About this Senior Media Manager role at City Cast
We're hiring a Senior Media Manager to execute, optimize, and report on the paid campaigns that help new listeners and readers find City Cast. Our Marketing Director sets the strategy; you'll turn those plans into campaigns that perform - building, launching, and tuning them across programmatic, Meta, TikTok, Reddit, and whatever platform earns its spot next. Then you'll tell us, clearly and often, how it's going.
This is a hands-on senior role. You'll be the person who knows our numbers cold, spots what's working (and what quietly isn't), and works with our data analyst to explain it to our teams in plain English. If you love the puzzle of turning a budget into real audience growth - city by city - we'd love to talk.
What you'll do
Bring the plan to life
- Take campaign plans from the Marketing Director and turn them into builds: audiences, placements, flighting, and budgets.
- Handle small, one-off paid requests from individual cities, from strategy and setup through reporting.
- Flag what the data is telling you: where spend could shift, what's worth testing next, and what to pull back on.
- Partner with our city teams to understand what they need (more listeners in Denver, more newsletter sign-ups in Nashville) and make sure campaigns deliver.
Run and optimize the campaigns
- Set up, launch, and manage campaigns end to end in Meta Ads Manager, TikTok Ads Manager, Reddit Ads, and our programmatic DSP(s).
- Own targeting, bidding, pacing, and budget management across a portfolio of local markets.
- Optimize daily and weekly: shift budgets, refresh creative, and adjust bids and targeting based on the data.
- Test constantly - creative, audiences, placements, landing pages - and keep a running log of what we learned.
- Brief and collaborate with creative on ads that feel native to each platform.
Measure and report
- Set up and maintain tracking, pixels, conversion events, and UTMs so our data is something we can trust.
- Work with our Senior Data Analyst to build regular performance reporting (CPA, ROAS, cost per subscriber, reach) and share clear takeaways with city and network teams, not just dashboards.
- Deliver weekly and monthly performance updates, and walk teams through results so everyone knows what's working and why.
- Keep an eye on industry changes (privacy updates, new ad products, platform shifts) and tell us what they mean for us.
Requirements
What you bring
- 6–8 years of hands-on paid media experience, with deep execution, optimization, and reporting chops (agency, in-house, or a mix).
- Deep, recent experience running campaigns in Meta and TikTok, plus working knowledge of Reddit Ads and at least one programmatic DSP (The Trade Desk, DV360, StackAdapt, or similar).
- A track record of managing meaningful budgets across multiple campaigns or markets — and moving the numbers that matter.
- Comfort with measurement: pixels, conversion APIs, UTMs, attribution, and the honest limits of all of the above.
- Strong analytical skills and experience partnering with analysts or data teams. You can live in a spreadsheet and still tell a story a non-marketer will remember.
- Clear, kind communication. You explain why, not just what, and you're as comfortable saying "this didn't work" as "this crushed it."
- Curiosity about local news and the people who listen to and read it.
Nice to have
- Experience marketing podcasts, newsletters, or subscription media products.
- Experience with audio, CTV, or podcast advertising (Spotify Ads, Pocket Casts, Overcast).
- Familiarity with geo-targeted, multi-market campaigns.
Don't check every box? Apply anyway. We care more about how you think than whether your résumé matches a list word for word.
Benefits
This position is full-time and remote, with excellent benefits. The salary range is $90,000-$110,000 depending on experience. City Cast is an equal opportunity employer committed to excellence through diversity, which involves attracting talented people from diverse backgrounds and traditions. Read about our mission and core values here. We encourage everyone to apply.
About City Cast: We’re a network of one-of-a-kind, daily local news podcasts in cities around the country, accompanied by a daily email newsletter and website that keeps you in the know about what’s happening in your community. Currently available in Chicago, DC, Denver, Las Vegas, Madison, Nashville, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, Salt Lake, Seattle, and Twin Cities, City Cast is the smartest, easiest way to connect with the place you live and love.
City Cast is an affiliate of Graham Holdings. Read the Graham Holdings Company California Worker Privacy Statement here.