Specialist, Media Planning & Buying

Nationwide•Columbus, OH

2d•$79,500 - $148,500•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Specialist on the Media Planning & Buying team, you'll support the development and execution of marketing and media strategies for Nationwide Financial. The Specialist applies marketing, media, communications, research, analytics, and customer-focused principles to help translate business objectives into effective paid media plans and programs. This role works closely with senior media leaders, business stakeholders, agencies, creative partners, analytics teams, publishers, and technology platforms. The Specialist contributes to strategy development, campaign planning, creative and audience recommendations, activation, optimization, measurement, and stakeholder communication. The role is expected to manage assigned work independently, contribute meaningfully to complex projects, and progressively assume greater campaign ownership. This hybrid position is based in Columbus, OH. Candidates will collaborate in office 2 days per week.

Requirements

Undergraduate degree in a quantitative field, e.g., business, finance, communication, etc. preferred.
Typically, five or more years demonstrated experience in digital media
Knowledge of the principles of digital media development and execution, and the programmatic media supply chain.
Knowledge of current practices in leading programmatic and social campaigns.
Understanding of digital media tools, including demand side platforms, ad servers, and web analytics tools.
Strong communication skills.
Working skills in project planning, executing, and implementing.
Critical thinking and listening skills.
Proven analytical skills with fact-based approach to solving business problems.
Ability to lead and prioritize projects; function independently or in a team environment; adjust to ambiguous work or project environments; and quickly pick up and comprehend foreign concepts and practices.

Responsibilities

Support the development and execution of marketing and paid media strategies and plans that contribute to sustainable business growth, brand objectives, customer needs, and profitable results.
Support planning and execution across digital and traditional marketing tactics and media, including paid social, search, display, video, audio, programmatic, and other relevant channels.
Synthesize data and campaign performance to support business-building recommendations and media decisions.
Coordinate assigned components of the creative development process, including creative briefs, media requirements, audience considerations, channel specifications, feedback, approvals, and launch readiness.
Review customer insights and performance data to help understand and anticipate market, competitor, customer, and audience needs.
Help define and evaluate target audiences, assess the sufficiency of available data, and apply data-based decisions to improve campaign effectiveness.
Monitor campaign performance and supports optimization of media delivery, audience strategy, investment allocation, creative rotation, channel mix, and other relevant tactics.
Develop clear status updates, performance reports, presentations, recommendations, and other communications for media leaders and business stakeholders.
Maintain accurate campaign, budget, approval, documentation, and reporting records and performs quality-control reviews to reduce errors and rework.
Participate in cross-training, knowledge transfer, and backup coverage to strengthen team continuity across Nationwide's business units.
Makes the best use of advertising and marketing technology platforms to build, implement and optimize paid digital media campaigns.
Pulls campaign performance data and builds data visualization reports to present results to internal and external partners on a regular basis.
Generates campaign performance insights and optimization recommendations. Applies optimization recommendations on a daily/weekly basis to continuously improve campaign performance.
Performs post-launch quality assurance. Uses demand side platform and ad server data to ensure campaign is running as expected. As needed, troubleshoots with agency partners, publishers, and tech partners.
Collaborates with other marketing teams to identify digital tracking requirements and ensure correct implementation of media, creative and website tags.