Paid Media Manager, Amazon PPC (Amazon Advertising, Principal Level)

Fuel the Growth of Enterprise Brands on Amazon!

Role: Paid Media Manager, Amazon PPC (Amazon Advertising, Principal Level)
Location: San Diego, CA 92101 (Onsite at Symphony Towers)
Compensation Range: 125,000-175,000 DOE

Luminize is one of the top 5 Amazon sellers in the US. On most of our brands we buy the inventory ourselves. That changes the job: you are not optimizing to a ROAS target somebody else set, you are deciding what the ad spend should be when the margin is ours to protect.

You will own large enterprise brands and hundreds of thousands of dollars in monthly ad spend . These are accounts where the escalation comes to you, and nobody above you is going to rebuild the campaign structure for you.

What actually makes this a Principal seat, rather than a Senior one with a bigger book:

• You own enterprise accounts end to end. Not "supported." Owned, including the escalations, the cross-functional mess behind them, and the fix that stops them recurring.
• You build things the rest of the org uses. Toolsets, templates, playbooks for the entire department.
• You develop other strategists. You own SME and training content for up to three advertising functions, and you can point at a specific person and say what you taught them.
• You reason in contribution margin, not just ROAS. When we own the inventory, the right ad spend target is a different calculation. If that sentence is already obvious to you, we should talk.
• A normal week still includes restructuring campaigns in Ad Console, pulling the Search Term Report, setting negation thresholds and defending them, and deciding where branded spend is worth it against organic rank. Roughly 60 to 70 percent of your week is heads-down execution in platform.

You may currently be a…

Different companies title this job differently. If one of these is yours, you are in the right place:
Principal Amazon PPC Manager, Lead Amazon PPC Manager, Senior Amazon PPC Manager, Amazon Advertising Lead, Head of Amazon Advertising, Amazon Ads Team Lead, Retail Media Lead, Senior Retail Media Manager, Director of Retail Media (smaller agency), Marketplace Advertising Lead, Senior Amazon Account Director, Paid Search Lead, Senior Paid Search Manager, Performance Marketing Lead (retail media), Senior Amazon Brand Manager  - (if the ads are yours)

One honest filter before you spend time applying: this seat is Amazon sponsored advertising. If your Amazon experience is Amazon DSP, Amazon Marketing Cloud or programmatic display only, with no hands-on Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands reps, this is not the right seat and we would rather say so now than at round four.

A second honest filter: if you have grown into a role where you direct analysts and no longer work in the console yourself, you will not enjoy this. Our strategist seats are hands on keys at every level, Principal included.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Lead Amazon PPC strategy and manage complex advertising campaigns
• Partner with enterprise clients, solving high-impact challenges and delivering measurable results
• Analyze campaign data to craft insights and action plans that drive growth
• Mentor junior strategists and shape internal best practices
• Stay ahead of industry trends and leverage AI to optimize performance
• Design tools and templates that improve efficiency across the organization

✅ What You Bring

• Hands-on management of Amazon Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands inside Ad Console within the last 12 months. Hands-on Google Ads or Microsoft Ads paid search also counts as a route in, though at this level we will expect the Amazon depth to be there.
• 8+ years in advertising, 4+ of them in Amazon PPC, with your most recent platform work no more than 18 months old
• At least one named enterprise account you personally owned , with the spend you controlled and a measurable thing you changed about it
• Something you have built that other people adopted - a toolset, template, training module or playbook used beyond your immediate team
• Expert fluency in negation strategy, match types, harvesting rules and Top of Search modifiers, including your own click or spend threshold before you negate
• You lead with ACOS and TACOS unprompted, and you can reason about spend against contribution margin when the inventory is owned
• Real Excel or Sheets analysis - you have built the model, not read someone else's
• You can run a high-stakes enterprise client meeting and own an escalation in front of a stakeholder
• Able to work onsite in San Diego 5 days a week

➕ Nice to have, not required

• Agency experience across a large book of business
• Perpetua, Helium 10 or similar tooling
• Walmart Connect, Instacart Ads or other retail media breadth
• Vendor Central depth alongside Seller Central
• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business or a related field, or the equivalent in experience

Your first 90 days

Your first two weeks are training on our processes and meeting the people you will work with daily. Over the following 90 days you learn the Luminize advertising methodology by shadowing strategists on live accounts and working through real scenarios from our book. After one to two months you take on your first directly managed accounts with manager oversight, and you ramp toward a full book of enterprise brands. 

Why We Are Onsite

Because we own the inventory, an ad decision here is never only an ad decision. It touches what we bought, what is in stock, what the listing says and what the brand promised. At Principal, the accounts you own are the ones where those threads tangle worst, and the escalations land on you. The people who do this well are the ones who can walk to the brand manager's desk, get the answer in ninety seconds, and change the bid before the day closes. That loop does not survive a calendar invite.

Relocating? Relocation support is available for the right candidate, and we fly finalists in for their onsite. Raise it early and we will work it out with you rather than at the end.

Benefits & Perks

You do great work here and we want to take care of you outside of it, too.

• Comprehensive medical coverage, choose from multiple plans through Anthem Blue Cross
• Dental & vision, including orthodontia and annual exams
• Pet benefits, savings on vet care, products, and services  
• Paid Vacation, accrue 120 hours a year, with rollover
• Paid holidays and sick time  
• 401(k) with company match, we invest in your future, too

Compensation Transparency

We have listed a broad salary range of 125,000-175,000/year to account for varying levels of experience, skill sets, and leadership depth. Where you land in the range will depend on how your background aligns with this role.

We are committed to compensating based on value and impact, not just years on paper, and we are happy to have open conversations throughout the process.

Symphony Towers, and an office you will actually want to be in

• Panoramic city and coastline views from your workspace
• Free building gym access, no separate membership
• 24/7 paid downtown parking, blocks from the office, plus secure bike storage
• Exclusive discounts at tower restaurants and cafes
• Steps from 100+ top-rated bars, restaurants, coffee shops and Petco Park
• Ergonomic standing desks and premium workstations
• Fully stocked kitchen, snacks, espresso
• Monthly all-company lunches, and a team lounge with a pool table for when you need twenty minutes away from a bid sheet

Growth & Career Opportunities at Luminize

This is the senior individual contributor seat in advertising. From here the paths are advertising leadership, or going deeper as the person the department routes its hardest accounts to. We publish leveling guidelines, so you will know what each next step requires before you are asked to reach for it, and we have a strong track record of promoting from within.

You will also get cross-functional exposure to content, brand management, software, supply chain, catalog and operations, plus Udemy course access and additional training.

​​​​ About Luminize

Luminize is a full-service Amazon growth partner helping brands achieve next-level success in a competitive digital marketplace. From creative strategy to advertising and analytics, we combine expertise and hustle to fuel results for brands in CPG, health, wellness, beauty and beyond.

We are not your typical agency, and we like it that way. We operate with transparency, celebrate wins often, and treat every brand like it is our own.

If you want a seat where the ad call and the margin call are the same call, apply! 

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