Media Planning Executive

Location: Hybrid, minimum 2 days per week in Liverpool

Salary: From £28,000 per annum + 10% discretionary bonus

Level: Executive-level role, with scope across the VMG partnership, supporting across media planning and performance.

About the Role

We are looking for a Client Executive to join our Media Planning team across the VMG partnership. In this role, you'll own the success of campaigns across a portfolio of key brands, driving performance from forecasting and strategic planning through to optimisation, analysis, and reporting. You'll play a pivotal role in delivering measurable results while uncovering new opportunities to maximise impact. Beyond campaign delivery, you'll help shape the future of the team by building internal capability, streamlining ways of working, and driving continuous improvements that support long-term growth and success.

If you love variety, thrive in a fast-paced environment, and embrace change with energy, this could be your right role.

Why SMG?

At SMG, we hire for the future, which is fast-moving and changing shape. Do you have the potential to help shape our business? We’re looking for brilliant, diverse talent who want to grow with us—people who are curious, ambitious, and eager to learn, whether as specialists or across teams.

Our culture is everything. If you’re someone who stays honest, stays hungry, stays foolish, and has fun, you’ll feel right at home here.

We value those who take ownership of their growth and bring fresh perspectives. That’s why we’re committed to equity, inclusion, and building a place where everyone feels empowered to grow. At SMG, it’s not just about filling a role but building the future together.

• 10% discretionary bonus
• £1,800 yearly wellbeing fund (on top of your salary!)
• Free Headspace subscription
• £500 yearly “Learning Fund” for learning
• 4 extra Wellbeing Days off per year
• 4pm finishes every Friday
• Flexible and hybrid working

Explore all our benefits here

Are We What You’re Looking For?

We move fast, adapt quickly, and like to challenge each other. We're looking for people who enjoy the buzz of change, the satisfaction of building something better, and the joy of working with a close-knit, values-driven team.

This isn’t for everyone, but if you thrive in this environment, we’d love to meet you!

A Little Bit About You

You’ll bring:

• Experience in marketing, retail media, or digital media planning
• Strong understanding of campaign performance and optimisation
• Confidence working with data, budgets, and reporting
• Experience with platforms such as Criteo or similar (preferred)
• Commercial mindset with a focus on performance
• Proactive and solutions-oriented approach
• Strong organisational and time management skills
• Analytical mindset with the ability to translate data into insights
• Willingness to learn, develop, and grow within the role

Don’t meet every single requirement? We still want to hear from you. If you believe you’d thrive in this role, your unique perspective might be just what we’re looking for.

What You’ll Be Doing

Your days will be dynamic. You might find yourself:

• Supporting Criteo forecasting and incremental revenue delivery, mapping investment across brands and assisting in building structured media plans for priority brands.
• Monitoring campaign performance, including weekly cap-out reporting and ongoing tracking. Proactively identify issues and support in resolving them quickly.
• Supporting improvements to campaign structure, category mapping, and setup to enhance efficiency and scalability.
• Assisting in developing clear, performance-driven media plans and supporting budget modelling across daily, weekly, and monthly timeframes.
• Contributing to the adoption of Criteo best practices and tools, supporting internal knowledge sharing and development.
• Building strong working relationships with internal teams and Criteo partners to support campaign delivery and performance.
• Supporting the delivery of clear, insight-led reporting, ensuring outputs are accurate and actionable.
• Monitoring in-flight performance across Sponsored Products and Display, applying optimisations to improve campaign effectiveness.
• Reviewing campaign performance and applying learnings to improve future planning and delivery.

Our Values:

Stay honest. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Have fun.

Explore what that means to us here

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