Digital Marketing/Communications Manager: Paid Media Buying — Publisher Direct, Endemic Trade & Programmatic

Company Cox Automotive - USA

Job Family Group

Marketing

Job Profile

Digital Marketing / Communications Manager

Management Level

Manager - Non People Leader

Flexible Work Option

Can work remotely but need to live in the specified city, state, or region

Travel %

Yes, 5% of the time

Work Shift

Day

Compensation

Compensation includes a base salary in the range of $92,300.00 - $153,900.00. The base salary may vary within the anticipated base pay range based on factors such as the ultimate location of the position and the selected candidate’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. Position may be eligible for additional compensation that may include an incentive program.

Job Description

*This position is remote/work from home. You need to reside within the Eastern or Central Time Zones (Atlanta is preferred). If you live near any of the office locations listed, the role will be hybrid.

The Digital Marketing / Communications Manager owns paid media buying across endemic trade publications, industry sponsorships, and programmatic platforms in support of the entire enterprise marketing portfolio. This role plans, negotiates, executes, and optimizes publisher-direct placements — display, newsletter, native, custom content, event and print — and manages a secondary book of programmatic and paid social buying. As the enterprise moves media buying in-house, this role develops the buying model itself: establishing scalable processes for publisher negotiation, insertion order management, trafficking, verification, and reconciliation where those processes do not exist today.

This is a deep subject matter expert role without direct reports. The Manager partners with Product and Brand Marketing on campaign objectives and audience priorities, with Marketing Analytics on measurement design and attribution, with MarTech on audience activation and tag governance, and with Supply Chain and Finance on publisher contracts, purchase orders, and spend reconciliation. Success looks like a defensible annual publisher plan, negotiated rates that measurably improve cost efficiency against prior agency-managed spend, and reporting that connects media investment to pipeline outcomes.

What You’ll Do

Publisher-Direct & Endemic Trade Media Buying

• Develops and evolves the annual endemic media plan, defining publisher mix, placement types, flighting, and budget allocation against campaign and business objectives.

• Negotiate rates, added value, and contract terms directly with trade publishers, evaluating rate cards against audience quality, historical performance, and comparable market benchmarks.

• Manages the full buy cycle from RFP and proposal evaluation through insertion order execution, trafficking, in-flight monitoring, make-good resolution, and post-campaign reconciliation.

• Assesses publisher audience composition, circulation and traffic claims, and third-party verification data to determine whether a placement reaches the intended buyer audience.

• Establishes scalable frameworks for publisher evaluation and renewal decisions, including performance thresholds that determine which partners scale, hold, or sunset.

• Maintains the publisher relationship portfolio, conducting regular performance reviews and surfacing new inventory, formats, and first-look opportunities.

Sponsorships, Custom Content & Print Placements

• Plans and executes sponsorship packages including newsletter takeovers, webinars, research reports, awards programs, and industry event presence.

• Develops creative briefs for custom content and sponsored editorial, partnering with Content and Brand Marketing teams to produce assets that meet publisher specifications and brand standards.

• Manages print placements including space reservations, material deadlines, mechanical specifications, and proofing coordination.

• Recommends and drives the balance between awareness-oriented sponsorship investment and direct-response placements based on program objectives and measured contribution.

Programmatic & Platform Buying

• Manages campaign execution across DSPs and paid social platforms, including setup, audience targeting, bid strategy selection, pacing, and daily optimization.

• Manages audience targeting across retargeting, lookalike, intent-based, and first-party segments activated from the enterprise customer data platform.

• Coordinates creative testing across ad copy, visuals, calls to action, and landing pages, and applies results to subsequent flights.

• Establishes platform-specific best practices that account for differing algorithms, inventory quality, formats, and audience behaviors across buying platforms.

Media Operations, Budget & Vendor Management

• Manages the paid media budget across publishers and platforms, monitoring spend pacing against plan and reallocating funds toward higher-performing placements.

• Establishes scalable processes for insertion order tracking, purchase order creation, invoice validation, accrual tracking, and month-end close in partnership with Finance.

• Manages ad trafficking, tag and pixel implementation, and third-party ad server configuration, coordinating with MarTech on tag governance and site implementation.

• Develops quality assurance checklists covering creative specifications, tracking validation, landing page readiness, and legal and brand compliance prior to launch.

• Manages agency and vendor relationships for the portion of media that remains outsourced, defining deliverables, service levels, and performance expectations.

• Establishes naming conventions and campaign taxonomy for paid media so spend and performance roll up consistently across publishers, platforms, and brands.

Performance Measurement & Optimization

• Proactively reports on performance by publisher, placement, and campaign, and provides improvement recommendations to marketing leadership and boundary partners.

• Defines and tracks paid media KPIs including impressions, click-through rate, cost per click, cost per lead, cost per acquisition, return on ad spend, viewability, and video completion rate.

• Partners with Marketing Analytics on conversion tracking and attribution methodology, connecting paid media investment to pipeline and closed revenue.

• Conducts pre- and post-campaign analysis and builds a performance repository of past buys to inform future publisher selection and budget allocation.

• Monitors competitive share of voice within endemic trade media and recommends adjustments to placement strategy in response.

