The Shelf Influencer Marketing Agency
Senior Account Manager (Influencer Marketing)
Be an Early Applicant
Lead complex, high-budget influencer marketing campaigns from strategy through reporting, managing client relationships, contracts, budgets, timelines, influencer partnerships, and cross-functional delivery. Identify optimization and growth opportunities, resolve issues independently, protect campaign ROI, and mentor junior account managers. Build client-facing reports and processes while coordinating with paid media, creative, market insights, and client partner teams.
About The Shelf
We are a full-service influencer marketing agency creating meaningful stories, experiences, and content by working with influencers who know how to spread the word about your brand. With our unique, professional, and longstanding influencer marketing expertise, we create the most genuine connections to deliver the results you deserve.
- We’re a team of more than 80.
- We’re growing.
- We’re about as scattered as a team can be… East Coast, West Coast, the middle of the country… a bunch of us are in Canada, 1 in Ukraine, 1 in Russia… we like to keep our options open in terms of company retreat locations.
- About half of us are really funny.
- We’re currently working with some pretty amazing brands: Uniqlo, United Parks H&M,, Tailored Brands, Famous Footwear, True Religion, Asana, Lifetime Brands, and Sony just to name a few.
About the role
- We're looking for a Sr. Account Manager to run our most complex, high-budget, high-touch accounts — fewer accounts that demand a higher level of service. At this level, the buck stops with you on nearly everything day-to-day; manager involvement is mostly strategic alignment.
- This is also a mentorship role: you'll coach Account Managers and junior teammates on campaign execution and advanced AI strategies, and your processes will often set the standard in our Business Operating System. You operate independently, anticipate fires before they start, and think like a client partner — spotting optimization and growth opportunities, not just executing scope.
What you'll do
Complex Account Leadership
- Own end-to-end delivery of high-budget, intricately structured campaigns with minimal guidance
- Manage unusually demanding clients with special processes that require customized approaches
- Lead elaborate problem-solving calls: navigate influencer issues creatively, guide conversations, handle senior client stakeholders — escalating only major, high-risk challenges
- Push back on client requests respectfully in real time with alternatives, or take it offline and present the recommendation directly back to the client
- Flag scope creep directly to clients with manager alignment
Strategic Execution
- Lead end-to-end delivery of multi-platform influencer campaigns: outreach, negotiation (with rate approvals), contracting, briefing, content review, and reporting
- Own creation and daily tracking of workback schedules, client facing influencer trackers and internal budget tracking ensuring the client is up to date on status at all times
- Manage complex partnerships including mega and celebrity level talent ensuring best in class content output
- Evaluate contract redlines thoroughly and recommend a path (confirming with your manager before accepting)
- Anticipate issues before they escalate and implement long-term, preventive solutions
- Build reports that tell a story: paint the picture, connect performance to strategy, surface the upsell — and run reporting calls start to finish with the client leaving supported and happy
- Spot mid-campaign optimization opportunities and implement them, thinking like a client partner
- Proactively identify ROI risk on high-budget influencer investments and negotiate to protect budget
Mentorship & Team Leverage
- Coach Associate & Junior Account Managers on execution, problem-solving, and advanced AI strategies
- Contribute best-in-class processes
- Actively seek out industry changes, share findings with the wider team, and drive implementation into our processes
- Model the standard: proactive planning, pristine organization, and a single source of truth
Communication Excellence
- Proactively build agenda slides and share them with clients ahead of meetings
- Think beyond AM work — pull in paid, creative, and performance updates without being prompted
- Build genuine client relationships: comfortable with rapport-building and working toward direct, one-on-one client trust
Cross-Functional Partnership
- Work directly with Paid Media, Market Insights, Creative, and Client Partner teams to ensure seamless cross-functional collaboration and timely execution.
- Proactively manage timelines, dependencies, and deliverables across teams to keep programs on track, ensure we are meeting or exceeding the goals outlined in the SOW, and consistently communicate the latest client, influencer, and campaign updates to all relevant stakeholders.
