Publisher Acquisition Manager

Job Description:

Rakuten International oversees 7 businesses with over 4,000 employees globally. The brand is recognized for its leadership and innovation in e-commerce, digital content, advertising, entertainment and communications, bringing the joy of discovery and access to more than 1 billion members across the world. Our teams deliver on the company's mission to delight merchants and customers through innovation, optimism, and teamwork.

Rakuten Advertising provides advertising technology and consumer insights to the world's leading brands and retailers. Working with agencies and brands around the world, Rakuten Advertising unites technology, client strategy and consumer insights to deliver advertising experiences that drive increased brand awareness and marketing performance. With access to Rakuten's diverse media properties and audiences, combined with an award-winning performance network and proprietary consumer research, Rakuten Advertising creates the right conditions to reach new customers and sustain long-lasting loyalty.

Job Summary:

The NA Publisher Acquisition team is responsible for identifying and recruiting new publisher prospects for the Rakuten Advertising Affiliate Network. The focus will be to acquire new supply opportunities in distinct markets, verticals and categories, increasing available audiences and helping to maximize demand opportunities globally. By understanding business needs and strategy, the goal is to recruit and onboard supply inventory, which matches the needs of the business, with the best possible commercial relationships.

The Publisher Acquisition Manager is crucial in expanding our publisher network, focusing on depth and breadth within a specific region, vertical, or key project. This role directly contributes to client satisfaction and the achievement of Publisher and Rakuten Advertising objectives.

Reporting to the Director, Publisher Acquisition NA, you will build direct relationships to acquire and onboard new publishers, introducing them to our services and technology to drive activation across Rakuten Advertising's client portfolio. You will collaborate closely with Commercial teams, matching publisher opportunities to business needs. As an internal advocate for new partners, you will promote new publisher opportunities across the organization, supporting their growth.

Key Responsibilities:

• Proactively prospect and engage premium publishers based on market, vertical, and business needs with high-volume outreach through compelling pitches.
• Develop and maintain a robust pipeline ensuring accurate data entry and consistent progress towards targets and overall business growth. Work towards a quota and revenue target to achieve set objectives.
• Regularly update leadership on successes, challenges, and pipeline progress, providing clear visibility into performance. Stay up to date on industry and new publisher trends.
• Support partner on-boarding to help achieve faster adoption and activation, into Publisher/Supply Development.
• Function as an internal advocate, educating global Commercial teams promoting newly recruited publishers to maximize partnership approval.
• Use commercial and legal aptitude to secure partners for key agreements for Rakuten Advertising, with a focus on maximizing high revenue driving opportunities
• Learn and educate publishers on Rakuten Advertising product capabilities to increase adoption, driving deeper product adoption with Rakuten Advertising services.
• Represents Rakuten Advertising at external facing events (tradeshows and events), with the goal to develop key leads for the acquisition group.

Qualifications:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Ability

• Proven record of meeting and exceeding targets, with the ability to clearly report on progress, metrics, and results.
• Strong verbal, written, and presentation skills with internal and external clients.
• Proactive, goal-oriented forward thinker, focused on revenue-driven strategies. Strong ownership mentality with a positive outlook and drive.
• Ability to build internal relationships and develop external relationships. Partner closely with the Director as well as key internal and external stakeholders to develop the pipeline and recruitment strategies.
• Ability to understand business objectives and effectively translate them into action.
• Excellent understanding of partner business potential to drive cross-network performance (local and global).
• Partners with Regional Acquisition Managers to recommend improvements and efficiencies for increasing partnerships on the network.
• Ability to work cross-functionally with publisher partnership teams; publisher product and client services organization, to support client needs whilst aligning to key acquisition publisher KPI's
• Flexibility to travel, depending on business needs.

Skills

• Salesforce literate with an understanding of effective pipeline management.
• Technical proficiency with publisher technology or tools (reporting, APIs, tracking).
• Proficiency in Microsoft PPT and Excel for client-ready reports and presentations.
• Strong commercial acumen and outstanding negotiation skills.
• Capable of product consulting and explaining technical concepts to non-technical audiences.

Minimum Requirements:

• 5+ years of progressive experience in account management or business development.
• Solid knowledge of the affiliate space with expertise in digital marketing strategies/solutions and major affiliates.
• Bachelor's degree in marketing, Business, Communications, or a related field required.

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Our worldwide practices describe specific behaviors that make Rakuten unique and united across the world. We expect Rakuten employees to model these 5 Shugi Principles of Success.

Always improve, Always Advance - Only be satisfied with complete success - Kaizen
Passionately Professional - Take an uncompromising approach to your work and be determined to be the best
Hypothesize - Practice - Validate - Shikumika - Use the Rakuten Cycle to succeed in unknown territory
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Rakuten provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type. Rakuten considers applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetic information, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, provincial or local laws.

At the time of posting, Rakuten expects the base compensation for this role to be within the range shown below. Individual compensation will vary based on job-related factors, including the skills, qualifications, and experience of the successful candidate as well as business need and geographic location. The successful applicant for this role will be eligible for discretionary bonus, health, vision, dental insurance, 401k matching, PTO, Volunteer Time Off (VTO), and other employee benefits as the company implements.

USD $72,090.00 - $123,876.00 annually

Client-provided location(s): New York, NY

Job ID: Rakuten-RakutenAdvertising-1028274

Employment Type: FULL_TIME

Posted: 2025-08-13T02:35:30