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HARRY’S COMMENTS: Mars United Commerce is a global commerce marketing agency — founded in 1972, headquartered in Southfield, Michigan — that helps some of the world’s biggest consumer brands win at the point of purchase. Think CPG household names. Think the brands you see on every shelf at Walmart, Target, Kroger, and Amazon.

Mars United is the agency those brands call when they need to connect their national brand strategy to what actually happens when a shopper is standing in the aisle — or scrolling through Amazon — deciding what to put in the cart.

The company operates across four core disciplines: Strategy & Analytics, Content & Experiences, Digital Commerce, and Retail Consultancy. And underneath all of it is a proprietary technology platform called Marilyn® that normalizes campaign data across every major retail media network — Amazon, Instacart, Walmart Connect, Kroger Precision Marketing, Target Roundel, and others — into a single, cross-network view.

That matters because in an era where every retailer is launching their own ad network, the brands spending millions across those networks need someone who can actually tell them what’s working, what’s not, and where to reallocate.

The category is enormous — and growing fast.

U.S. retail media ad spending hit $54 billion in 2024, up from $36 billion just two years earlier. Amazon alone generated more than $56 billion in advertising revenue in 2024 — a 23% year-over-year jump — making it the third-largest digital advertising platform in the world behind Google and Meta.

Walmart Connect is growing at 29% year-over-year. Sam’s Club has built a closed-loop, in-store media network using computer vision, autonomous robotics, and membership-anchored attribution that commands CPM premiums 25% above standard digital display. These are not small side projects. These are multi-billion-dollar ecosystems, and every major CPG brand on the planet is trying to figure out how to allocate across them.

That’s exactly what you will do in this role.

Mars United Commerce was acquired by Publicis Groupe — the world’s third-largest advertising holding company — in a $600 million deal. That acquisition connected Mars United’s commerce marketing expertise to Publicis’s global infrastructure, giving their clients access to the full spectrum of agency capabilities while preserving Mars United’s specialized focus on commerce. The team is roughly 1,000 people strong, operating across multiple offices, and this particular role sits in the Lehi, Utah office in a hybrid arrangement.

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Are you right for the role?

You’re someone with 5–7 years of hands-on experience managing ecommerce media campaigns on Amazon or Instacart — ideally for CPG brands or within a shopper marketing agency. You understand the mechanics of Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, DSP, and how to think about campaign architecture at the ASIN level.

You know that nearly 50% of the top 20 Amazon search results are sponsored placements, and you’ve developed a point of view on when to defend branded terms versus when to conquest competitor keywords. You’ve probably worked with retail media networks beyond Amazon — Walmart Connect, Instacart Ads, Kroger, or others — and you’ve seen firsthand how different each network’s attribution model and auction dynamics really are.

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But here’s what separates this role from a typical “manage the Amazon ads” job: Mars United doesn’t just execute campaigns. They build strategies across the entire commerce marketing ecosystem for some of the most recognizable brands in the world.

In this role, you will will work cross-functionally with Strategic Planning, Media, Client Leadership, and Creative teams to develop integrated commerce programs. You’re not sitting in a silo running reports. You’re helping shape how a Fortune 100 brand shows up across every digital and physical retail touchpoint — and you’re using Marilyn® to prove what’s working at a level of granularity that most agencies can’t touch.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Your mission will be to 1.) develop and execute retail media strategies across Amazon, Instacart, and other retail media networks for assigned clients, 2.) manage campaign implementation, budgets, and timelines while translating platform-level performance data into actionable strategic recommendations, and 3.) build strong working relationships with retailer contacts and cross-functional agency teams to deliver integrated commerce programs that drive measurable results.

THIS IS NOT a managing-down role to start — you will manage execution through the team and work hand-in-hand with internal specialists across Strategic Planning, Media, Client Leadership, and Creative.

You’ll need to be comfortable with AI in media planning, execution, and program wrap-up. That’s not a throwaway line. Amazon just launched an AI-powered Ads Agent that lets sellers query campaign data in natural language. Their Rufus shopping assistant drove a 60% conversion lift. The Unified Campaign Manager now merges DSP and Sponsored Ads into a single ROAS view, and the role calls for someone who uses AI to accelerate analysis and creative iteration — not someone who treats it as a research toy.

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RESPONSIBILITIES

• Work with the internal cross-functional team — Strategic Planning, Media, Client Leadership, and Creative — to develop optimal and actionable strategies, concepts, and tactics for assigned CPG client accounts across Amazon, Instacart, and other retail media networks.
• Manage the implementation of key client projects from brief through execution, including campaign setup, bid management, audience targeting, and creative asset coordination across Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, DSP, and retail media network ad formats.
• Develop and maintain a strong working understanding of media capabilities across the retail media ecosystem — from Amazon Search and Display to Instacart Ads, Walmart Connect, Kroger Precision Marketing, and emerging networks — and apply that knowledge to recommend optimal channel allocation for each client.
• Build strong working relationships with assigned retailer client contacts and serve as the primary day-to-day ecommerce point of contact, translating retailer platform updates, auction dynamics, and new ad format launches into actionable opportunities for clients.
• Manage execution of approved programs through the team, ensuring campaigns are launched on time, within budget, and aligned with the strategic brief — while proactively flagging performance variances, budget pacing issues, or creative gaps before they become problems.
• Develop and manage project timelines and budgets, with clear communication of project status and budget utilization to client teams on a weekly or biweekly cadence.
• Measure post-promotion results using Marilyn® and client-provided data, building post-campaign analyses that go beyond platform-native ROAS to include contribution margin impact, share of voice trends, and incremental lift — then translate those results into forward-looking recommendations.
• Approach and manage partnership relationships with other manufacturers or properties, and identify retailer-direct and manufacturer platforms that could expand media reach or improve campaign efficiency for assigned accounts.
• Work hand-in-hand with internal teams on planning and implementation of retail marketing extensions of brand and category programs for national retainer clients, ensuring that ecommerce activation aligns with broader shopper marketing strategies.
• Apply AI tools in media planning, execution, and program wrap-up — including Amazon’s Unified Campaign Manager, AI-powered bid optimization, natural-language campaign analytics, and automated reporting — to accelerate analysis, improve decision quality, and reduce manual workload across the team.
• Manage the client approval process for all ecommerce programs, ensuring that creative, media plans, and budgets are reviewed and approved before activation — and that post-campaign results are delivered in formats that support client-side QBR and planning cycles.

EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS

Bachelor’s degree in advertising, marketing, business, or a related field — or equivalent professional experience in ecommerce, digital media, or shopper marketing.

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES — SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE & EXPERIENCE

• 5–7 years of hands-on experience managing ecommerce campaigns on Amazon (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, DSP) or Instacart, ideally within a CPG brand, shopper marketing agency, or retail media-focused organization.
• Proven project management experience with the ability to manage multiple client accounts, campaigns, and timelines simultaneously without letting details fall through the cracks.
• Working experience with retail media networks and media vendors beyond Amazon — Walmart Connect, Kroger Precision Marketing, Target Roundel, Instacart Ads, or similar — with an understanding of each network’s auction mechanics, attribution model, and measurement capabilities.
• Strategic thinking in the development of shopper marketing programs, including the ability to translate a brand’s national marketing strategy into retail-specific activation that drives measurable performance at the point of purchase.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze campaign performance data and translate platform-level metrics (ACoS, ROAS, TACoS, CTR, conversion rate) into client-facing strategic recommendations that connect to business outcomes — contribution margin, CAC payback, share of voice, and incremental lift.
• Experience working cross-functionally with media, creative, strategy, and client leadership teams in an agency or matrixed environment, with the ability to influence without direct authority.
• Comfort using AI tools in a professional media planning and execution context — not just awareness, but active use of AI for bid optimization, campaign analysis, reporting automation, or creative iteration tied to measurable business results.
• Nice-to-have: Experience with proprietary agency analytics platforms (Marilyn® or comparable cross-network measurement tools), Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), or advanced retail media measurement methodologies including incrementality testing and marketing mix modeling.

LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT / BEHAVIORAL COMPETENCIES

• Ability to manage execution through a team without formal direct reports — coordinating work across specialists, ensuring accountability, and maintaining quality standards across multiple concurrent projects.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills with the ability to work effectively across Strategic Planning, Media, Client Leadership, and Creative teams — pushing insights upstream proactively rather than waiting for assignments.
• Sound decision-making skills grounded in data and industry knowledge, with the confidence to recommend budget reallocations, channel shifts, or campaign pivots when the data supports it — even when it means pushing back on a vendor or platform rep.
• Excellent verbal, written, presentation, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate complex campaign performance data to clients who think in P&L terms, not platform metrics.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

• High integrity and professional maturity — this person represents Mars United Commerce to major CPG clients and retail partners, and must do so with credibility and poise.
• Self-directed and proactive — the kind of person who sends the weekly pulse update before being asked, flags the budget pacing issue before it becomes a problem, and brings the competitive insight to the meeting that nobody else had.
• Genuine intellectual curiosity about the retail media landscape — someone who reads the trade press, tracks platform updates, and has opinions about where the category is headed.
• Strong attention to detail with the ability to manage complexity across multiple accounts, platforms, and internal stakeholders without losing the thread.
• Passion about the business — always thinking of ways to improve or grow assigned client relationships and deliver results that make clients want to expand the engagement.
• Resilient under pressure — agency life moves fast, client expectations are high, and the best people in this seat thrive on the pace rather than being overwhelmed by it.
• Desire to dig in and do what’s needed to get the job done right, even when that means rolling up your sleeves on execution tasks that sit below your title.

🟥 JOB SEARCH GOT YOU STUCK? Book an hour with VP/CMO ecommerce recruiter, Harry Joiner, who prepared this analysis. Includes a 3-month membership to NEXTgig™

JUST FOR FUN … HYPOTHETICAL AI-RELATED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR THIS ROLE:

1. “Walk me through a specific retail media campaign you managed recently where you delegated part of the work to an AI tool — and it produced output that was wrong in a way that wasn’t immediately obvious. What was the task, what did the AI get wrong, how did you catch it, and what did you change about your process afterward?”
2. “Amazon just shipped Unified Campaign Manager, which merges DSP and Sponsored Ads into a single ROAS view. How would you redesign the workflow between yourself, the media team, and the client reporting cadence — knowing that this tool changes what used to require manual cross-platform reconciliation?”
3. “You’re managing campaigns across Amazon, Instacart, and Walmart Connect for the same CPG client. Each platform’s native reporting tells you the campaign is working. But Marilyn® shows a different picture when you normalize attribution. How do you decide which platform’s data to trust, where to verify manually, and what to present to the client?”
4. “Looking at how fast retail media platforms are evolving — Amazon’s AI Ads Agent, Sam’s Club’s computer vision attribution, Walmart Connect’s self-serve improvements — which of the tasks you do today do you think will be fully handled by AI in 12 months? And what are you investing in learning now to stay ahead of that shift?”
5. “Describe your current system — formal or informal — for tracking when AI tools surprise you. Either they handle something better than you expected, or they fail on something you thought was safe. How do you capture that, and how has it changed your day-to-day workflow in the last 90 days?”