Senior Manager, Direct Buys
At Real Chemistry, making the world a healthier place isn’t just an aspiration—it’s our everyday reality. Our drive to transform healthcare is informed by our blend of deep scientific expertise, human-centred creativity, and AI-driven insights, fostering a unique environment where innovation thrives and our people are impact-obsessed. As a global agency, we provide a full suite of services across healthcare communications and marketing to our clients, including top players in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.
Our #LifeatRealChem culture is rooted in our people—we believe we are best together and are committed to excellence for both our clients and colleagues. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your career, if you share our passion for healthcare and connection, we invite you to explore our opportunities.
Discover your purpose. Embrace innovation. Experience #LifeatRealChem.
Real Chemistry is looking for a Senior Manager, Direct Buys for our growing team! The Senior Manager, Direct Buys acts as the publisher direct media buy lead on client business to ensure paid media and digital marketing initiatives deliver against the brand’s strategic direction. You will contribute to driving an audience-first planning and activation approach, working closely with other Media Activation disciplines (Social, Programmatic, Search), Integrated Planning, Analytics, Creative and Account teams to deliver optimal digital marketing strategies for our clients.
The ideal candidate has the ability to translate data and insights into direct buy strategies that fit into a holistic digital media plan for a variety of healthcare brands. At the core, you are analytical in your approach and can easily identify and present the most effective strategies to address client and brand needs, while having a finger on the pulse of emerging digital technologies and trends to drive innovation for clients.
This is a hybrid role, based in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Carmel, or San Francisco—or remotely within the US, depending on team and business needs.
What you’ll do:
- Lead strategy, execution, and budget management for multiple clients paid media campaigns in the health, wellness, and pharma sectors, utilizing extensive direct buy media planning experience and managing RFP/RFI processes with vendors.
- Own the end-to-end direct buy process from RFP, tagging/trafficking, Prisma, IOs, custom content agreements, vendor communications, and reporting.
- Translate audience profiles and client objectives into well-planned direct buy activations, collaborating with media activation disciplines (social, search, programmatic) and Integrated Planning for a cohesive omnichannel strategy.
- Analyze campaign outcomes and marketing ROI, working with media activation and integrated planning colleagues to drive proactive, data-driven decisions and optimizations.
- Manage multiple client engagements, provide digital expertise and innovation in a fast-paced environment, while effectively navigating a complex stakeholder landscape and ensuring seamless day-to-day digital account activity.
Who You Are:
- A communicator – you are quick to confirm receipt, actively communicating project status and proactively/independent moving tasks forward.
- A builder – who can see where the puck needs to go, and lay the framework for implementation, guiding delivery and client expectations too - looks beyond the foundation to connect dots for program optimization
- A rising omnichannel guru – who has formed a good understanding of performance marketing, and wants to continue to delve deeper into managing all media practices (paid search, OLV/CTV, display, social, audio) and who understands personalization and stays ahead of trends and tech within digital industry
- Someone who understands how to offset the pressure associated with tight deadlines and quick turnaround times, and remain a solutions-oriented partner
- You don’t wait for someone else to fix things. You think strategically about problems and offer recommendations to relevant parties as to how best avoid setbacks and snags
- Ability to execute client deliverables with a sense of urgency and client service orientation
What you should have:
- 4-7+ years of experience in negotiating and managing publisher direct buys and managed service campaigns in partnership with a variety of media vendors and publishers.
- Excellent organizational, writing, and communication skills, with the ability to work independently and collaboratively, balancing multiple projects and effectively communicating with internal teams and external media partners.
- Strong analytical and critical thinking skills, with a proficiency in Microsoft Excel, data analysis, and the ability to draw insights from data to recommend optimizations and improve client ROI.
- Experience with healthcare/pharmaceutical industries, knowledge of DTC/HCP targeting, and endemic sites is preferred.
- A 'test and learn' approach to digital media, collaborating with other media activation subject matter experts (social, search, programmatic) and analytics teams to deliver strategic recommendations and performance reports that address client needs and drive growth.
Pay Range: $75,000.00 - 95,000.00
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 job-related, non-discriminatory factors including but not limited to work experience, skills, certifications, and geographical location. The Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time.
Real Chemistry is proud to be Great Place to Work® certified; check out what our people shared about our culture and workplace on our Great Places to Work Profile here.
We believe we can do our best when feeling our best, which is why we’ve put together a benefits program designed to give you the support you and your family need at every stage of life. Real Chemistry offers a comprehensive benefit program and perks, tailored to your region. Globally, this includes offices in our key markets with free snacks to keep you running all day long, generous holiday and paid time off, options for private medical, dental, and vison plans, and support in saving for the future. Other perks include mental wellness coaching and support and access to more than 13,000 online classes with LinkedIn Learning. Learn more about our great benefits and perks and search specific offerings in your region at: www.realchemistrybenefits.com.
Working with Real HART: Since the pandemic, we have adapted to how our people told us they want to work. We have office locations in cities in the US, UK, and Europe with many employees and clients that serve as hubs where and when they need us. For employees who are within an hour of one of our offices, we expect attendance in the office two days per week, either at a Real Chemistry office or onsite with clients. We are also actively opening new office locations, so if one opens near you, our Real HART policy will apply. We are not looking for attendance for the sake of attendance but believe that the opportunity to coordinate in-office team meetings, 1:1 meetings with managers, taking advantage of on-site learning, and connecting with client partners is a critical to delivering on our purpose of making healthcare what it should be. Outside of these offices, we have regions, where people work remotely but come together quarterly for collaboration, culture and learning opportunities. We call this our Real Hybrid and Regional Teams (Real HART) approach. Real Chemistry believes we are best together – and our workplace strategy fosters connection and collaboration in person – but also supports flexibility for our people.
Real Chemistry is an Equal Opportunity employer. We continually strive to build and sustain an inclusive and equitable work environment where our employees feel empowered to leverage all they bring from their personal lived experience and professional expertise, to make our team the best in the industry. We encourage motivated and qualified applicants to apply without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, ethnic or national origin, age, physical or mental disability, genetic information, marital information, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local employment discrimination laws where Real Chemistry operates. Should you require accommodations throughout the interview process please let your recruiter know.
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