Freelance Programmatic Media Buyer

DNA&STONE is what happens when trust and disruption collide. Born in January 2025 from the merger of DNA—an independent agency with 26 years of earned results—and Little Hands of Stone—an aggressively creative, founder-led micro-agency—we exist to break barriers, challenge conventions, and create work that makes the world jealous. We are The Creative Agency That Doesn’t Flinch for Brands That Go There. We deal in real, high-stakes emotion—grief, joy, fear, hope—and embrace the hard truths most turn away from. Our core strategic and creative approach is Radical Empathy—deep emotional intelligence for the consumer, the client, and the business. It’s about killing bias and allowing ourselves to feel what our audience feels. And taking on the pressure our clients feel as our own, then turning that into work that moves people and businesses. DEPARTMENT OVERVIEW We turn emotion into presence by placing ideas where connection actually happens. Guided by Radical Empathy, our media approach ensures powerful ideas don’t just exist—they show up in the right cultural moments, platforms, and contexts to drive memory, action, and growth. Because emotion without presence is wasted, we optimize every dollar to work harder by reaching people in ways that feel undeniable. WHAT YOU’LL DO • Execute and manage day-to-day programmatic buying/trading across DSPs (e.g. The Trade Desk, Amazon DSP, DV360, or similar) • Develop campaign setup and creation, bidding strategies, launch activation and optimization across: Connected TV (CTV), Online Video (OLV), Streaming Audio, Display for both prospecting and retargeting tactics • Manage day-to-day programmatic campaign performance, including pacing, spend, and ongoing optimizations across exchanges, publishers/sites, creatives, channels and audience strategies, optimizing toward spend targets, channel-appropriate media KPIs (CPM, CTR, VCR, completion rate, frequency, reach), and performance signals such as site visitors, key page views, event or “Join Now” button clicks, and application starts • Apply audience strategies across channels, including prospecting, retargeting, and sequential messaging while understanding seasonality, creative weighting and rotations supported by evergreen, seasonal and tentpole campaigns • Manage first-party data and audience activation, including the secure upload of hashed CRM lists to build targetable segments, apply exclusion rules, and support lookalike and suppression strategies across programmatic channels • Analyze campaign data to surface insights, optimize performance, and inform strategic recommendations • Build and maintain campaign tracking (e.g., UTM parameters), tagging (e.g., Floodlight, GTM), and reporting infrastructure • Communicate proactively with internal teams to align campaign execution with broader marketing goals and timelines • Support testing strategies (creative, audience, channel) and performance documentation • Assist with Private Marketplace (PMP) deal setup and management across applicable channels • Monitor deal performance and troubleshoot delivery or performance issues WHAT YOU’LL BRING • 2-3 years of hands-on keyboard experience in digital media buying/trading, with specific expertise in The Trade Desk while managing $200K+ in monthly media spend, launching and scaling cross-platform campaigns with a strong performance focus • Proven ability to launch, manage, and scale campaigns across platforms with a performance mindset • Strong analytical skills and experience with performance reporting, Excel/Sheets, and basic data visualization • Familiarity with tracking and tagging implementation, including UTM parameters, Google Tag Manager, and Floodlight • Experience managing budgets and pacing across multiple campaigns and objectives across a variety of clients • Clear, concise communicator with strong time management skills and attention to detail; Required to be available for internal status and performance reviews with key stakeholders and during agency working hours Contract Terms: • Hours: 35-40+ hours per week • Pay Range: $6K-$7K/Month, DOE • Engagement: 01/19/2026-04/30/2026 • Location: DNA&Stone is located in Seattle, with a presence in Chicago. Currently we are open to this role being fully REMOTE for qualified candidates; Must be willing/able to work west coast hours (PST). DNA&STONE is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and identities and are deeply committed to building a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Apply tot his job