Senior Manager, Sales Planning & Operations

About the position

The Senior Manager, Sales Planning & Operations will be a key player in generating and protecting revenue, working closely with the Semafor sales team, advertising clients, and internal teams. There may be elements of sales operations and strategy as well, supporting sales leadership in drawing insights from sales process and performance to improve overall team process, performance and composition of partnerships. The ideal candidate has a strong understanding of advertising and analytics tools, as well as the ability to manage client relationships effectively.

Responsibilities

• Support the sales team in crafting media plans across Semafor's products, including newsletters, branded content, paid social media, events, web display and video, and more.
• Forecast and manage aforementioned product inventory to ensure accurate media planning.
• Collaborate with Sales and Partnerships teams and directly with clients and prospects to help sell media plans, responding to inquiries, and managing negotiations around inventory and other client deliverables.
• Provide clients with audience insights, ad performance benchmarks and other insight to act as an extension of the Sales and Partnerships teams.
• Partner with the Marketing team to create investment slides that clearly summarize proposal budgets, product costs and partnership efficiencies.
• Adhere to and help manage Semafor’s digital product and events rate cards, ensuring pricing is competitive and aligned with market demand.
• Collaborate with Revenue leadership and Finance to optimize pricing strategies based on campaign performance, inventory availability, and advertiser demand.
• Collaborate with the Sales and Marketing teams to develop bundled media offerings that maximize value for advertisers while optimizing inventory usage.
• Provide insights on discounting strategies, premium placements, and inventory constraints to guide sales negotiations.
• Process sold deals by entering them into the Order Management System (Boostr), ensuring accuracy for activation, revenue forecasting and reporting.
• Guide clients through the post-sale process, providing timelines, ad specifications, and requesting necessary assets for custom content.
• Collaborate with the internal Creative Services team to ensure all custom content production is project managed and created according to partnership timelines.
• Communicate the process and progress around custom content to clients clearly and concisely.
• Coordinate with Ad Operations to set up new campaigns, conducting QA, testing, and providing preview links. This includes paid social.
• Gain client approval for campaign launches, ensuring everything is aligned and ready for execution.
• Monitor campaign delivery, troubleshooting any technical issues or discrepancies across all ad placements.
• Track campaign performance using key performance indicators (KPIs), such as impression pacing, email open rates, CTRs, viewability, brand safety, in-demo, and in-geo performance.
• Lead the brand lift study process with external partners.
• Gather proprietary audience metrics and report on campaign effectiveness.
• Create and manage weekly/monthly client reports, providing insightful analysis of campaign performance.
• Proactively recommend optimizations to clients to improve campaign results.
• Develop and refine sales processes and workflows to improve efficiency in marketing, media planning and campaign execution.
• Work closely with Sales leadership to implement best practices for pipeline management and deal tracking.
• Evaluate and optimize sales tools, CRM and order management system (Boostr) to enhance operational effectiveness.
• Identify and implement automation opportunities to reduce manual effort and streamline sales operations.
• Deliver actionable sales insights to refine partner strategies and drive higher-value deals.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in media planning, campaign management and/or sales operations.
• Proficiency in digital advertising platforms (e.g., Google Ads, Live Intent, programmatic tools) and analytics tools.
• Strong knowledge of project management tools, such as Asana, to manage workflow and deadlines.
• Experience with Boostr or similar CRM and campaign management tools is preferred.
• Deep understanding of media math (CPMs, CPVs, etc.) to measure the effectiveness of campaigns.
• Strong familiarity with digital advertising platforms and analytics tools.
• Proven experience in client-facing roles, with excellent communication and negotiation skills.
• Solid understanding of media math and campaign performance metrics.
• Ability to work under tight deadlines while managing multiple campaigns.
• High attention to detail and strong organizational skills.

Benefits

• Unlimited PTO
• Medical, dental, vision insurance
• Short & long-term disability
• Flexible spending accounts
• Health savings accounts
• Life insurance
• 401(k)
• Pre-Tax commuter benefits