Retail media hiring stalled through 2023 and 2024 while brands held ad budgets flat, and it's now rebounding sharply. The roles split into four tiers: Retail Media Specialists who execute campaigns inside platforms like Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, and Criteo, Retail Media Managers who own budget and strategy across multiple retailers, Retail Media Analysts who handle attribution and incrementality measurement, and Director or Head of Retail Media roles that own the full retail media P&L. A paid social or paid search generalist can grow into these roles, but the transfer isn't automatic. Retail media rewards a different skill set built around retailer-specific auction dynamics, share of voice, and product detail page performance rather than open-web CPC and CPA.
For two years, retail media hiring mostly sat still. Brands had already built out the basics, an Amazon Ads presence, maybe a Walmart Connect account, and treated the function as something a performance marketing generalist could manage alongside Meta and Google. Budgets were flat, headcount was frozen, and there wasn't much urgency to hire a specialist for a channel that was already, technically, running.
That's changed. Retail media networks have expanded well beyond Amazon and Walmart, retailers are opening up new inventory and targeting capabilities, and brands are realizing that the generalist who's been managing it as a side channel doesn't have the bandwidth or the platform-specific expertise to compete as the space matures. The hiring is catching up to that reality, and it's catching up fast.
Recruiters staffing recent commerce media industry events describe retail media and ad tech hiring as reopening after a period of stagnation in 2023 and 2024. Companies now have more clarity on the specific expertise they need, growth marketing, ad tech, and martech skill sets, and are spending on the specialists required to manage new retail media business opportunities rather than stretching a generalist across the function.
Why Retail Media Hiring Is Different From Paid Social or Paid Search
On the surface, retail media looks like just another paid channel to add to a performance marketer's plate. In practice, it runs on a completely different set of rules. A Meta or Google campaign manager optimizes toward a landing page, an audience, and a bid strategy inside one platform's auction. A retail media specialist is optimizing inside someone else's storefront, where the ad and the organic listing compete for the same real estate, and where factors outside the ad platform itself, product detail page content, star rating, in-stock status, Buy Box ownership, directly affect whether the ad even has a chance to convert.
Each retailer also runs its own ecosystem. Amazon Ads includes Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and the Amazon DSP for programmatic display and streaming inventory. Walmart Connect, Criteo, Instacart Ads, and Target Roundel each have their own campaign structures, targeting logic, and reporting quirks. A candidate who's fluent in Amazon Ads doesn't automatically know Walmart Connect, and a brand running retail media across three or four retailers usually needs someone who's worked across a management layer like Pacvue or Skai to keep campaigns and reporting consistent instead of living in four separate dashboards.
The Four Roles Most Teams Are Missing
Most eCommerce teams have one person half-covering retail media as part of a broader paid media role. As spend and retailer count grow, that coverage needs to split into something closer to this:
| Function | Retail Media Role | Closest Adjacent Role | Primary Metric |
|---|---|---|---|
| Execution | Retail Media Specialist / Ad Ops | Paid Social Specialist (Meta/TikTok) | ACOS, share of voice by SKU |
| Strategy | Retail Media Manager | Performance Marketing Manager | Blended ROAS across retailers |
| Measurement | Retail Media Analyst | Marketing/Growth Analyst | Incrementality, attribution accuracy |
| Leadership | Director / Head of Retail Media | VP of Growth or Performance Marketing | Total retail media P&L, retailer partnerships |
The Specialist and Analyst roles are usually the first dedicated retail media hires a growing brand makes, since they can be added without restructuring the marketing org. The Manager and Director roles tend to come later, once retail media spend is large enough and split across enough retailers that someone needs to own the strategy layer full time, negotiate directly with retailer ad reps, and defend the retail media budget in the same conversations as paid social and paid search.
Why a Paid Social or Search Generalist Isn't a Plug-and-Play Hire
None of this means a strong performance marketer can't grow into retail media. It means the instincts don't transfer automatically, and treating them as interchangeable is where a lot of retail media hiring goes wrong. A Meta or Google specialist is trained to think in terms of audience targeting, creative testing, and a bid strategy they fully control. A retail media specialist has to think in terms of a shared listing they don't fully control, where organic rank, content quality, and inventory status all interact with the paid campaign, and where "winning" often means owning share of voice for a category rather than just hitting a target CPA.
The measurement layer is different too. Retail media reporting is retailer-native by default, which means a candidate needs to understand how each platform defines its own version of ROAS or ACOS, and why those numbers aren't directly comparable across retailers without normalization. Candidates who've only worked in open-web platforms with a single, consistent attribution model often need real ramp time to build comfort with that kind of retailer-by-retailer nuance.
When you're evaluating a retail media candidate, ask them to walk through how they've resolved a conflict between paid and organic performance on the same product listing. That single question tends to separate someone who's genuinely managed retail media from someone who's only managed paid social with a retailer's name attached to it.
Where to Start Building the Function
The right entry point depends on how concentrated your retail media spend already is, not how big your overall marketing budget is. A brand running meaningful spend on a single retailer can often stay with a strong generalist or an agency a while longer. The moment spend spreads across two or more retailers, and the team is spending real hours manually reconciling reports from different platforms, that's usually the point where a dedicated Specialist or Analyst starts paying for themselves quickly. The Manager and Director layer tends to follow once that foundation is in place and the function needs someone accountable for the strategy and the retailer relationships, not just the day-to-day execution.
We're seeing this hiring need surface across nearly every eCommerce and DTC client we work with right now, and it's one of the harder searches to run well, because the pool of candidates with genuine multi-retailer, platform-specific experience is still much smaller than the demand for them. If your team is stretching a generalist across retail media and it's starting to show, that's usually the signal to build the function properly rather than adding another item to an already full plate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is retail media, and why is hiring for it different from paid social or paid search?
Retail media is advertising bought directly on a retailer's own digital properties, such as Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Instacart, using that retailer's first-party purchase data to target shoppers close to the point of purchase. Hiring for it is different because each retailer runs its own auction, its own ad platform, and its own reporting environment, and success depends on levers that don't exist in open-web advertising, like organic search rank on the product detail page, share of voice within a category, and Buy Box or in-stock status. A candidate who has only run Meta or Google campaigns has to learn an entirely different toolkit, not just a new interface.
Is a performance marketing manager the same job as a retail media manager?
They overlap but are not the same job. A performance marketing manager typically owns paid social and paid search, optimizing landing pages, creative, and audience targeting toward a blended CAC or ROAS. A retail media manager owns budget and strategy across multiple retailer ad platforms, Amazon Ads, Walmart Connect, Criteo, Instacart Ads, and is measured on retailer-specific metrics like ACOS, share of voice, and incremental sales lift, often while coordinating with a separate merchandising or supply chain team on inventory and content that directly affects ad performance.
What tools or platforms should a strong retail media candidate know?
Direct experience in Amazon Ads (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and ideally the Amazon DSP), Walmart Connect, and at least one of Criteo, Instacart Ads, or Target Roundel is the baseline for most mid-market roles. Beyond the ad platforms themselves, familiarity with a retail media management tool like Pacvue or Skai is a strong signal, since most teams managing more than one retailer consolidate campaign management and reporting through one of these platforms rather than working in each retailer's native dashboard.
When should a growing brand hire its first dedicated retail media role instead of leaning on an agency?
The signal is usually spend concentration, not revenue size. Once retail media spend is meaningful across two or more retailers and the team is spending real hours reconciling reports from different platforms by hand, that is typically the point where a dedicated specialist or manager pays for themselves. Brands earlier than that, running retail media on one platform at modest spend, often do fine with an agency or a generalist performance marketer handling it as one channel among several.