What Success Looks Like
- Your manager is hands-off on day-to-day: you escalate only kick-off strategy, reporting strategy, and genuinely nuanced fires
- Your proposed solutions are on target roughly 80% of the time
- Deliverables are 90%+ error-free and briefs clear in one round of feedback
- Associate or Junior Account Managers come to you for help — and leave with answers
- Rarely more than one reminder is ever needed on feedback
Qualifications
- 5+ years of experience running high-budget, complex influencer campaigns with minimal supervision (agency background preferred)
- Track record managing large-budget accounts ($1M+ per quarter) and demanding client relationships with strong retention outcomes
- Deep expertise across paid and earned influencer channels with hands-on platform mastery (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube)
- Advanced contract and negotiation fluency, including redline evaluation
- Experience mentoring or coaching junior team members
- Proficiency with influencer management tools (CreatorIQ, Modash, Upfluence, or equivalent)
- Advanced AI fluency: able to manipulate and refine prompts for better results and teach others to do the same
- Experience with paid social amplification, cross-channel integration, and performance reporting a plus
- Experienced with Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides), Microsoft Word, and project management tools such as Asana
Qualifications
- Remote-first work environment
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits
- Flexible time off with inclusive holiday benefits
- 401(k) matching
- Collaborative, diverse team culture with meaningful professional development
Similar Jobs
eCommerce • Fintech • Hardware • Payments • Software • Financial Services
Design, build, scale, and operate high-volume payment APIs and distributed systems serving global traffic. Lead complex engineering projects from requirements through production, improve reliability, performance, observability, fault tolerance, and security, and participate in on-call and incident response. Collaborate across product and engineering teams, use AI-assisted development tools responsibly, and mentor engineers through technical reviews and documentation.
Top Skills:
AWSGoKafkaKotlinTypescript
Blockchain • eCommerce • Fintech • Payments • Software • Financial Services • Cryptocurrency
Design, build, scale, and operate high-volume payment APIs and distributed systems serving global traffic. Lead complex engineering projects from requirements through production, improve performance, observability, reliability, fault tolerance, and security, and participate in on-call incident response. Collaborate across product and engineering teams, use AI-assisted development tools responsibly, and mentor engineers through technical reviews, documentation, and guidance.
Top Skills:
AWSGoKafkaKotlinTypescript
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Sales • Security • Software • Cybersecurity • Data Privacy
Drive pipeline and revenue growth through digital prospecting, lead qualification, relationship building, and SaaS sales. Engage prospective enterprise customers, manage inbound and outbound leads, use tools such as LinkedIn, 6Sense, Outreach, ZoomInfo, and Salesforce, and collaborate with account executives, sales engineers, channel partners, and marketing. The role includes booking discovery calls, creating opportunities, meeting funnel and pipeline KPIs, and closing transactional deals and upsells.
Top Skills:
6SenseAILinkedInMachine LearningOutreachSaaSSalesforceZoominfo
What you need to know about the Chicago Tech Scene
With vibrant neighborhoods, great food and more affordable housing than either coast, Chicago might be the most liveable major tech hub. It is the birthplace of modern commodities and futures trading, a national hub for logistics and commerce, and home to the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association. This diverse blend of industry influences has helped Chicago emerge as a major player in verticals like fintech, biotechnology, legal tech, e-commerce and logistics technology. It’s also a major hiring center for tech companies on both coasts.
Key Facts About Chicago Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 245,800; 5.2% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: McDonald’s, John Deere, Boeing, Morningstar
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, fintech, software, logistics technology
- Funding Landscape: $2.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Arch Venture Partners, MATH Venture Partners, Jump Capital, Hyde Park Venture Partners
- Research Centers and Universities: Northwestern University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Illinois Institute of Technology, Argonne National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

.png)

