medical and voluntary benefits to our freelancers and temporary employees. Voluntary benefit options include supplemental medical insurance, transportation, and parking benefits, legal benefits, pet insurance, and auto and home insurance. You must be actively employed for 90 consecutive calendar days in order to be eligible for Publicis medical and voluntary benefits.

Publicis Commerce is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Our employment decisions are made without regard to actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, disability, medical condition as defined by applicable state law, genetic information, marital status, military service and veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local laws and ordinances.

If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact [email protected].

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

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Compensation Range: USD $46.81 - USD $64.09/Hourly. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third-party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 10/12/2026.