Senior Media Strategist

Hybrid in Denver or Carbondale, CO | 2 days per week in office required

At Backbone, we live by the mantra that passion drives results. We partner with leading active lifestyle brands to drive growth through integrated media and communications. We only work with brands we believe in, and we pair teammates with brands that match their interests and expertise. You'll join a team of smart, driven marketers who share a passion for the outdoors and for doing great work for great brands.

The Senior Media Strategist is a client-facing role on our Media team. You'll own client relationships, build cross-channel strategies that connect brand, performance, and community, and clearly explain how each channel drives the client's business goals. You'll forecast, measure results with incrementally testing, and move spend toward what drives profitable acquisition, retention, and loyalty.

The ideal candidate is a proactive, decisive critical thinker with a track record in performance media and a knowledge of brand and traditional media. You tell clients what the data says, even when it isn't what they hoped to hear. You care about access to the outdoors and the brands working to protect it, and you bring empathy to clients and teammates alike.

This role mentors and trains team members but does not have direct management responsibilities.

• Lead day-to-day client relationships, owning communication, expectations, and follow-through
• Build, present, and execute cross-channel media strategies that connect brand, performance, and community to business goals
• Plan full-funnel media across paid social, paid search, programmatic, CTV, retail media, and traditional channels
• Own budget allocation, forecasting, pacing, and reconciliation
• Partner with analytics on incrementality tests, including geo-lift, holdout, and conversion-lift studies, and turn results into media decisions
• Partner with creative teams on testing frameworks and deliver clear reads on what won and why
• Work with social and PR teams to amplify community and earned moments through paid media
• Collaborate with channel, analytics, digital operations, trafficking, and finance teams, including on server-side tracking and conversions APIs
• Monitor performance and make in-flight optimizations
• Mentor and train junior staff

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
• 4-7 years of relevant experience in growth media, performance marketing, or paid media
• 3+ years in a client-facing account management role, agency side preferred
• Experience building and presenting cross-channel media strategies

• Confident client communicator who builds trust, presents strategy clearly, and holds a position under pushback
• Turns complex analysis into clear action, with strong data visualization and storytelling skills in Excel and Power Point
• Knowledge of growth marketing for ecommerce and DTC brands as well as knowledge of brand media
• Fluent in growth metrics, including CAC, MER, ROAS, iROAS, contribution margin, and LTV:
  
  CAC
• Experience with advanced measurement, including attribution and incrementality testing, and reconciling platform-reported results with lift reads
• Planning and buying experience in traditional media, including linear TV, OOH, audio, and print
• Builds budgets and forecasts from business goals up and reallocates spend based on performance
• Proficient in digital media platforms and AI-driven campaign types
• Experience with an ecommerce measurement platform (Triple Whale, Northbeam, Rockerbox, Haus, Measured, or similar) preferred
• Proactive use of AI tools, with sound judgment about what to delegate
• Google Ads, GA4, or Meta certifications preferred

• Experience supporting new business pitches or RFP responses
• Programmatic and CTV…