Capability Build & Cross-Functional Partnership

• Documents standard operating procedures and buying playbooks for the in-house media function, covering negotiation, execution, measurement, and reconciliation.

• Serves as subject matter expert on endemic trade media and media buying practices, advising Product and Brand Marketing partners on feasibility, timelines, and expected outcomes.

• Contributes to the innovation roadmap for paid media, evaluating emerging inventory, formats, and buying technologies for relevance to the portfolio.

• Shares buying knowledge and mentors specialist-level teammates as the paid media function expands, without direct reporting responsibility.

What’s in It for You?

Here’s a sneak peek at the benefits you could experience as a Cox employee:

• A competitive salary and top-notch bonus plans.
• Exceptional work-life balance, flexible time-off policies and accommodating work schedules.
• Comprehensive healthcare, with multiple options for individuals and families.
• Generous 401(k) retirement plans with company match.
• Professional development and continuing education opportunities.
• Inclusive parental leave policies, plus comprehensive fertility coverage and adoption assistance.
• Extra perks like pet insurance, employee discounts and much more.

Who You Are

Minimum:

• Bachelor’s degree in related discipline and 6 years’ experience in a related field. The right candidate could also have a different combination, such as a master’s degree and 4 years’ experience; a Ph.D. and 1 year of experience; or 10 years’ experience in a related field.

• Demonstrated experience buying media directly from publishers, including rate and contract negotiation, insertion order management, and post-buy reconciliation.

• Hands-on experience managing programmatic and paid social campaigns across demand-side platforms and self-serve buying platforms.

• Experience supporting multiple brands or business lines within a large, matrixed enterprise organization.

• Analytical thinking at a skilled level; interprets performance data, identifies root causes, and makes well-reasoned, data-based recommendations on media investment.

• Negotiation and vendor management; secures favorable terms and holds publishers and agencies accountable to committed deliverables.

• Business process management; builds repeatable processes and documentation where none exist and improves them as the function matures.

• Communication; explains media strategy, trade-offs, and results clearly to technical and non-technical audiences, including senior stakeholders.

• Collaboration and influence; works effectively across Marketing, Analytics, MarTech, Finance, and Supply Chain without direct authority.

• Business acumen; understands the automotive industry landscape and connects media decisions to revenue and pipeline outcomes.

• Proficiency with demand-side and self-serve buying platforms such as DV360, Microsoft Monetize, Meta, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google Ads or Search Ads 360.

• Working knowledge of ad serving and verification, including Campaign Manager 360 or comparable third-party ad servers, and viewability and brand safety vendors.

• Ability to implement and troubleshoot ad tags, pixels, and conversion tracking in coordination with web and MarTech teams.

• Fluency in media math and planning concepts, including CPM, CPC, CPA, CPL, ROAS, viewability, frequency, reach, and share of voice.

• Familiarity with audience activation from a customer data platform such as Salesforce Data Cloud, and with reporting environments such as Snowflake, Tableau, or DOMO.

• Experience with project management platforms such as Monday.com, and advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.

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Preferred:

• Experience establishing a new capability or transitioning media buying from agency-managed to in-house is strongly preferred.
• B2B media experience preferred; endemic or trade publication buying experience is a significant advantage.

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Join the Cox family of businesses and make your mark today!

Drug Testing

To be employed in this role, you’ll need to clear a pre-employment drug test. Cox Automotive does not currently administer a pre-employment drug test for marijuana for this position. However, we are a drug-free workplace, so the possession, use or being under the influence of drugs illegal under federal or state law during work hours, on company property and/or in company vehicles is prohibited.

Benefits

The Company offers eligible employees the flexibility to take as much vacation with pay as they deem consistent with their duties, the company’s needs, and its obligations; seven paid holidays throughout the calendar year; and up to 160 hours of paid wellness annually for their own wellness or that of family members. Employees are also eligible for additional paid time off in the form of bereavement leave, time off to vote, jury duty leave, volunteer time off, military leave, and parental leave.

About Us

Through groundbreaking technology and a commitment to stellar experiences for drivers and dealers alike, Cox Automotive employees are transforming the way the world buys, owns, sells – or simply uses – cars. Cox Automotive employees get to work on iconic consumer brands like Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book and industry-leading dealer-facing companies like vAuto and Manheim, all while enjoying the people-centered atmosphere that is central to our life at Cox. Benefits of working at Cox may include health care insurance (medical, dental, vision), retirement planning (401(k)), and paid days off (sick leave, parental leave, flexible vacation/wellness days, and/or PTO). For more details on what benefits you may be offered, visit our benefits page. Cox is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer – All qualified applicants/employees will receive consideration for employment without regard to that individual’s age, race, color, religion or creed, national origin or ancestry, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, physical or mental disability, veteran status, genetic information, ethnicity, citizenship, or any other characteristic protected by law. Cox provides reasonable accommodations when requested by a qualified applicant or employee with disability, unless such accommodations would cause an undue hardship.EOE, including disability/vetsApplicants must currently be authorized to work in the United States for any employer without current or future sponsorship. No OPT, CPT, STEM/OPT or visa sponsorship now or in future.