Product Manager – Publisher Monetization

Salary - $125K-$150K

Job Purpose

The Product Owner – Digital Advertising Operations is responsible for driving advertising revenue, user experience, and operational excellence across our portfolio of high-traffic digital properties.  Our network reaches tens of millions of monthly users and delivers billions of annual ad impressions, making advertising optimization a critical component of company growth.

This role owns the advertising product roadmap, balancing monetization with user experience by continuously optimizing ad placements, formats, page performance, and partner integrations. Working closely with Engineering, Ad Operations, Analytics, Product, and Revenue teams, this individual will identify opportunities to increase RPM, viewability, fill rates, and overall advertising yield through data-driven experimentation.

We're looking for someone who thrives in a fast-paced environment, enjoys solving complex monetization challenges, and has a passion for using analytics and experimentation to maximize publisher revenue.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Own the advertising product roadmap across our portfolio of publisher websites, prioritizing initiatives that improve advertising revenue, user experience, and page performance.
• Partner with Ad Operations to optimize ad layouts, placements, lazy loading, refresh strategies, sticky units, video, native advertising, and emerging ad formats.
• Work closely with SEO and Marketing to identify revenue opportunities and develop dashboards that monitor advertising performance across the network.
• Continuously analyze advertising performance metrics including RPM, eCPM, fill rate, CTR, revenue per session, Core Web Vitals, and user engagement.
• Lead A/B testing initiatives to evaluate advertising layouts, density, placement strategies, page templates, navigation, and monetization opportunities.
• Collaborate with Engineering to implement advertising technologies and support new monetization capabilities.
• Evaluate and prioritize opportunities with advertising partners, header bidding providers, SSPs, exchanges, and monetization platforms.
• Balance revenue optimization with long-term user engagement by minimizing friction while maximizing advertising yield.
• Develop product requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and implementation plans for advertising initiatives.
• Monitor industry trends across programmatic advertising, privacy regulations, AI optimization, identity solutions, and publisher technologies.
• Present performance metrics, experiment results, and strategic recommendations to executive leadership.
• Drive continuous improvement through rapid experimentation and measurable business outcomes.

Basic Qualifications & Skills

• Strong understanding of digital publishing, programmatic advertising, and publisher monetization strategies.
• Highly analytical with the ability to translate data into actionable product decisions.
• Experience leading experimentation and optimization programs that deliver measurable revenue improvements.
• Deep understanding of advertising performance metrics including RPM, eCPM, viewability, fill rate, latency, and user engagement.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to collaborate across Product, Engineering, Revenue Operations, Analytics, and Executive Leadership.
• Strong project management and prioritization skills with a bias toward execution.

Education & Experience

• 5+ years of Product Management or Product Ownership experience supporting digital publishing, advertising technology, ecommerce, or consumer web platforms.
• Experience working with programmatic advertising ecosystems, including Google Ad Manager, header bidding, SSPs, exchanges, or monetization partners.
• Experience with analytics and experimentation platforms such as GA4, Domo, VWO, Optimizely, Looker, or similar tools.
• Familiarity with Core Web Vitals, SEO implications of advertising, page performance optimization, and advertising technology integrations.
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Computer Science, Marketing, Engineering, or a related discipline.

Success Measures

Success in this role will be measured by improvements in:

• Advertising revenue and overall network yield
• RPM and eCPM growth
• Viewability and fill rate improvements
• Revenue per user/session
• Successful execution of experimentation roadmap
• Core Web Vitals and page performance
• User engagement and session duration
• Partner integration success and operational efficiency
• Speed of product delivery and execution